Any professional film/documentary makers in here?

Working as a University/college lecture in architecture for the last decade and ive had enough, time for a change.

I started life with a dream to become a wildlife/adventure film maker but drifted off in other directions.

is it too late, in my 40’s to move back in this direction?

Any film makers out there that can offer any advice?

I have all kinds of outdoor skills, expedition planning, project management etc which i am sure would translate across but where the hell do i begin? Or is it just still a young persons game, to work your way up on a pittance of a salary until you catch a break?

cheers

My nephew is a professional photographer and film maker. Films take ages (often years) to make. He started very young and often did work without pay to get where he is today. He moved, got into the right circle, worked extremely hard and had some sort of talent, but, it’s a hard way to earn a living. Sometimes a case of who you know as well as what you know.

Even though the pay can be eye wateringly good at times, often he has to work for peanuts. He also has a business renting out his house as a film location for extra income.

Are you able to start up but with other income on the side, until you are up and running? Get some portfolio examples of your work together and hope that your work is good enough to be a little different to every other person who might be wanting to be professional. Good luck.

I’ve been making films/docs/corporate for 30 years and currently it is extremely difficult to make consistent money I would say.

There are a lot more people trying to do it and cheep kit is available to anyone to make a half decent job.

Best option: try and work with a marketing agency who will constantly feed you work.  They will also organise the client etc.

Our mistake was to work directly with clients originally but now we work with many different organisations.

I have become a jack of all trades. And it’s good to spread your wings.

We do corporate interviews (doing some today), more dynamic corporate stuff, drone work and also music videos.

Also happy to work freelance as part of a team or bigger crew.

Get in with someone who can feed you work. Looking for your own work is difficult.

Also there several big media colleges now and they’re feeding people into the job market – not sure exactly what they’re all gonna do. There just isn’t that much work going around.

Also never compete too much on price. Compete on skillset. Make yourself a showreel.

I can sell you the raw footage to my ‘Are you bored enough to watch…’ series and you can edit those into a new Netflix series perhaps?

Where are you based? I wrote a screenplay for a local film student which we made into a movie short featurings a guest appearance by Lord Rothschild (we used his barn as one the film location for the grand crescendo scene where the stolen car is found). He used to be in the film and video business and might have some useful contacts, if they are still alive.

There was a wildlife documentary maker on the Joe marler podcast, v good listen.  The architects I ve met recently in a house refurb all work for themselves and just cherry pick nice projects, they had run practices before, all found through word of mouth.

I have a friend from uni who’s been chipping away at this for nigh on twenty years. She’s done some impressive stuff for BBC and Sky, current affairs and arts, but ultimately she still earns hand-to-mouth.

*waves*

By accident I ended up working on BBC and C4 documentaries and reality shows.

I got made redundant in 2016 and in the absence of any “real” jobs recruiting I ended up working for a facilities company. That means they hire out all the technical gear for productions (cameras, racks, desks, kilometers of cable, production galleries, etc) and worked my way up from there.

The technical side is easier to get into, if you can get into a company, you can learn one thing well and get a job doing that.

a dream to become a wildlife/adventure film maker

You and everyone else in the industry would like to be doing the next big budget Attenborough film in the Serengeti. It’s incredibly competitive.  In the real world you’d have to cut your teeth on such hard hitting assignments as “Homes under the hammer” and “Escape to the country”.

The “Project Manager” side of production would be Researcher -> Production Coordinator -> Production Manager.

The unique aspect of documentary /reality TV work is that everything is done right first time. There’s no real chance for 2nd takes and productions are unbelievably expensive, even what looks like a simple show to make might cost £30k/day and take a week to make an hours TV. Which tends to mean everyone is very good at their jobs and trusts everyone else to be good at theirs. One of the reasons it’s a bit of a closed shop is the fact people tend to be hired again and again and promoted internally. So yes the only way into the industry is going to be on the ground floor as a researcher.

As for a career. It’s very cyclical. I left just as the double whammy of writers strikes in the US and Liz Truss in the UK were f_ing it for everyone. There was no work, people I worked with didn’t get another job for 12months +.  If the economy slows then add spending drops and no adds means no new shows. And everyone rolls downhill. Film people moved to dramas, dramas moved to general TV, and there’s only so many jobs at the best of times.  Everyone has a backup plan. Some get into hiring kit, some do other similar work (concerts etc), the Sound guy had a HGV licence and the cameraman delivered for Tesco in quiet times.

Start your portfolio with a bike vid and post it on here.

If Clint Eastwood can still make movies into his 90’s there’s hope for you.

I think most peoples challenge when it comes to film is just not shooting right now, with what they have available.

It’s never been better in terms accessibility and distribution. You can get an anamorphic lens, shoot on your iPhone, alongside a pretty decent sound setup for a few hundred. To get same quality 20 years ago would have cost crazy money.

the Sound guy had a HGV licence and the cameraman

That’s definitely a thing – our sound engineer as done this one too.

I think this industry is better if you don’t use it as conduit for making loads of money and more somewhere to channel your passion and ideas.

We nearly went bang in February (although I had good freelance work.) the company struggled. We, over the years have done everything including purchasing the early Red kit for rental on films – but we’ve never made big big money.

We’ve just shot our own feature film at a cost to us, and now at the distribution phase and that’s even more difficult that I ever thought.

Yes it hard but some people get lucky and find a way.

Start your portfolio with a bike vid and post it on here.

If Clint Eastwood can still make movies into his 90’s there’s hope for you.

I think most peoples challenge when it comes to film is just not shooting right now, with what they have available.

It’s never been better in terms accessibility and distribution. You can get an anamorphic lens, shoot on your iPhone, alongside a pretty decent sound setup for a few hundred. To get same quality 20 years ago would have cost crazy money.

I think you’re looking at it completely the wrong way around.

Within reason any idiot can learn to point a camera in the right direction (composition rules, eyeline, headroom, don’t break the line) and I’ve worked with people who couldn’t set their cameras up themselves so even technical skills are no barrier to entry. And yes phones will produce OK footage in the right conditions. Not sure what value an anamorphic lenses would give, TBH unless it’s stylistically something you want to learn then it’s a really unforgiving format to work in.

The difficult bit is learning how to produce something people will want to watch. You’ve got to be a good storyteller and that’s the same whether it’s a short film, a documentary, or a Hollywood blockbuster. That’s why Cint Eastwood is still making films in his 90’s.   To compare that to biking films, it’s why films like Seasons  stood the test of time and a sick instagram shredit is forgotten about by Thursday.

I’ve spent 25 years working my way up the (very) greasy pole of independent film production and I would second what TINAS says above. It is really tough out there because the basic production tools have become so available and that has devalued certain skills. In my darker moments I feel that people have also lost interest in certain subtler, but no less critical skills like storytelling, but maybe it is the selective process of hindsight that means only the good stuff is remembered.

As to starting in your 40s… I’ve just finished shooting a low budget film in Brighton and there we’re new comers of all ages across a large number of departments and if you’ve got a committed can do attitude, you get spotted pretty quickly regardless of your “identity”.