MAKE YOUR PASSION PROJECT NOW with Filmmaker Michael Patrick Jann

Unlock Your Filmmaking Potential. Find Your "Why?"

Filmmaking is hard. You take a class on directing actors, you read a book about screenplay structure, you watch a video about cinematography, and you chase a sketchy trust fund bozo who wants to produce all over town to give him your elevator pitch. It demands mastery of many diverse crafts, and it’s easy to get bogged down in any of them and lose sight of the most important question you need to be able to answer to make a great film… to make YOUR film. Not what is your story or who is in the cast or what does your deck look like… but what is your vision? A vision comes from your heart and your mind. Being able to talk about it and realize it is what makes your film original and memorable and rewatchable. It's what makes people — audiences and investors alike — fall in love with your movie. So, while it's good to know the difference between 24mm and 70mm lenses and have a rich friend who is also a movie star, it doesn’t matter if you can’t define and explore your vision. Your vision is the center of everything, and without it, you have no project. What is your vision, and how does that vision make the journey from your heart to the screen? What are you trying to say? What is the film that only you can make? And how do you communicate it? This class is about figuring out how master filmmakers have answered these questions and put their vision on the screen… and, most importantly, how you can do this as well. We will discuss and study several great films and filmmakers — with a particular emphasis on distilling the filmmaker’s vision and intent and how they brought that to life. Equally important, we will talk about how we, as filmmakers, can consciously create for ourselves the space and conditions that allow us to clearly explore our own visions AND also hold onto them through the fog of production. We will watch film clips and discuss principles that allow your vision to blossom and be realized, followed by a question-and-answer period. And it will be fun.