So you’re ready to make your next film. But where do you start? And how do you decide *exactly* what task to start with? Filmmaking is complicated and overwhelming enough as it is. With these essentials, you’ll get to feel the joy of making your own film (instead of just the stress!)

Development

At the heart of it, there are two key elements of Development:

✨ Generating Ideas (aka creative time)

✍🏻 Project Process (the step-by-step process to consistently make concrete progress on each project)

Without both of these working smoothly, you’ll either end up in a creative rut (and deep down wondering if you’ll ever have another great idea), or you’ll end up with a bunch of ideas that never seem to go anywhere

Read more: Build Your Development Roadmap

Signs you’re missing Development:

• Lack of new original ideas (ones that feel inspired and completely your own)
• Relying on sudden bursts or flashes of inspiration (that aren’t in your control and are difficult/impossible to replicate)
• Fear that you won’t make it as a filmmakers, because you’re reliant on uncontrollable flashes of inspiration
• Having a notebook(s) with random early-stage ideas that you never went back to
• Analysis Paralysis or overwhelm when looking at your ideas – which one should I pick? What task should I start doing for it? How long will that take? Maybe I should start with a quicker task, or pick an idea that’s smaller/easier to make?
• Doing intense creative development sessions, then feeling depleted and taking a break from the idea for days or weeks… and repeat

How to fix/improve this essential? As always, we’re keeping it simple

1: Identify the element you struggle with the most. It’s perfectly normal to struggle with both of these, so start by identifying the one that is the biggest problem for you right now. Which ones weighs you down more?

2a: If Generating Ideas is your problem, make a list of all the things you like to do that get you in the creative zone. It might be walking, reading, jogging, showering, meditating – anything that really lets your mind wander and allows ideas to form and grow

2b: If Project Process is your problem, write down everything that you both like and need to do in order to make a project. There are essentials like the beat sheet, script, pitch deck, finance plan and so on, but there are also creative steps that you like to do on a project. They might be collecting inspiration, creating a Pinterest board or playlist, research and brain dumping all your ideas into a notebook. Once you’re happy with everything in your list, rearrange it into a step-by-step process. What do you like to do first? What must be done in order to get to the next stage?

3: Get your calendar out and add either ‘Generate Ideas’ time or ‘Project Process’ time (or both) as a recurring event. How often you do this is entirely up to you. Some people do smaller sessions daily, others do bigger sessions once or twice a week

By making regular time for these each week you’ll hone and perfect both of these elements, so don’t worry if it feels rough or unfinished to begin with. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just have to start

Network

Similarly, there are two key elements of your Network:

👯‍♀️ New Contacts (how you find and connect with new people)

🌱 Nurture (aka how you build and maintain great relationships with everyone in your network)

If you don’t have both of these working effectively, you can end with a ton of great, ready-to-go projects and still have to start from scratch every time you want to make a film – regardless of how experienced you are

Read more: 6 Steps to Rebuild Your Network

Signs you’re missing your Network:

• No idea where to go to with your projects at the beginning stages
• Feeling like it’s always an uphill battle or like you’re starting from scratch on every new project
• Not being able to work with the people already in your network because they’re already too busy (this usually applies most to producers)
• Fear that you can’t reach out to people in your network because it’s been too long since you last spoke
• Posting in Facebook groups to try and find potential contacts for your next film, relying on the algorithm and chance
• Worrying or overthinking when you reach out to people (new and existing contacts) because you’re not sure if you’re annoying them or not…

Read more: 8 Tips for Emailing Producers

How to fix/improve your network? Here’s your step-by-step plan:

1: Again, identify the element you struggle with the most. It’s perfectly normal to struggle with both of these, so start by identifying the one that is the biggest problem for you right now. Which ones weighs you down more?

2a: If New Contacts is your problem, brainstorm all the ways you like to make new contacts. Go against the grain on this one. A lot of the old advice in the industry is going to events, but if you’re an introvert or don’t live anywhere near most events, this advice will make you feel even worse. Personally I love social media for this. I love getting to check out people’s posts, get a sense of them and easily stay connected. How do you like to make new contacts?

2b: If Nurture is your problem, make a list of all the things you like to do to stay connected to your friends. That might be commenting on their posts, sending them relevant posts/links etc with a quick ‘Thought you’d like this!’ message, or even just sending a quick check in message every so often. With contacts, we want to maintain a certain level of professionalism and therefore a bit of formality, but staying in touch with people is a skill we’ve already developed. We just need to use it

3: Get your calendar out and add ‘New Contacts’ time and ‘Nurture’ time as a recurring event. Again, how long you spend on these is completely up to you. Unlike creative work, these two don’t usually come naturally to us. By having them as a recurring event, you create a habit and within 2-3 weeks you won’t have to stare at your address book wondering where to start

This is the essential that changes the most over time. There might be things you loved doing for networking that don’t light you up anymore, or they’re just not feasible right now. Let this be flexible. All you need to focus on is making contacts and nurturing them

As soon as you get started with this (and stay consistent) you tend to see results pretty quickly:

If you’re not seeing results like this after 2-3 weeks, it probably means you’re making a mistake in your opening email or message. Tweak it a little and try again

Community

This is where things get a little bit different. It’s also where filmmakers usually struggle the most. We’re used to being behind the camera, with everyone looking at the actors and what’s on screen

In order to be truly successful, we need to accept that a lot of people are here for us, because they love our work, and we need to feel safety with that

Your Community essential splits into two parts:

✨ You (aka letting your viewers get to know you, building a relationship with them)

✍🏻 Projects (shining the light on your projects and getting people excited to watch)

Without the You element, you’ll usually end up with a group of disconnected viewers. They may watch your film, but they’ll usually end up forgetting about it and therefore not staying to support you and watch your next film

Most filmmakers have some level of the Projects element already in place, so we need to specify exactly what this looks like. Projects means you know exactly what to post that gets your community saying ‘I NEED to watch this!’

