Published: March 19, 2019 | Last Updated: November 8, 2024
If you’re ready to tackle your first short film but unsure how to approach the process, here is my eight-step plan, which I followed when I made my first short film. Maybe you can find inspiration for how to approach your project.
Step One: The Script and Budget – Keep ‘em Simple

Rule number one of low-budget filmmaking: Keep the screenplay simple and the production inexpensive.
Ok, boss, to make a short film, you’ve got to have a story to tell. You likely have a good old story bouncing around in your creative head. Now, you need to get it out onto the page.
If you’re new to scriptwriting, I recommend you check out the Screenwriters Toolkit, which has many concepts to help you get started.
The script
What should you consider when writing the screenplay of your first short?
My number one tip is to be realistic about location.
When working on a low budget, your storytelling must be economical. My first completely independent short film, Human Instincts, had one location. That’s it.
Thanks to this, I could keep costs down and save time by eliminating company moves, doing one big lighting setup on day one, tweaking it over the next four days until the breakdown, and leaving the set dressed the entire shoot.
This left me enough saved money to splurge on excellent camera equipment—the RED Scarlet and some Canon Prime lenses.
“But we’re talking about the script, not shooting!”
Right, but if your story is something you want to bring to life yourself, you need to think about this from the first word on the page. If you’re looking to write the most bombastic story, budget be damned, that’s fine too, but then you’re not looking to be a filmmaker. You’re looking to be a screenwriter!
Filmmakers work within imposed limitations and find creative ways to work around them. This starts at the script level. So, if you want to make the film, keep that script simple.
Read more on the pros and cons of being a director and screenwriter.
The Budget
Unless you’ve recently received a sizeable inheritance, your budget will be shoestring (if you even have one).
Choosing to spend even a tiny bit of money can help raise the production value of your film and not end up with a product that looks like it was made with chewing gum and a paperclip. I don’t recommend it.
Crowdfunding can help you get some cash and can be a lifesaver. But you must be as professional about securing funding as you are about the rest of your film.
Think about everything you’re going to need to pay for. Props, locations, equipment, possibly cast and crew, unless you can convince them to work for free, in which case you’d better have some damn good food on set to compensate.
Here’s an article with tips on where to find cheap movie props.
Step Two: The Scriptwriter’s Software
Like everything else in filmmaking, the industry-leading scriptwriting software Final Cut is notoriously expensive.
If you want to write your first script without mortgaging your house or choosing which of your kids isn’t going to college, then free alternatives are a must.
I can’t recommend Word or an equivalent text program, as it will be a nightmare to arrange correctly into screenplay format. Instead, look at some of these free Final Cut alternatives.
Here’s an article explaining how to format a screenplay the right way.
Step Three: The Cast and Crew
Your friends are your… well, friends! If you guys are tight and help each other out, you’re even better off budget-wise because you can focus all your funds on logistics and equipment.
If you don’t have a go-to group, you have a slightly steeper hill to climb for this part. You will need to find a solid crew to help you out.
You’ll have to determine exactly what’s necessary based on your script and what you’re going for. Still, the general makeup of a skeleton crew is as follows:
- The director (you),
- The director of photography (DP),
- a gaffer or grip,
- a sound guy
- a makeup artist (depending on the genre of your film),
- and a production assistant (PA) or two.
This is a barebones crew, giving most crewmembers an umbrella of jobs.
You’ll be playing director, first assistant director, and script supervisor. The DP will be his or her first assistant camera and possibly gaffer. The PAs will vacillate between the art department and the camera.
What about the sound person? Well, it’s best you leave them to their one job. Good sound can make or break a film, especially a low-budget short that doesn’t necessarily have fancy effects or eye-catching stars to offset some clunky technical aspects.
This type of multi-rolled set experience can be a blessing in disguise. Learning how to do many jobs makes everyone more versatile when the time comes to work on bigger sets that don’t have to worry about budget constraints. It makes you more marketable when you can grip, set dress, and AC if necessary.
See also the FilmDaft guide to above the line film set roles.
But… what about a producer?
You may have noticed that I’ve left out one key role: The producer.
No, not the executive producer. That’s Hollywood lingo for the guy with the cash who funds a film. Since yours is an indie and short film, you won’t need to worry about executive producers getting involved.
I’m talking about the standard producer—the logistical wizard of your film, who tackles all the non-creative responsibilities involved.
Unfortunately, even this is give-or-take with indie filmmaking, especially shorts. Likely as not, being the writer and director of a short film also makes you the de facto producer.
This includes casting sessions, rehearsals, location scouting, fundraising, equipment rentals, and call sheets. In short, you will handle all the logistics.
If you’re lucky enough to know or can find someone who calls themselves a producer specializing in the logistical quagmire of filmmaking, lock them down for your project because a better Atlas you won’t find to hold up the world of your production.
With your crew nailed down, it’s time to look to the cast.
Step Four: Casting
First, what hopefully seems like an obvious advice: never cast your friends in your film if they have no acting experience!
Subpar performances imperil the stability of this bridge and require a considerable counterbalance of quality in other departments that you most likely won’t have, to be overlooked by audiences.
Remember this: there are talented actors in every nook and cranny—creatives like you, scraping by on their art or working a day job to support it. Go out and find them.
Make a casting notice
To do this, you need to create a casting notice. Draw up a document listing all the characters you must cast for, their important personality traits, and any relevant physical information.
Something like: John Smith, 20s, tall and fit build – A fresh young athlete new to the team. He is a fiery personality who often butts heads with the coach and veteran players.
