4. Spend Time Doing Other Jobs On Film Sets
This is an utterly invaluable piece of advice. A director has to make choices on every aspect of what goes into a shot and that is a culmination of many different departments. In order to know how to realise your vision, it will be important that you know what will affect it and how. This can only come from an understanding of each of these deaprtments. Do you need tundra gels on the lights? Are you going to use fluorescent lighting or red heads? Are you recording in mono or stereo? Will this 50mm lens really convey the emotion of the scene or is the 20mm better? These are all things you will have to consider and you need to be able to speak the language to be able to communicate your ideas. In my six years of working in film, I have worked in almost all departments at some point and it is all invaluable experience. Here is a list of some of the jobs I hve done in the past: director, producer, co-producer, writer, editor, 1st assistant director, second unit director, lighting technician, boom op, clapper, production assistant, sound designer, cable basher, continuity and the much maligned runner. When trying to put together your short film, knowing how to do as many jobs as possible will be invaluable because you may find that you are picking up a lot of slack. On my sci-fi short I ended up as the director, producer, writer, editor and sound designer. A nightmare situation that you never want to find yourself in but the only reason that film got made was because I had a passing knowledge at how to do it all. You don't need to be fluent in the terminology and you don't need to be an expert. I have always been a little slow to grasp every concept and the language of lenses. That is fine. That is the job of the person you or your producer should have hired. But you do need to be able to talk to them and understand their points and how they are trying to help you.