Consider any writers or directors you love. You’ll likely be excited to watch their next film before you even know what it’s about, simply because you know them. Traditionally, writers and directors achieve this after 5-10 years of making successful films. Now we have the advantage of social media and the internet, you can do this easily and fast-track the process of becoming a well-known filmmaker

This element is vital. A film needs to be watched. Without a community of viewers, you don’t have a film

Read more: What’s it like being a film festival judge?

Signs you’re missing your Community:

• Your current community is a mix of friends, family and people you’ve worked with. They’re not super connected to or interested in your films, but they like seeing what you’re up to
• Feeling nervous or uncertain to post on social media about your film because you don’t know what to say, or you’re not clear on exactly who you’re talking to
• You don’t know what to say or post to get people excited about your upcoming film
• Only posting when you have film news, which usually gets a lacklustre response from everyone (except that one dedicated aunt)
• Falling back on things like ‘I’m so excited to share this!’, ‘We worked so hard’, ‘I’m so lucky to have had the best cast and crew!’ – all true statements that break the ‘show don’t tell’ rule, because you know you have to post something… but you have no idea what to say
• Feeling ‘salesy’ or pushy whenever you post about your film. You worry people will think you’re showing off, or shouldn’t be as proud as you are of your film
• Your social media doesn’t feel like a community. It feels like you sporadically posting into the void (or forcing yourself to post) and only getting weird spam messages from jewellery brands who want you to be a ‘collaborator’

As most filmmakers struggle more with this element than others, the process to improve it looks a little bit more complicated

This is the complete start-to-finish process so you may already be working your way through:

1: Analyse how well you’re doing with each part. Maybe you’re fantastic at posting personal content and creating a connection with the people following you, but when it comes to your films you suddenly feel awkward, have no idea what to say and worry that

2: Begin identifying who should be in your community. Don’t worry about who’s currently there, especially if it’s a bit of a mishmash. Focus on who should be there, based on who is going to connect the most with your films. Do your films speak to a generation of 18-25 year old women who are constantly feeling misunderstood, pressured to fit in and panicking when they begin comparing themselves to literally anyone else? That means you need a bunch of panicky 18-25 y/o women in your community, because they are going to adore and rave about your films

3: Brainstorm topics and themes you like talking about. A good way to get into this is think about what you would choose to talk about if someone asked you to give a 30 min presentation with no notes. If you have any latent people-pleasing tendencies, this is when they’ll come up. You’ll be tempted to pick topics that are important to your community instead of you. This comes from a well-meaning place, but will lead to burnout when you struggle to create meaningful, interesting posts. Pick 3-4 topics and themes you want to post about

Example: filmmaking, living in London, healthy lifestyle. You might post about your filmmaking process, your favourite co-working space in London and your go-to yoga flow

Read more: Balance filmmaking with your 9-5

4: Decide on the tone and feel you want to go for. Maybe you want your content to feel more educational, so the tone will be a little more practical and detached. Or maybe you’d like it to feel like a diary, letting people into your world and creating a deeply personal connection. Most people go for somewhere in the the middle. This is your community – like your productions, you set the tone and feel

5: Once you’re clear on your community and the tone/feel, work out what is going to activate them to watch your film. What do they need to make that decision to watch your film? What info do they need, how do they need to feel? This applies to crowdfunding campaigns as well. When you’re clear on what they need to hear from you in order to decide to watch your film (or donate to your crowdfunding campaign), you’ll be able to create perfect posts

Note – when you have built strong relationship with your community, the thing that will often get them to decide to watch your film will simply be the fact that you made it. They won’t care how long you worked on it, or how hard you worked. They’ll care that it’s your perspective on whatever story it is

6: Draft 10-20 post ideas. These can be snippets or full-blown posts with captions ready to go. Focus on getting 3-7 posts in each topic/theme you want to talk about. Don’t worry if you’re not feeling it right now. Like writing and creating in general, this will come in bursts or waves

7: Add Content Creation and Content Scheduling time to your calendar as a recurring event. It’s generally easier to create your content in batches (meaning 3-10 posts at a time), then schedule them all in one go. You can schedule (most) content directly in Instagram, or use a platform like Planoly, Later, Buffer, Tailwind, HootSuite or MeetEdgar to schedule and post your content automatically for you

8: Begin posting. Consistency is more important than quantity here. Don’t go crazy with two posts a day if you can’t maintain that. Most people do best starting with posting 1-2 times a week. Whatever you choose, do it consistently for 30 days. Then increase – if you want to

9: Track, review and tweak your content. Notice that your filmmaking content is doing really well in reel format, but not post format? Cool, prioritise reels. With regular time to track and review your content you’ll be able to easily spot opportunities to make it even better

10: Engage! Our goal here is a community, so treat it like you’re hosting a party. Start conversations, reply to comments, connect people. This is probably the most fun part

As with Development and Network, this is an ongoing process. Find out what you like to do, where you like to spend your time, what you like to post about and who you want in your community. This will continue to grow as you create more films, and your expanding community will support each new project you share with them

Make Your Next Film Faster

Combined, these three essentials form the Productive Filmmaker Framework. I created this structure to help indie filmmakers like myself simplify their focus so they can make their next film faster

Want to see the results other filmmakers have gotten using this system?

Check out the results

PPS. Post your questions about these essentials in the comments 👇🏻