I really want to be a film director even before I even made my first film. I'm really nervous because I plan on making my first film in a few weeks after I finish my script. I want my first film to be a really good film. Do you have any tips for someone who is out to make their first film? What equipment would be needed, besides a camera?

>I want my first film to be a really good film.

Who doesn't?

Some good tips:

1. Stay calm. It's your first movie so don't be afraid to take as many chances as you can. Not to mention you can make as many mistakes as you can.

2. Storyboard. Plan. Make sure every angle is covered. Although 99% of the time things never go as planned, but at least have something to fall back on.

3. Equipment - Do you have mic? And a mic holder? As for lighting, try the naturalistic approach since professional lighting is too expensive and inconvenient for a new filmmaker.

Know and adjust the settings on your camera so you won't get any technical issues like aspect ratio problems, framerate, white balance, or barrel distortion.

4. If you are working with actors, try improvising. I.E. give them an idea for a scene with minimal details and let them make the scene up. Unless you have a "Marlon Brando" who can turn your writing into poetry, improvisation will give you a naturalistic performance.

5. Lastly, have fun. If you love movies, than doing something you love should be fun, right?

I remember making my first shorts in high school and I really was nervous, yet excited with energy. It's a really great feeling to finish a film as well.

Hello oquendo has some good tips and on top of that I would like to add:
1. Believe in your self and your project.
2. Don't be afraid to ask for help; you are going to need to have a crew (at least 2 people/1 for sound/1 for camera operation or lighting).
3. When the sun rises or sets it is usually the most beautiful natural lighting you are going to get out there (technical term is magic hour/although the prime of it lasts only 20 min).
4. Story, why are you making a film? why people need to see your film? what are you wanting to communicate to people?
5. Experimentation is always good. Don't be afraid to break the barriers.

Good luck.

When it comes to your first film, try not to be too concerned about making it awesome. If you start like that, you've never experimented with anything. If you want a good film because you really like your script and you want to do it justice, I would say hold off on it for a little while and instead get a camera and just play around with it. Try out different lighting, angles, color, etc and figure out what gives a certain mood or feel to the scene. One can do this also by watching other movies, but nothing compares to actually trying it all out.
Once you've gotten accustom to the camera and filmmaking in general, start making your other movie.

In terms of equipment, you really don't need a lot to make a good film, but good equipment never hurts.

First of all, a mic is really important for audio. The mics on your camera won't cut it because it will pick up the sound of the camera's electronics. Get a mic that you can put one of those wind screens on so that if you're shooting outside it won't destroy your audio. Also, if you really want to get good audio, get a boom pole. You can make one if you don't want to buy one, but either way it will help you tremendously.

If you really want to get a professional look to your film, invest in a 35mm adapter. This is really good because digital cameras almost always have really small sensor sizes, which means they can't pick up on the full angle of view that the lens can. Because of this, camera manufacturers have to put a really wide angle lens on the camera to compensate for this. This causes your shots to have a really wide depth of field (everything is in focus), which will not look professional. A 35mm adapter basically makes it possible to use any lens that you can get for a 35mm camera, which will give you the right depth of field. You can get some really awesome close ups with blurry backgrounds and such.

If you can't afford a 35mm adapter (they can be kinda expensive), you can approximate the right depth of field by backing up the camera as far as you can and zooming in to get the right framing.

Lighting gives you a really good look as well, but can be very expensive. Use any lights you can find in your house instead. Be sure to have a small amount of light coming from behind your subject. A lot of professionals use something called "3 point lighting" which is basically where you have a key light, which is the main light that shines on your subject, a fill light, which softens the shadows a bit, and a backlight, which is used to separate your subject from the background.

One thing that you want to pay attention to is costumes. It gets overlooked a lot, but just make sure that everybody doesn't look like they're in a stage play with a bunch of cheaply made costumes.

Tripods are extremely important by the way. The handheld look in a student film just looks amateurish. If you want moving shots, think of putting a tripod on something that can roll instead of walking around with it. If you need to walk around, like if you're outside, still put it on the tripod, collapse the legs, but bend them out, and pick it up, carrying it with one hand on the part right by the camera and one lower on one of the legs. This is a sort of DIY steadicam.

First thing is that I would agree with oquendo and Nick in that you should keep calm and try not to put too much pressure on yourself to make an amazing film. Don't forget that it should be a fun thing to do, both for yourself and your crew.

If you're interested, we do a whole load of free articles to help first time directors like yourself, and you can find them all here: http://bit.ly/6W2cdW

We also have an article which you might like called 10 tips for better camera direction: http://bit.ly/Nn4F7

Hope you find these useful, best of luck with your film!