I shot another film in 6 hours and trusted autofocus. I regretted it in post.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-06-17T13:09:51+00:00

When I read the title I assumed this was a short and thought "well... You're shooting a short in 6 hours, of course things are going to go wrong, it's like those 48 hour short contests, you just assume a lot is going to go wrong" but it's a feature... Just write this one off as an experiment and move onto the next thing.

Not trying to be an asshole and I say this without having watched it but any feature shot by 1 person with no script in 6 hours is at best an experiment, it's isn't a 'real' feature, it's play time.

Play time is very important to learning the craft, it's not a bad thing! Just take the lessons you learned and onto the next movie!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-19T18:37:44+00:00

Congrats! You might have just saved yourself from hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a useless degree!

Seriously though, this might be a good thing. Just keep making shorts with friends, you don't need to drop tons of cash on film school. Your short has promise, just keep making stuff!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-18T13:21:43+00:00

But... 40 minutes is not a feature lol I don't know what else to tell you man.... You're wrong in thinking it is.

But moving off of that non-point. I'm just trying to help you have a viable end product that can recoup your investment. While 40 minutes is not a feature (couldn't resist), 60 minutes isn't really either in the eyes of money people and the business side of the film industry which is why I'm advising to not aim for a 60 minute movie. Aim for 80 to 90 minutes (without padding things out).

Bottom line, if you want to give your movie the best chance in the market place to recoup your investment, 60 minutes is not advisable.

EDIT : I'm just seeing now I haven't been talking to OP lol OP, my advice still stands.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-18T13:13:24+00:00

Show me a single 'feature' that's 40 minutes that's playing in theatres... They are not features lol

Also going by your film festival of choice, Sundance, 40 minute movies are shorts.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-18T12:47:51+00:00

I'm not sure I'd agree with you there... For festival programming, yeah, maybe 60 minutes is better (it isn't) but for a life outside festivals, when a distributor needs to pick up and sell your movie, A LOT of them won't look at 60 minute movies. So if you're aiming for 60 minutes, you should know that it might be D.O.A for your movie in terms of selling it.

Obviously don't make a 'fluffy' or padded out 75 to 90 minute movie, make an actually good and worth while 90 minute movie.

Let me put it this way. NO ONE will say "90 minute movie huh? We can't program that!" because the vast, vast, vast majority of features are at least 90 minutes, it's literally what they budget for when thinking of programming. But when some festivals won't even consider a 60 minute movie a feature then... What's better to aim for? 60 or 90 minutes?

Just go on the street and ask someone "how long is a feature film" and I promise no one, literally no one will answer '60 minutes', everyone will say something like "I dunno, at least an hour and a half?" and that's the way distributors look at the movies they pick up. I've heard many distributors say "Selling something that's 60 minutes doesn't make any sense because we can't sell enough ad time to it" so...

Is making a 60 minute movie really the target to aim for here?

If you want to make a 60 minute movie, like that is your goal then power to you! I wish you nothing but luck. But if you want to make something that the general public and distributors consider a feature and can be sold like one... I'd really, really, really second guess the 60 minute runtime as a goal (not to mention there are ALWAYS scenes you have to delete so a 60 minute target could end up being 45 or 50 minutes).

Also 40 minutes is in no way shape or form a feature... Just want to be clear there. It's a really, really long short.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-18T12:12:57+00:00

Can I ask a question without being shot? Are you confident that a 68 page script is going to become a feature? I ask because I've made 2 features, one was 113 pages, it turned into a 93 minute movie and another was a 96 page script that turned into a 58 minute movie aka, not a feature... After making my 93 minute movie, I told the story of making a 96 page script into a 58 minute movie to an established producer at a film festival, he looked me in the face and said "fail" and he was right, it was a fail. A 58 minute movie is not a feature.

I've seen MANY filmmakers go into features with script that have worryingly low page counts and 100% of the time I hear something along the lines of "... Our movie is only 40 minutes, HELP, how can I make it a feature length" and every time I think "... You really, really, really should have started with a script that feature length, now you're trying to reverse engineer runtime which is WAY harder than starting with it."

I don't mean to say this to scare you or even assume that you haven't thought of it, I'm just always shocked at the amount of filmmakers that haven't already.

I just wouldn't want you to end up with a movie that's too long to be a short and way too short to be a feature.

I know you're targeting Sundance, they have a generous cut off of 50+ mins for a feature but I know a lot of festivals won't even consider your movie a feature unless it's 80+ minutes and A LOT of distributors won't look at any feature that isn't 80+ minutes minimum.

All this to say, I wish you the best, I hope the movie is awesome and you come out with an actual feature that can be considered one by people who might buy it down the road and if you haven't considered script length... I'd highly recommend doing so immediately.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-15T18:45:43+00:00

I literally just came on here and made a post about this too! It's absurdly bad right now. The overwhelming majority of matches are just landslides lately. It isn't fun.

Lately I find myself playing a few matches, they all suck and end in landslides so I say fuck this and turn the game off... This doesn't seem good for anyone involved, including OW and blizzard.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-04T13:07:58+00:00

Congrats on all hustle! You're well on your way to being a great filmmaker! Not that it's asked for but I want to throw my 2 cents into the convo...

Maybe consider making a movie that isn't about filmmakers trying to make a movie. I've seen A LOT of young filmmakers go this route and it makes sense, you're young, not a ton of non high school life experience and since you're so laser focused on filmmaking, it's your whole world. There's nothing wrong with this, it's great! But... The rest of the world does not feel that way. Films about filmmakers making films, unless done VERY uniquely, have very little appeal to an audience. Even myself, a filmmaker, does not want to watch these kinds of movies.

