Boost_Movie

Fred: There's a number of criteria that make your short doc acceptable to the academy. Length: under 39 mins. It has to have been theatrically released in New York or LA, or been shown in a number of A list fetivals: TIFF, Cannes, Sundance, etc

Kieran: Definitely getting the money together for a feature is a huge undertaking. In Canada we have a really amazing public financing system called Telefilm Canada who financed a large part of Boost. Aside from money the logistics behind shooting a feature take a long time to prep leading up to the shoot. Our shorts were usually 2-3 day shoots, so we could usually plan them pretty quickly and solve a lot of problems we ran into on-the-spot. With a feature you have a whole cast and crew, all being paid union rates, so you need to have everything planned out to the minute ahead of time.

Darren: Probably the amount of energy and focus that goes into pre-production. With the shorts you can just kinda show up on the day and wing it. With the features, the movie actually got made before started rolling on set.

Fred: Anything can be done by one person. It depends how hard you want to work :-) Doing it all alone can make you go crazy, but many people do it. Film making is a collaborative effort, it's easier to work with a team, but if you have to work alone, if it's your only option or only thing you can afford, then do it. Just be organized and keep your head on straight. If you have people who you can consult, use them as much as possible without alienating them :-) Good Luck!

Fred: I think youtube is cool when the film is done, but I don't view it as a money making platform. Unless you have millions and millions of views, good luck with that. But it's hard to make money from a short doc, even The Lady in Number 6, ours that won the Oscar, didn't really make money. $50k after all is said and done, it didn't make back it's investment. If there is no other chance of making money, put it on You Tube. I'm thinking of putting a lot of my early films on Youtube.