Lights Film School Blog

Best Short Film

The following short film was part of the London Sci Fi Film Festival's 48 hour Film Challenge from last year. It's incredible that these filmmakers accomplished so much with so little time. They were given a prop, a line of dialogue and a title for their short film and they had only 48 hours to submit their final product. The following film entitled "Factory Farmed" is a beautifully shot, highly stylized short film that all independent filmmakers should watch. Pay special attention to the tex...

Free Music For Filmmakers

If you’re a filmmaker then you’ve undoubtedly had the experience of looking for music to use in your feature films, documentaries and short films. Unfortunately this is often an issue of compromise for filmmakers who lack the budgets to license music from record labels for their films or hire someone to compose music specifically for their films. The cost of both of these options are often prohibitively high. The compromise usually consists of using your musician friends music which may or ma...

Common Independent Film Mistakes

Independent filmmakers often want to work outside of the studio system not because they have failed at trying to get into that system, but because they feel the desire to make films that contradict the template of the studio system. While studios talk in terms of “broad market appeal”, independent filmmakers talk about “compelling stories”. Studios discuss $50 million dollar budgets. Indi filmmakers talk about maxing out their credit cards and borrowing from mom. Studios seek actors names as bra...

Best YouTube Short Film

Over the last couple of months I have been scouring YouTube to find the best short films. Many of their most popular short films I’m not very fond of. I have spent countless hours wasting my time watching poorly produced and visually just not all that pleasing films. However, I did come across this one European short film which is absolutely breathtaking. It’s a YouTube favorite but I think you’ll really enjoy this film. Keep in mind that with the exception of the beginning and ending (when t...