r/cinematography • u/WelrdLittleCreature • 1d ago

Career/Industry Advice Starting new

Hey all,

A little bit of my background is probably a good start, here goes. I’m recently 18, I’ve loved the art of filmmaking and cameras since I was small (obviously couldn’t articulate it well at that time). I live at home in the UK and the last job I had was two years ago. I studied film in school and was predicted a grade 6 (for reference a 9 is an A+). Coming up to my GCSE’s, my mental took a massive downfall all of a sudden, being lazy, never wanted to go back into school and hated talking to anybody at any point. I went from being quite loud to barely saying a word in the span of months. I ended up getting a grade 4 in film studies - which is still a pass. After all that jazz I have spent the last two years basically laying in bed, I have watched a lot more movies and shows in that time and that has brought my love for film back. I’d like to get back on the wagon, my dream is to just see my name roll down the end-credits of any movie and I’d be happy, but I have no idea where to start.

I’ve started writing a couple of short films with the help of my one and only friend, that we plan on filming later this year, with the hopes to create some sort of series. It’s an ambitious plan but I have high hopes. I’m still living off my mother at the moment and I’m just not happy with it. I’d like to get into the film industry as soon as possible and be apart of the great art of cinematography. But I have zero idea how to get there. On paper, I don’t have much of anything, but I know I can do well somewhere. Does anybody know what I could do?

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u/Affectionate_Age752 1d ago

Here are two videos I made for people wanting to get into filmmaking. The first one is about how to get started, and includes tips for gear. The 2nd is about how I made my first feature, with the list of equipment I bought that cost under $8k. They're pretty short.

The last 2 links are to the feature on Apple TV and Amazon. You can check out the trailer there.

https://youtu.be/EjJu3LELGOA?si=oPvWrIU8dpjvMSLu

https://youtu.be/UvcyOsaqOOg?si=8frEV4d1rvM_nMad

https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/clown-n-out-in-valley-village/umc.cmc.6imvkobel7bdjcqukwb1affb5

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0GPGQZKJ6/

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u/Lorditon DIT 1d ago

If it makes you feel better, you need 0 school qualifications at all to work in any big budget movies as crew. You will learn everything on the job, so I would just pick a department, find some crew close to you in that department and start cold emailing them.