I loved the film as a teenager, but over the years I’ve seen a lot of people say they find it cringe looking back on it as adults.
So I put it to the test myself.
But, what’s your experience rewatching it after all these years? Do you feel different about it or what’s the general consensus?
Hey, said I’d post this here, might help some people who struggle to actually sit and write scripts.
So, I’m not really a writer, and I don’t particularly like writing. When I wanted to make my first feature film, I knew I wasn’t going to sit down and write a traditional screenplay.
But, I remembered hearing David Lynch talk about using around 70 index cards. He said if you fill them up with scenes, you’ve got a feature film.
So that’s what I did.
I bought a packet of index cards and started writing scenes that had been in my head for years. Old short films, ideas, memories, things I’d seen, things I’d imagined.
The important thing is I wasn’t trying to make anything connect. I think that’s where I used to get stuck before. I’d feel like scene 1 has to connect to scene 2 before I’d even started.
But this time I didn’t care about any of that, I just wrote scenes.
Once I had 70 cards filled up, I put them up on the wall. That’s when the film actually started to happen.
I could stand back, look at everything and physically move the scenes around.
As you’re doing that, you naturally start making connections. Maybe the man in this scene is actually the same man from another scene. Maybe these two moments belong beside each other, etc.
I didn’t start with characters or a plot. I allowed the process to create them. That’s what I like about it.
The film surprises you when you do it this way. It’s extremely fun.
Once everything was on the wall, I started streamlining it. Maybe twenty different characters become five. Maybe five become three. It starts becoming a real film.
Then I started looking at what I could actually make. For example, originally I had loads of houses in the film. I didn’t have access to loads of houses. So to save money I changed them to tents. Then I actually liked that better, because it’s kinda very subtly surreal. I didn’t have a church, I made a shrine instead. I didn’t have a car, I used a bike instead, etc
So my new philosophy is, don’t write the film you wish you could make. Write the film you can actually make right now. I know that sounds cliche, but for indie film it’s so true.
In terms of writing a script from the cards, I never bothered. I typed the cards into a document as bullet points and that was enough for me.
The dialogue wasn’t written either. The actors found a lot of it themselves because I like being surprised in that aspect too. Of course they were told what to kinda talk about but I allowed them to get there naturally.
I’m not saying this is the right way to write a film.
It probably wouldn’t work for every type of film.
But if you’re someone who keeps saying you’ll write a feature one day and staring at a blank screenplay isn’t getting you anywhere, maybe forget the screenplay for a while.
Just start writing scenes.
One card at a time.
Eventually you might look up and realise you’ve got a film sitting on the wall.
Hey, said I’d post this here, might help some people.
So, I’m not really a writer, and I don’t particularly like writing. When I wanted to make my first feature film, I knew I wasn’t going to sit down and write a traditional screenplay.
But, I remembered hearing David Lynch talk about using around 70 index cards. He said if you fill them up with scenes, you’ve got a feature film.
So that’s what I did.
I bought a packet of index cards and started writing scenes that had been in my head for years. Old short films, ideas, memories, things I’d seen, things I’d imagined.
The important thing is I wasn’t trying to make anything connect. I think that’s where I used to get stuck before. I’d feel like scene 1 has to connect to scene 2 before I’d even started.
But this time I didn’t care about any of that, I just wrote scenes.
Once I had 70 cards filled up, I put them up on the wall. That’s when the film actually started to happen.
I could stand back, look at everything and physically move the scenes around.
As you’re doing that, you naturally start making connections. Maybe the man in this scene is actually the same man from another scene. Maybe these two moments belong beside each other, etc.
I didn’t start with characters or a plot. I allowed the process to create them. That’s what I like about it.
The film surprises you when you do it this way. It’s extremely fun.
Once everything was on the wall, I started streamlining it. Maybe twenty different characters become five. Maybe five become three. It starts becoming a real film.
Then I started looking at what I could actually make. For example, originally I had loads of houses in the film. I didn’t have access to loads of houses. So to save money I changed them to tents. Then I actually liked that better, because it’s kinda very subtly surreal. I didn’t have a church, I made a shrine instead. I didn’t have a car, I used a bike instead, etc
So my new philosophy is, don’t write the film you wish you could make. Write the film you can actually make right now. I know that sounds cliche, but for indie film it’s so true.
In terms of writing a script from the cards, I never bothered. I typed the cards into a document as bullet points and that was enough for me.
The dialogue wasn’t written either. The actors found a lot of it themselves because I like being surprised in that aspect too. Of course they were told what to kinda talk about but I allowed them to get there naturally.
I’m not saying this is the right way to write a film.
It probably wouldn’t work for every type of film.
But if you’re someone who keeps saying you’ll write a feature one day and staring at a blank screenplay isn’t getting you anywhere, maybe forget the screenplay for a while.
