u/CactusJack0_0

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?