You probably have heard of Guerrilla Film making.   That is where you shoot a film in the shortest amount of time with the resources you have on hand.  If you have seen the film “She’s Gotta Have it” by Spike Lee than you have seen a film done in this style.  That film received some critical acclaim. Fly Film making is very similar to Guerrilla Film making only it is for short films.

The organizers of the Seattle International Film Festival conceived the notion of Fly Film making. The name comes from making a film on the fly. This type of film making has been done for the last 10 years or more in the Seattle area to showcase the local film making community.

It consists of 3 separate teams that are given all that they need to make a film and a time frame of about 10 days.  In this time they have to both conceive of and create a short film.  The run times of the films are anywhere from 5 minutes to 22 minutes.  The judges view the ending result and announce the winner at the Seattle International Film Festival.

The arrangements and preliminary work are begun about 3 weeks before the festival starts.  The producer, director, sound engineers, director of photography, actors and post-production facilities are arranged and after everyone meets to go over the final details.  The 3 crews are let loose to make their films as fast as they can in a 10 day period.   The music is even done on the fly by local composers and recorded by professional musicians.

This challenge is an effort to have films made without the consideration of costs and avoiding the politics that are so frequently present in film making. The lack of a lot of time can be a bit of a headache, but that is part of the challenge.   Participants are usually surprised by their own efforts.  You would be surprised how creative a person can be when limited.

Fly film making has been borrowed by other festivals in the last few years and it has always been a real crowd pleaser.  It seems like a similar atmosphere was used with the Fox show “On the Lot.”  There may be a few differences but basically it is the same model as Fly Film making created by the Seattle International Film Festival.

The final results of these on-the-fly film making attempts are amazing and it would seem that they took much longer to make.  Commonly, in the process of making a normal film a bunch of time is used to make decisions about what would be best left in the final production.  With this quick form of film making there is no time to spend making decisions or discussing too many ideas.  You have to go with whatever comes up at the moment.   It gets exciting, but not free of stress.

To improve your own filmmaking skills you should try Fly Filmmaking on your own.  You may have to use your own camera and figure out how to do your own post-production, but it may be worth it, as a learning experience. A film school student could probably complete this kind of project if they can use their school’s equipment.  You may have a post facility available to you at no cost.  This type of project will surely keep you on your toes and teach you how important time, resources and finances are to filmmaking.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Using Video & Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.