Just start writing scenes.
One card at a time.
Eventually you might look up and realise you’ve got a film sitting on the wall.
Hey, said I’d post this here, might help some people.
So, I’m not really a writer, and I don’t particularly like writing. When I wanted to make my first feature film, I knew I wasn’t going to sit down and write a traditional screenplay.
But, I remembered hearing David Lynch talk about using around 70 index cards. He said if you fill them up with scenes, you’ve got a feature film.
So that’s what I did.
I bought a packet of index cards and started writing scenes that had been in my head for years. Old short films, ideas, memories, things I’d seen, things I’d imagined.
The important thing is I wasn’t trying to make anything connect. I think that’s where I used to get stuck before. I’d feel like scene 1 has to connect to scene 2 before I’d even started.
But this time I didn’t care about any of that, I just wrote scenes.
Once I had 70 cards filled up, I put them up on the wall. That’s when the film actually started to happen.
I could stand back, look at everything and physically move the scenes around.
As you’re doing that, you naturally start making connections. Maybe the man in this scene is actually the same man from another scene. Maybe these two moments belong beside each other, etc.
I didn’t start with characters or a plot. I allowed the process to create them. That’s what I like about it.
The film surprises you when you do it this way. It’s extremely fun.
Once everything was on the wall, I started streamlining it. Maybe twenty different characters become five. Maybe five become three. It starts becoming a real film.
Then I started looking at what I could actually make. For example, originally I had loads of houses in the film. I didn’t have access to loads of houses. So to save money I changed them to tents. Then I actually liked that better, because it’s kinda very subtly surreal. I didn’t have a church, I made a shrine instead. I didn’t have a car, I used a bike instead, etc
So my new philosophy is, don’t write the film you wish you could make. Write the film you can actually make right now. I know that sounds cliche, but for indie film it’s so true.
In terms of writing a script from the cards, I never bothered. I typed the cards into a document as bullet points and that was enough for me.
The dialogue wasn’t written either. The actors found a lot of it themselves because I like being surprised in that aspect too. Of course they were told what to kinda talk about but I allowed them to get there naturally.
I’m not saying this is the right way to write a film.
It probably wouldn’t work for every type of film.
But if you’re someone who keeps saying you’ll write a feature one day and staring at a blank screenplay isn’t getting you anywhere, maybe forget the screenplay for a while.
Just start writing scenes.
One card at a time.
Eventually you might look up and realise you’ve got a film sitting on the wall.
Thought this would be the right place to share our experience and process, hopefully it helps someone who’s always wanted to make a film but keeps waiting for the money.
So the challenge was we had 70 scenes to shoot in 3 days with no budget, a tiny crew of about 4-5 people, and one camera with an old Soviet lens that my DOP already had.
Before we shot a single frame we went through every scene in the film and gave it one of three shots, wide, medium, or close up. We planned the whole film in about an hour. Some scenes we’d go “it’d be cool to go wide then move to medium” and then just go “no, pick one.” That decision alone is probably a big part of why the film looks the way it does and we were able to get it done in the timeframe.
We shot everything static. Locking the frame off meant we were deciding exactly what was in it and what wasn’t. Such a small crew meant we couldn’t build a world the camera could move through anyway, but it ended up giving the whole film this strange theatrical quality, like you’re watching it from the audience of a play.
One take per scene, only did an extra if we completely messed it up, otherwise we had to run with it. Sometimes scenes were thirteen minutes long. Doing coverage takes all day and we didn’t have all day. So we had to accept that’s how the film was going to be. Once I accepted it I started to love it haha.
We took a punk lighting approach. One big light, left or right, full blast, move on. It looked really cool and we were doing it out of pure necessity. Two birds with one stone.
Black and white wasn’t just an aesthetic call either. When you’re shooting over three days in changing light you’d drive yourself mad trying to match colours. Black and white just let us focus on tone and get on with it. Made the edit so much easier.
We recorded no sound on location. All ADR in post. It was the most painful thing either of us has ever done and I’d rather not talk about it. Made the edit way harder haha!
The biggest thing we learned was just being open to letting the film become what it was rather than being fixed on what we thought it should be. Some things weren’t what we planned and we just accepted them. Most of those things ended up being the best parts.
What I thought were restrictions aren’t actually the problem. It was my mindset. Once you open yourself and accept the restrictions, they become the film.
TL;DR
Make the thing.
I rewatched Donnie Darko last night for the first time since I was a teenager.
Back then, I was obsessed with it. Watched it over and over.
Over the years I kept seeing people say it aged badly, or that revisiting it as an adult made them cringe, so I half expected that.
But I had the opposite reaction.
The first thing that struck me was how much more indie it feels than I remembered. The atmosphere is lovely.
