5 Pieces of Filmmaking Advice That Will Derail Your Film

This week I want to go through five pieces of advice that circulate constantly in the indie film world.

Advice that sounds reasonable but in practice delays progress and costs filmmakers months or years.

Knowing how to identify bad advice matters as much as knowing what to act on.

If you can identify and discard them, you will move faster, think more clearly, and get your films made.

Why bad advice persists

Before getting into the list, it's worth understanding why these ideas have such staying power.

• They feel safe. They lower the perceived risk of inaction. Filmmaking involves taking calculated risk. Advice that defers decisions often masks avoidance as rationality.

• They come from credible sources. Respected filmmakers and educators have repeated them. That does not make them correct, it just makes them harder to challenge.

• They feel productive. Shooting a proof of concept or developing a second script feels like forward movement, even when neither is actually moving the needle.

• They help avoid the hard parts. Most bad advice creates a reason to delay the uncomfortable actions that actually drive progress.

The five pieces of advice

1. "Don't put your own money in."

This one is framed as financial caution.

In practice, it signals to investors that you are not willing to carry any of the risk you are asking them to carry.

More importantly though, it signals to yourself that you are unwilling to put real skin the game.

If you are not prepared to put any capital into your own project - even a small amount - you are asking others to have more conviction in your film than you do. That is a difficult position to pitch from.

Investing your own money does not need to be large. Even a modest contribution toward pre-production materials, legal costs, or early development establishes credibility. It demonstrates belief, and it forces a level of financial discipline that most unfunded projects lack.

Practical note: Even a few hundred or thousand dollars directed toward your film's materials or early legal work creates skin in the game and moves the project from concept to something tangible.

2. "Low-budget filmmaking is no longer viable."

The argument usually references a specific era or a specific film, and concludes that those conditions cannot be replicated today.

But the point was never about replicating the exact conditions. It was about the principle of working within constraints.

A small budget forces decisions. It removes optionality and demands focus on the elements that matter: performance, tension, story structure, and execution. Films made under financial constraint often develop a clarity of purpose that larger productions avoid to their detriment.

The economics of low-budget distribution have also changed significantly. A film that performs in its niche now has more pathways to market than it did twenty years ago.

Practical note: Identify the minimum budget you could realistically raise in ninety days. Structure a project that can be executed within that number.

3. "Develop multiple projects and one will eventually get up."

This is logic from established production companies, with the resources to fund slate development.

It does not transfer well to emerging filmmakers.

Financing one feature film while holding other employment requires a concentrated effort. Financing five projects simultaneously, across different stages of development, splits that effort in ways that tend to produce nothing.

Each project in development demands investor attention, creative decision-making, and ongoing momentum. When one project approaches a financing decision, the presence of competing projects creates confusion about priorities, both for the filmmaker and for the people they are approaching.

Practical note: Identify the single project with the clearest financing pathway and commit to it until it is in production, sold, or definitively shelved.

4. "It's all about who you know."

This framing implies that access determines outcomes, and that without existing relationships, progress is impossible.

Your network helps. There is no doubt about it. But it's not the full picture.

Most people in the film industry are reachable. Tools like Cinando, LinkedIn, and industry databases provide contact information for buyers, agents, producers, and distributors. The barrier to initial contact is lower than it has ever been.

The actual constraint is not simply access; it is the quality of what you are bringing to the conversation. A credible project with a clear finance plan and a realistic market argument is far more effective than a warm introduction to someone who has no reason to move forward.

Practical note: Focus effort on the quality of the script and the coherence of the finance plan before prioritising network expansion. The project creates the relationship.

5. "You need a proof of concept before approaching investors."

There are cases where a proof of concept is the right move.

When the concept is genuinely difficult to communicate through a script alone, or when a short film can demonstrate a specific visual or tonal approach, it can serve a clear purpose.

In many cases, however, a proof of concept is used to delay the harder task: putting together the finance plan and approaching investors.

Practical note: If you are considering a proof of concept, first ask whether it can succeed on its own merits: festival selection, distribution, audience response. If the answer is no, reconsider whether it is solving the actual problem.

Final note

Most of these ideas persist because they lower the immediate discomfort of inaction. They provide a reason to wait.

The decision to act, to commit to one project, put in your own capital, and approach investors with a credible plan, is uncomfortable. That discomfort is usually a better signal than the relief that bad advice offers.

That is it for this week.

– Alexi