Online Community of Amateur Filmmakers

Storytellers

We are a group of amateur filmmakers who have all been through the process of completing our courses and then attempting to enter the film and tv industries. Obviously there is a gap there. On the one hand you have talent and ideas and on the other industries that need them. But there is no organised way of bringing them together.

We have been making our own shorts now for a few years and its taken us a while to build it to a certain level of professionalism because of our day jobs and because of the learning curve involved. It is always hard to get the right people in the right place at the right time because we are all doing different things. But we are well aware that there are many people out there in the same position.

We have seen how useful internet chat rooms and online communities are in bringing people together, so what we are proposing is the establishment of an online community of amateur filmmakers. It will act as a meeting point where people can hook up, develop scripts, organise crew, and share their talent and ideas. Once we get a few productions off the ground, we can organise festivals to showcase the work, and figure out how to package them into portfolio pieces for all involved. It is something we have been doing small scale ourselves, but we think it could be easily organised on a national basis. The more people we have involved, the more ideas we have, not just in terms of scripts, but also in terms of blagging equipment, finding locations and sourcing talented actors. The obvious goal is to produce the most professional looking and original pieces of work possible.

What we need to work out now is, what form would that community take and how and where should it be organised.

Any ideas?

monkeyfudge

Well if you have a read of the charter of this forum here you'll see that's pretty much what the aim of things is here.

Setting up a channel on youTube might be one good idea. And remember DCTV will be up and running next year and will hopefull be a good outlet for amateur films.

Miguel_Sanchez

www.filmmakersnetwork.ie - it's still in its infancy but has potential.

coolcon

It would be nice if this forum saw a bit more action.

trendkill

yeah, your right there, still been checking this site everyday though....

BlitzKrieg

hmm



I'm a member of the Cambridge Filmmakers Society. Its a great help in focusing one's work (between financial work and pressures of life) compared to my friends and even this forum, that group of people (who I hardly know and are a number of generations before me) have helped me in my work more then anything.

Now, I dont know how things are going to go. But I have been tempted to return to Ireland, my intention of staying in the UK was to build up a nice selection of films with the help of the connections from university, and the (dont be offended) clearly larger film community in the UK. That has worked in part, the film community has helped me (like I said above.) but my connections from my university is drying up fast, and the current prospect is that I will be spending alot of my filmmaking activity being a cast and crew of one.

But, If I returned to Ireland I would be very tempted to try and recreate the system the CFN has here back home, I can honestly say it does wonders for your work, it gives one the impression of concrete deadlines and support, though at the same time it doesnt suffocate oneself.

So I'll be keeping on eye on how things go over the next few months, and If it looks like I'm bugging out of the UK (just for this year at least, a post-production masters course here looks tempting.) I will promise to try my upmost to help establish an Irish filmmakers network.

I can tell you now though, if anyone is trying to form any such community you must understand you HAVE to take it off the internet, online communities do not instill the same sense of deadlines and direct communication as actual meetings every 10 days. Just look at some of the past events we have tried to organise here, in all cases they failed because the majority did not meet deadlines and thats because on the internet deadlines just dont feel real.

Thats the best advice I can give you.

MementoMori

This is a bump type post.

I know www.filmmakersnetwork.ie was mentioned before, but I think its worth another mention given its relevance to this tread as its an online commuunity of filmmakers in Ireland ( there are some pros there are and some semi-pros as well as some skilled amatuers but all levels are welcome)

If you're interested in filmmaking in Ireland tis the online place to be.

check it out

rikerdonegal

Thanks for the link to that site. I've just registered. Looks good.