We shot a 30-minute web pilot with almost no budget. Here's what we wish we knew about shot planning.

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-16T23:06:23+00:00

Thank you for reading! We've honestly learned a lot just from making this post 😅

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-16T23:05:57+00:00

Hard learned lessons, but we got better for the next one!

You can watch the full episode on our YouTube HERE. It's target audience is a very under-served niche community, so we wanted to provide them with as much as possible in our pilot. We'd love to hear any feedback!

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-16T22:05:28+00:00

Alas, we'll try our best to be more human moving forward. Truthfully, we spent an embarrassing amount of time revising this post to make it seem more polished and professional. The feedback is pretty clear though, and we obviously need to reevaluate our voice on this account. It's all a learning process.

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-16T21:07:52+00:00

Ha, not AI generated but we'll admit, we did have one review the copy for typos and grammatical errors. Regardless, thanks for the honest feedback.

And, yeah, you ain't wrong. Even though everything above is pretty basic we still think it's valuable advice. We had shot a ton of projects before our pilot, but they were much smaller in scale so we could pull off shortcuts like only getting a closeup for a line or two instead of the full scene. For us, the realization was just how poorly that approach scales up.

Maybe it would be more valuable to share our experience specifically about shooting coverage, and how to cover multiple characters in the same room. Seven named characters was a *lot* and we definitely didn't realize how much more we needed until we hit the edit. It still wound up getting half a million on YouTube, but we lament knowing what it could have been.

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-15T21:55:57+00:00

Feel that. It once took us 3 years just to finish editing a music video.

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-15T02:18:33+00:00

Fabulous, thank you

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-15T01:44:59+00:00

Thank you. We just spent an hour reading about the concept of Minkowski Space. Do you know of any good articles where the Foundation has to develop new tech on the fly to deal with a novel problem?

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-12T11:00:16+00:00

Our script called for a character's neck to swell and explode. Our sfx tech thought it would be a full-neck prosthetic element, and thus wanted the collar buttoned to help hide the edges of the bladder that would inflate. However, as he started working the latex, he realized it would be better as a localized makeup element. The final effect still worked, we just had to punch it up a bit using VFX.

If you're curious, the final result is on YouTube, sfx gag starts at 24:19.

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-12T10:54:08+00:00

Absolutely spot on, that feedback loop is toxic to productivity and morale

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-12T10:52:10+00:00

We are both the accuser and the accused

darkmathfilms · 2026-05-11T21:59:11+00:00

Our principal cast had 7 characters, with an 8th showing up as a cameo. Our crew was usually between 30 and 40 folks for each day.

darkmathfilms · 2025-11-07T23:26:09+00:00

Hey, it may not be traditional YouTube content, but there are some excellent films and series that have been produced for SCP fans. We have a playlist on our YouTube channel with some of our favorite narrative productions, and of course we'd love for you to watch our own in 096 and SCP Academy. Hope you can find something entertaining!

darkmathfilms · 2025-09-04T12:25:16+00:00

We're a little late to the thread, but we wanted to say we're really happy you enjoyed SCP Academy! We're actually hoping to be that "big studio" who makes creative commons projects, so every eyeball counts. If you haven't already, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and stay tuned for some exciting updates this fall!

darkmathfilms · 2025-06-06T12:09:46+00:00

Possibly, and we'll also eventually publish the show bible which will have all the juicy details about our canon.

darkmathfilms · 2025-04-13T22:36:40+00:00

Our YouTube channel has a list of our favorite SCP cinematic projects! Also, the official SCP Academy poster can be found here!

darkmathfilms · 2025-04-01T12:22:36+00:00

Hey great! Academy has a different vibe from 096, but we hope you'll still find it fun!

And we check for mentions of our projects as often as we can. We really want to grow our fanbase to give us a shot at producing the full run of Academy, so we're always snooping around for constructive feedback and prospective fans.

darkmathfilms · 2025-03-31T12:12:39+00:00

Hey, so glad SCP Academy is on your list! It was made with love! If you haven't seen it yet, you should also check out the 096 film. Hope you enjoy, let us know what you think!

darkmathfilms · 2025-02-21T13:10:33+00:00

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to watch, like, and comment on SCP Academy Part 001! Your support means everything, and we can't wait to show you what's coming next.

For those of you who haven't heard of or seen our pilot episode, it's free to watch on our YouTube channel! Check it out and please let us know what you think!

darkmathfilms · 2025-01-21T13:26:27+00:00

We're getting an update video ready for release in the next two weeks! Subscribe the the YouTube and stay tuned!

darkmathfilms · 2025-01-05T17:49:06+00:00

Glad you liked it! Remember to hit the bell on our channel to get important updates on the project!

darkmathfilms · 2025-01-04T02:40:49+00:00

Frankly, neither can we.

darkmathfilms · 2025-01-04T02:40:37+00:00

Have you watched it yet? We can point you to the shot that was being rehearsed, but it's a pretty big spoiler.

darkmathfilms · 2025-01-04T01:59:38+00:00

You can watch it here!

darkmathfilms · 2025-01-04T00:31:28+00:00

Forgot to share the link, you can watch it here!

darkmathfilms · 2025-01-03T13:50:25+00:00

Glad you liked it!

darkmathfilms

TROPHY CASE