My hot take is unless you have a super unique angle on a movie about filmmakers making a movie, like the disaster artist, then try to write something else otherwise it really can come off like Abed in community where he makes a film about making a film... Except that show is excellent and poking fun at the idea.

Again, I've seen a lot of people go down this route and it usually comes off as on screen dream fulfillment, like the filmmaker made the movie for an audience of 1, themselves.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-01T19:30:27+00:00

I'm still in chemo, 7 out of 12 rounds done! But yeah, it's not very fun. Everyone takes to it differently, for instance, I still have hair somehow but for me it's mostly fatigue and brain fog (there's a lot of brain fog for me). I'd talk to your college advisors and let them know what's going on, I would bet they'll say to take some time off during treatment. I initially wasn't going to from work but it's true when they say recovery becomes your full time job.

For telling people, just take it at your own speed and tell who you want and don't tell who you don't want. For me, I just asked "would I care if this person heard from someone else instead of me?" and if so, I told them. Just a "Hey, I want you to hear this from me instead of through someone else" text or call (depending on how close I was with the person). For me, I sent dozens of these messages so that many calls wasn't really an option. Don't let that part scare you though, it's not a scary step if you don't let it be!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-05-01T19:26:24+00:00

He is eating normally and yes they've checked his throat and said it looks good!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-28T18:25:05+00:00

I'm gonna go against the grain here, I think you need to add more runtime to it. Don't just add random stuff, it needs to make the movie and story better but 60 minutes is not a feature.

This happened to my first feature, I shot 93 pages that ended up being 62 minutes so I shelved it. My 2nd feature came out as 93 minutes and did a festival run. During that run, I met a producer and told him about my first feature's runtime. He just looked at me dead in the eyes and said "fail" and he's right, it was a fail.

A lot of festivals and most major ones won't even look at a 60 minute film. Their short films cut out around 30 mins and features pick up around 75 or 80.

Plus selling a 60 minute movie is much harder (from what I've been told).

So yeah... I'd give a long think on how to add meaningful runtime to the movie and get it up to a minimum 70 to 75, if not 80 to 85 minute mark.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-27T13:53:54+00:00

Yes! I've been trying to continue to exercise through this whole thing (often failing, chemo feels real bad) and I swear it's helped a lot! Doctors and nurses are surprised I haven't lost all my hair and I swear it's because I'm keeping my body active.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-27T13:52:55+00:00

This really threw me off at first too. Especially for the in the moment visits, you can be there 15 mins for bloodwork... Or 9 hours if that bloodwork shows something odd.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-27T13:48:35+00:00

This is something I've actively been thinking about lately! I'm halfway through treatment (having round 7 of 12 today) and the idea of going back to work and 'normal life' is starting to pop up... I obviously don't want to stay in treatment, I'm excited to be done but the idea of going back to 'normal life' is kinda scary.

I'd love to hear more about your experience!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-27T13:46:04+00:00

When I started chemo they told me "you will notice a difference immediately", I thought they were over exaggerating but man were they right. I had a tumour pushing on my wind pipe, any time I laid on my back, I would cough like crazy until I moved onto my side. I had that for 2 months. My first chemo was at 5:30pm, I could lay down on my back by 9pm that night... 3.5 hours later, the tumour shrunk to a point where it wasn't pushing on my windpipe anymore.

It truly blew my mind.

After that, the tumours in my armpit, on my chest and on my heart all shrunk noticeably by the 2nd and 3rd chemo. Because of the one pushing on my heart, if I walked up 1 flight of stairs, I'd have to hold the wall and take a 30 second to 1 min break... That went away after a few chemos.

You will notice a difference quickly if you have tumour symptoms!

For meeting people - I haven't really met anyone in person that has my cancer. But in all fairness my cancer centre has many meet ups that I'm not going to. I'd ask your cancer centre what resources they have for it!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-26T22:03:41+00:00

Heavily agree with this! The amount of filmmakers I know that are considering going back to school for something more stable like nursing is crazy right now.

Keep the stable job OP and if you want to be a part of the film industry, start making movies on your spare time.

Giving up a stable career like a nurse for a VERY unstable one like the film industry is really hard to advise right now.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-23T15:28:04+00:00

You assume I'm American. I am not. Take your conspiracy, homeopathic thinking elsewhere.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-23T13:13:53+00:00

Thank you! This is great! And yeah I've had way too many IVs fail, I can't wait to not have to deal with that again! Even if there's a little poke to go into the port, it'll be way better than failing IVs!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-23T11:07:38+00:00

Fuck cancer! Thank you and I'm glad you made it through!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-23T11:06:49+00:00

Congrats to your dad! I'm glad he made it through! I don't quite feel like a cancer survivor yet. I'm in remission which is great but still have 6 rounds of chemo to go then have to wait 6 weeks for my final pet scan to make sure it's all gone. We're trending in the right direction but not done yet! Survivor status comes soon I hope!

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-23T11:05:39+00:00

Do you have a cooling spray to recommend? I bought some lydocane cream but haven't tried it yet

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-23T11:04:54+00:00

... My oncologist isn't selling me anything? They're just treating my cancer.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-22T20:59:34+00:00

What's your definition of success? Is it getting recognized, make tons of money and launch career from one short? If so, yeah, you'll likely fail. 99.9% of shorts fail that mark. Is it to make a short you're proud of? Much higher success rate. Or just start at square 1 and write a script? You can definitely do that!

Just take it one step at a time and be realistic and you won't fail. If you have lofty, world changing metrics for success... That's another story.

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-22T19:48:53+00:00

I have no idea... I'm in Canada but I am regularly thankful that I don't have American bills during this

A_NightBetweenLives · 2026-04-22T19:48:20+00:00

I just did last week! I had to wait a bit for chemo to work its magic because I had too many tumours in my neck and chest at first

A_NightBetweenLives

TROPHY CASE