How to Make Your First Feature Film

According to today’s working directors.

I finished my first feature screenplay at the beginning of 2021. It was a coming-of-age dramedy about the high stakes of having teen sex in rural, conservative America. I applied to the Nichols Fellowship, paid $50 to have an anonymous professional read it via the Black List, and waited for rejection. 

Next, my plan went something like this: I would write furiously. Each screenplay would be better than the last. Pulpier. More thrilling. More fun. Then I would sashay my way through Soho House and the other NYC bars full of finance bros and wannabe artists. I’d shove my screenplay into someone’s diamond encrusted hands and promise to make them a world-famous producer. I wrote three more screenplays, getting stuck as soon as I finished the final draft.

For a moment, I believed that with enough passion, the money would follow. I should have known better, having been raised by a public high school band director.

How to make your first feature film, according to today’s working directors.

So there I was with four screenplays and no plan aside from hoping to meet an imaginary person that would blindly and miraculously give me money. Looking for a reasonable plan to follow, I researched how today’s well-known writer/directors got their first features made. There are basically six options:

1. Come from wealth or be the child/nephew/niece of a famous director, writer, producer, studio exec, etc. like Sam Levinson, Brandon Cronenburg, and Sofia Coppola.

2. Live in a country that funds filmmakers.

3. Work your way to the top as an actor, comedian, and/or writer in the entertainment industry, like Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jordan Peele, and Chelsea Peretti.

4. Adapt the film into a short, and attract investors at Sundance to fund the feature. This is the route of Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Emma Seligman, and Damien Chazelle.

5. Make a super cheap ass film. Fund it with a credit card, savings, friends, and/or your full time job, like David Lynch, Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater, John Waters, Barry Jenkins, and Christopher Nolan.

6. Find producers, investors, or artist grants like Quentin Tarantino, The Coens, Martin Scorsese, and the Daniels. However, it needs to be said that all of these directors were seriously hustling before getting the funding they received.

Let’s work our way down the list, shall we? If you’re reading this newsletter, I’m guessing you can eliminate option 1. If you’re American, say goodbye to #2. If #3 is even remotely an option for you, go off king. Then there’s #4: adapt the film into a short, and attract investors at Sundance. That’s where I’ll pick up next week.

Thanks for reading the first ever Cheap Thrills! If you liked it, press the lil subscribe button and tell a few friends.

Weekly debut feature recommendation

Shiva Baby written & directed by Emma Seligman