Once your roles are listed, write your contact information, tell candidates what they need to send, and prepare beforehand. Most casting calls require actors to email to reserve a timeslot, send in their headshot and resume, and recite a prepared monologue.
Then,, list any other production information available, like the shoot dates if you have them and whether the gig is paid or not. Being as upfront as possible at this stage will help avoid wasting anyone’s time.
Publish the casting notice online
When your notice is ready, find Facebook groups dedicated to actors and casting and post it there. If you’re not averse to spending a little money, there are many sites where you can get your notice of many professional actors hidden behind the paywall.
Here’s a guide to where you can find actors.
Some film schools partner with Backstage and other sites like it and offer promo codes for students to use for free. If you are or have a friend in film school, see if you can find these codes to save a buck.
Submissions will start rolling in once your notice is circulating on the web. Now, you need a venue to host the event. The best places for free space are libraries, so check with the ones in your locale to reserve a meeting room for your allotted time.
And that’s all there is to it, apart from settling on your actors.
Casting etiquette is highly important once you’re in the room, but we’ll save that for another article. Suffice it to say, for now, keep it warm but professional. You’re not there to be friends with the actors auditioning. This is a job you’re hiring for, after all.
Step Five: Rehearsals?
If you can swing it, one rehearsal before shooting is a nice way to get some broad strokes work done, like blocking (deciding when and where the actors will move and interact in a scene) and big character or story beats (changes in a character’s intention), with your cast.
As the director, you can use this time to discuss any questions the cast may have and make any script changes you might want to make based on their feedback.
This will go a long way towards expediting progress on your actual shoot dates. When the actors know what they’re doing and how you want the performance, you can get what you need in minimal takes and stay ahead of schedule. Preparation is the name of the game.
Step Six: The Big Day(s)
All that planning was leading you to this moment. Production is upon you.
You’ve spent the night tossing and turning, thrown up most of yesterday’s dinner, replaced it with coffee, and questioned over and over again what the hell you were thinking doing something like this. Who’s going to watch it? People will think your story is garbage, and you’ll never do this again. And…you’re ready to go.
Your first time? That anxiety will happen. Trust your cast and crew to do their jobs; trust yourself to do yours to the best of your ability.
Remember that, as director, every major decision is up to you. Still, your primary role is to work with the actors, so don’t concern yourself with the minutiae of what everyone else is doing.
Read more tips on how to be a good director.
You picked your crew because you’re confident in their skills, and they will come to you when they’re ready to show you their work. So trust them and let them do their thing.
If problems crop up, and they will, don’t panic. Instead, combine your heads to solve it creatively and brand the experience as the funny story it will become with time. Filmmaking is problem-solving on a collective scale.
Production is a unique experience. No two film sets are exactly alike, so enjoy your time making your first short film.
Step Seven: Editing and Post-Production
The film is shot, and you’ve got hours of footage to sift through for what will ultimately clock in at less than 20 minutes. To make sense of it all and to bring some semblance of order to the mess of video littering your hard drive, you’ve got to bring on an editor.
Again, this is your best bet if you or someone in your creative group knows of anyone. Otherwise, you’ll have to cast the net on Facebook film groups or Craigslist.
Once you have your editor, you’ll spend the next few days using them as an extension of your thoughts, telling them what you’re looking for, and slowly tracking and backtracking through the forest of footage until you build your rough cut.
You’ll slowly tighten things up from here and solidify the film into its final form.
Read more on the different types of editing in film.
Good sound is half the film.
Budget-dependent, you’ll also have a sound designer and mixer who will build the soundscape for your film from scratch and level all the dialogue so everything sounds uniform.
This will cost you, as it’s an intensive job, so if your budget doesn’t encompass a sound designer, your editor will pick up the slack. If they’re experienced in indie film editing, they’re used to wearing many hats.
Bad sound is one main reason short films aren’t accepted into film festivals!
Color grading helps stress the tone and mood.
Once the sound design and picture are locked, you’ll work through the color grading process with your editor to get the look you’re going for, whether a washed-out neo-noir or warm-toned comedy.
Read more about the difference between color correction and color grading.
It’s all shaping up nicely, but one thing’s still missing…
Step Eight: The Score
You will want music in your film unless you’re shooting for grounded realism or abstractness. Like your editor, this means finding and hiring a composer to create a film score that fits your film.
This relationship will function the same as with the editor: Explain what you’re looking for and where it needs to be placed, give them exact timecodes if you can, and await their rough product. Rinse and repeat until you have a score evocative of your film’s tone.
Don’t worry if you’re not musical. Giving your composer the exact instruments you’d like to use is unnecessary. It’s enough to talk about emotion, what the goal of a scene is, and what you’re trying to convey.
Be careful about giving them examples of the exact music you want your score to sound like. Many composers hate hearing, “I want it to sound like X pop song that’s popular right now.” This takes all the creativity out of their work and is the equivalent of audio plagiarism.
If you want to give them a baseline, send over a few songs showcasing the tone of your vision. This gives the composer some leeway in injecting their ideas into the score while still conforming to your expectations.
Success!
It’s been a road of trials and tribulations, but you’ve persevered. Months of work have culminated in a finished product that you’re hopefully proud of and excited to get in front of as many eyes as you can.
Before you dive into festival submissions and find an audience for your film, take a step back and reflect on what you’ve achieved.
You’ve made a film. Short or long, a film is a film, and you have one under your belt. Be proud of what you’ve accomplished, and look forward to doing it bigger and better on your next go.
Bask a little in your glory, and it’s back to work.
Do you have any other tips for making short films, or do you just want to share your stories and experiences? Leave a comment below!
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