Your New Year's Filmmaking Resolutions

[Guest]

Ok christmas day has just ended here in the UK, so let's move on to preparing for the new year!

What would you like to improve/change/develop/etc. in your filmmaking in 2015?

Here's my slightly drunken, sleepy, very-full-bellied attempt at a list (subject to change):

1. Make money from filmmaking. The time has come to throw myself in at the deep end ...
2. More aerobic exercise. I started shooting my first major paid gig on xmas eve and was utterly exhausted by the end. I need more stamina!
3. Get over my inhibitions. I'm a pretty shy person so I'm always in danger of choosing to sit in front of the computer editing video of the trees in my garden, or researching technical stuff, rather being out shooting and engaging with people (both of which are pretty much essential to a filmmaker!). This will be my downfall if I don't force myself to do it every day.
4. No more camera purchases (other than perhaps a B-cam such as GM1 or LX100 to match my GH4) and no more camera "research" (i.e. fetishising). It's all craft and content for me for the next year or two!
5. Create a clear division between work and play. It's all too easy for me to piss around with my toys and fool myself it's "work." I need to draw a line under the 'education' phase of my filmmaking journey and learn on the job from now on. My leisure time will be the better for this as well I think...

That's enough to be getting on with for now I think! 

[raf702]

Dive into RED, even if it's a Red one mx. Do more film work and expand.

[noone]

Maybe not 2015 but I want to get a music video on RAGE (long running Australian national ABC TV iconic over night weekend music show).

It is just a pipe dream but that is what I am aiming at.        Will just be a band playing live.        They do have an "indie of the week" that bands can submit original stuff up to three months old.

In any event I will get lots of practice shooting covers that nobody will see first.

 

[DigitalEd]

Start a new TV show i shoot and produce working out of a RV traveling all the time.

[Inazuma]

With my new job I hope to make one major camera purchase this year which will satiate my camera fetish for a good while. 

I also have a friend moving up here in a few months and we want to do a lot of narrative films. 

[JazzBox]

I want to become a better storyteller and write a web series. I have ideas, but sometimes it's hard to give them a rhythm and translate them in a visual - cinematic way.
 

[Oliver Daniel]

This year, I am going to evolve my skills and creativity to secure bigger and better clients. The videos will be smarter, broader and much more technically efficient - taking my sometimes unavoidable OTT style into a more universal, cinematic territory. 

Other than that, I'm going to focus on personal promotion - as well as pushing the company I've created in other directions. 

[Daniel Acuña]

Last week I realized that I had learned a lot of things this year, but specially that I still have to learn a lot of things! This website and this forum has been a huge help for me, it's a very good community, and lots of people willing to share their knowledge.

I would like to focus more on the content of my work than the technical part, I tend to focus to much on what camera and lens I am using rather than what I am shooting. And don't have to forget that they are just tools to support the story and the content. 

And I hope to get accepted in the film school I am applying to.

[Hitfabryk]

I hope to improve my skills in camera work and editing. And I hope that the choice for the NX1 that I received 1 day before Christmas was the right one,

and if not ..that I soon will recognize and change it for a A7S. (or maybe a GH4) Right now I will be going  on my way to my recording studio and will check with the lights over there and my son playing on the drums if it will have that what I hoped for.

Yesterday and today I was happy and unhappy with the results ..Sharp, nice colors but I don't like to use wondershare for converting and wait and wait..

and I am not impresed with focussing in low light. 

The NX1 is also quit big, but feels good..

I hope that I can make a good decision, be happy with it, and work with it. 

 

Good wishes,

Siep Dijkstra

www.hitfabryk.nl

[fuzzynormal]

Make three personal project films in 2015.  I only completed one this past year, so I need to increase my ambition.

[Ivar Kristjan Ivarsson]

My new year resolution is going to be 4K 

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

It's a very good resolution you've got there Matt about starting a commercial business. Just make sure you take the right steps in the right directions and be able to market yourself as being better than you actually are. 

My New Year's Resolution, I am expanding my business this year. I want to make it look like it's bigger than it actually is... so I'll rent a big office in the fanciest downtown in the Captial and give it a very high-end corporate feel to clients, maybe have an impressive looking Grading room in there, and as well as start a website to market my business to the new generations, I found I am stuck in the old-generation playfield and missing out on new young musicians/products/businesses that need quality video production. A part of the resolution is to stop doing any small jobs such as weddings or small corporate videos, this way I am sure my company will be perceived as being somehow superior, might sound like non-sense but I know my market! 

I am not going 4K this year, I'll leave that to 2016. I still want to shoot and deliver great 1080p for now as it's more than beyond my clients' needs. 

Part of the resolution is sell all the crap I've collected over all these years, including various Small chip camcorders and Canon DSLRs (and perhaps Canon lenses) and all the peripherals from the last decade...

I will go against my nerdy desires of acquiring a new C100 mk II or an FS7 or an F35 (that I am lusting over) as realistically it will be a purchase made solely for my own enjoyment and clients will not see a difference... so I'll spend that money to make this the year of lens investments, only future-proof fullframe glass with long flange distance (looking at you Nikon!)

Oh and start working out from January...   

[Mat Mayer]

Spend longer thinking about what I am about to film before pressing go. I am still a noob so make silly mistakes like poor composition, wrong ISO or shutter speed. Even an extra minute would fix 80% of my mistakes.

Also no more reading up on cameras. I have a very capable 4k phone for now and will buy a proper camera like the NX1 when I can, so no looking what is out there for months, just spend a few days browsing before the actual purchase.