How to Make a Movie: A Guide to Independent Filmmaking. If you long to see your film on the big screen, from Sundance to Cannes, here’s how to get started on
The $847 Mistake That Taught Me How to Budget We wrapped Dogonnit at 2:47 AM on a Sunday. The smell of cold pizza mixed with that specific metallic fog smell you only get in Vancouver alleys. My DP was packing a $1,200 cinema lens we’d rented for one “hero shot” that ended up unusable—the actress … Read more
The Hook It was 5:47 AM on a Tuesday in November. We were halfway through a 10-episode run on Maid — a Netflix production that does not slow down for anyone, least of all a set dresser trying to quietly move a floor lamp across a living room set while the 1st AD is already … Read more
The Hook We were four hours into an overnight exterior for Going Home when the RØDE VideoMicro’s foam windscreen gave up. Not dramatically—just a slow, pathetic flapping sound that ruined three takes before I caught it. It was 3:00 AM, the DP was already annoyed about the street lamp flicker, and I had exactly one … Read more
The Hook It’s 2:30 AM in a Victoria, BC rental house we’re using for Maid. The ARRI Alexa Mini LF is sitting on sticks in a bedroom we’ve dressed to look like poverty. The 1st AD is pacing outside because the neighbor’s porch light keeps bleeding through our blackout, and the DP—Colin Hoult—is explaining to … Read more
The Hook It’s 3:47 AM on a beach in White Rock, BC. I’m rigging a GoPro to a homemade slider for Going Home, my 2024 short that would later screen at the Soho International Film Festival. The ocean’s louder than I expected. The Hero 12 Black I’m using keeps fogging because I didn’t account for … Read more
The Camera That Died During My Grandmother’s Story It was 2015. I was shooting In The End, a short about my grandmother’s dementia. Twenty minutes into an interview about meeting my grandfather, the camera stopped. File corrupted. Recording limit I didn’t know existed. That story—gone. I’d spent $1,800 on gear that looked professional but couldn’t … Read more
3:47 AM: The Moment the Math Stopped Working I’m crouching in a Vancouver alley on the Maid set, spray-painting a milk crate to match an art department reference photo, and my hands won’t stop shaking. It’s not the cold. It’s the math. I’d been running the numbers for three hours: if this 10-episode gig dried … Read more
So You Want to Be an Actor? (Yes, You Can Start With Zero Experience) The Hook I stood in a restaurant set at 6:47 AM, wearing someone else’s sweater that smelled like moth balls, waiting for my big moment as “Restaurant Patron #3.” My job? Blink at the camera while pretending to enjoy a prop … Read more
B-Roll Footage: How to Shoot & Edit Like a Pro (2026 Guide) In Going Home, my short about two hard‑of‑hearing friends who bump into each other on a downtown street, I learned a crucial lesson about visual storytelling. When the cast signs, every gesture, every flick of a wrist, every raised eyebrow carries the weight that … Read more
How to Avoid Common Mistakes We were three hours into shooting Blood Buddies when the director called cut and went silent. Not the good kind of silent—the kind where you know something’s deeply wrong. The DP walked over, headphones still on. “We’ve got nothing,” he said. “The lav mic wasn’t recording. Three hours of dialogue—gone.” … Read more