I'll be screening my new short film 'New York Movie' along with a number of great work by filmmakers from around the world. Tickets are available now :)
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.