At the start I felt like some of the teenage stuff was feel cliché now, but honestly, teenagers are cliché sometimes. They’re trying on identities. They’re dramatic and self-conscious. I felt like it actually was honest that way.
What really changed for me was Frank.
When I was younger, I never questioned any of it. Frank was just real. That was that.
Watching now, I found myself wondering whether this was mental illness, trauma, delusion, some supernatural event, or all of it at once. The ambiguity made it much richer.
And the ending made me sad in a way I didn’t remember.
As a teenager, I identified with Donnie. But, now I’m a parent with young kids, and I found myself thinking about Donnie as a parent instead. About having a troubled child you can’t fully help. Left me with a deep sadness for poor Donnie.
Also made me realise how much this film probably influenced my own taste as a filmmaker, the dream logic, sadness, absurd humour, eerie suburbia, ordinary life becoming uncanny.
Dunno if anyone else has revisited it years later? What did you all think?
Last year I had a bit of a panic because I was turning 35 and still hadn’t made a feature film.
So me and a few friends just decided to stop waiting around and make one ourselves with absolutely no money.
We shot the whole thing in 3 days.
The film is called Outer Heavens. It’s a black and white feature film with masks, long takes, static shots and a lot of improvisation. We made it by basically building rules around our limitations instead of fighting against them.
Our cinematographer Conor English only had 3 days free because of work and family stuff, so we said fuck it, let’s lean into that. One or two takes per scene. Long theatrical shots. Minimal lighting changes. Keep moving no matter what.
What was interesting was that the limitations actually started making the film better. Storylines started appearing while we were shooting. Characters changed. Scenes changed. We had to completely let go of trying to overly control everything and just follow the film where it wanted to go.
I just made a video properly breaking down the whole process because some people online seemed really interested in how we actually pulled this thing off.
Here’s a link if you wanna watch https://youtu.be/zcKrgWaYnu4?si=1z885zlmrJ1n0uCQ
Would genuinely love to hear from anyone else who’s made films under ridiculous limitations because honestly I think constraints can weirdly become the style itself.
Hey folks! We just recorded an in-depth conversation about how we made our first feature film in 3 days with no money.
It’s basically a full breakdown of the entire process from start to finish, writing, directing, cinematography, editing, improvisation, working with restrictions, DIY filmmaking, no-budget filmmaking, long takes, static frames, all of it.
Thought you all would find it useful, especially if you’re into independent filmmaking or trying to make stuff yourself without waiting around for funding, or anyone else.
EDIT: Hey folks, a lot of people were asking for a link, so I’ve shared a short scene here: https://youtu.be/9m-xslUJV6U?si=Z3OTLwf-8Q3JG6x1
We are still trying to figure out a festival strategy at the moment so we can’t share the full film just yet! Thanks a million for all the support, it’s been very inspiring.
These are stills from a feature I just finished called Outer Heavens.
We had no money, so we only had three days to shoot it. It was just a group of friends here in Ireland.
Because of that, we couldn’t really move the camera around or do loads of takes, so we just locked it off and let things play out. Most scenes are one or two takes. All long takes with no cuts. Because of this is began to develop its own style, without sounding egotistical it has a kind of classic Hollywood feeling to it. I guess we were using really old style techniques to make the film happen.
The lighting is very simple, kind of a “punk” approach. Just one source, gave it a real unnatural, slightly surreal look. But also, it made it look like theatre, a play even. We loved this because the film in itself did feel play like, even the way we had to make it so quickly. So we leaned into that and built the world around what we had.
We didn’t have time to control everything, so we had to let the film be what it was going to be on the day, which I found extremely exciting. One or two takes max of each scene. Long takes of mostly improvised dialogue. It was a real experience, really positive, it pushed us into a style we probably wouldn’t have found otherwise.
But I’ve also been on things where restrictions just made everything worse.
Curious if anyone else has had that, where limitations actually shaped the look or style of what you were making?
Hello there folks!
I’ve just finished my first feature, Outer Heavens. It’s a small, black and white Irish film, very DIY, shot over three days with no budget, just a group of friends (who have a lot of experience making films haha)
I guess it’s fairly off-centre in tone long takes, a bit strange, kind of deadpan and surreal. I’ve had it loosely compared to things like Jarmusch / Lynch / Beckett, which feels about right.
I’m based in Ireland, but I’ve been posting bits of the process on YouTube and it’s started to build a small audience, particularly in the US. After a recent film clinic, I was advised to consider aiming for a US premiere.
I’ve submitted to a few festivals already, but I’m still figuring out the right strategy, especially in the US.
Would love any advice on festivals that might be a good fit for something like this, or just general thoughts on how to approach it.
Thank you very much and have a lovely day 🙏