I want to switch from a career in graphic design to a career in cinematography. Looking for advice.

[Garrett Anderson]

When I was 7 years old I got obsessed with movie cameras, film and I wanted to be a filmmaker. Made movies with friends when I was in elementary school. I was shooting stuff on super 8 film when I was 16. By the time I got to college I was just kind of stoned and aimless.. I started a film program at one college when I was 19 but honestly I just dropped out. There was no program at any school I went to to use 16mm film which was all I ever wanted to shoot on. Made a few experimental shorts on super 8.. and occasionally I would mess with effects and editing software..

Fast forward to 25 I just decided to go to school for graphic design. I am now 29 and have an associates degree and am working for a record label but it just doesn't pay that well. Not sure theres a future in graphic design with all the AI advancements... Just bought a bolex 16mm camera, I am going to just start making music videos for my band and my friends bands, and maybe try to get wedding gigs, work whatever gigs I can.

I have very good editing sense, composition sense, technical knowledge, and I feel my skills in design would transfer over to filmmaking work. I would probably need to just self finance and self produce something good to show my abilities and go from there.

I guess I am just making this post to figure out what I can realistically expect. I am starting late and probably cannot afford to go to film school. I make 29,000 a year which is not a lot in Austin, Texas. If I did find a way to do film school I would mainly be interested in the more technical aspects of filmmaking, composition, lighting, cinematography as a whole... Is a degree or film school even necessary?

I guess I never followed my dreams and actual interests when I was younger because I never met people who were doing that. 

I know nothing about what this field looks like businesswise and know zero people in it. I figure I would just have to self teach myself freelance wedding filming and commercial videography finding clients and working my way up to bigger projects. I just think it would be something I'd be good at but I am guessing I would have to go DIY for a few years and get a portfolio together. I don't see myself wanting to move to NY or LA, but I am just looking for where to start.

Edited May 19, 2025 by Garrett Anderson
fixed a few wordings

[Brian Drysdale]

There are lots of learning resources available online these days, plus numerous books on all aspects of film making and cinematography. There are also short courses/workshops available for people at various levels in their career. 

I suspect there are other filmmakers in Austin, who it would be worth connecting with. Assuming you're in Texas, there is a lot going on: https://www.austintexas.org/film-commission/made-in-austin/

https://www.austintexas.org/meeting-professionals/why-austin/austin-industries/film-tv-studio-production/

[Simon Wyss]

Why did you pick a Bolex?

[Aapo Lettinen]

I would do short projects on the side and save money for bigger ones which you can do later when having gained very good skills and confidence doing the small scale stuff. Music videos can be good for testing stuff and quick learning, just make sure someone else pays the costs and you would get something small as a compensation so that you can save for short film projects. You can test all kinds of visual storytelling and beauty shots, crazy lighting ideas and operating, etc. on music videos. They don't usually pay well or at all but they are good as testing platform for stuff which can be used for getting small commercial shoots etc later on.

You will want to upgrade the camera at some point, depends on how much you are able to work and advance but I would guess from 1 to 2 years maybe. If possible, keep the Bolex as a backup and for taking quick mos pickups. If the Bolex is not S16 converted, I would probably leave it as N16 shooting lower grain film to compensate for the grain difference, and invest on higher level camera when having possibility. Something entry level which is relatively silens, sync sound capable and can use larger rolls, for example Eclair NPR with good crystal motor, and get that S16 converted then.

[Aapo Lettinen]

and get a basic lighting kit so that you can experiment a lot and use that on the small shoots instead of using money on renting. couple of cob led lights with accessories like softbox, possible fresnel lens etc and at least some of them battery powered, some battery powered tube lights, a mat light or two, stands and frames and flags and sandbags etc.  Check out every used lighting gear source regularly to pick up used stands and other support stuff, they are usually totally fine even when roughly handled for years. You can experiment with old used tungsten lights if you get them for very cheap, for example fresnels up to 2kw and the 2kw blonde lights are great if you have time to arrange power for them. Nowadays I use to use tungsten lights as "semi-fixed" like hmi lights, they are not moved from shot to shot but may be tuned a little if absolutely needed and may still move from scene to scene. Then every light which is moved shot to shot is led, with the most often moved small powered lights on battery power so that you don't need to mess up with cables and save tons of time. On leds you will want some kind of remote control possibility because they are the ones tweaked all the time.

with the possible tungsten lights you just need high-ish powered ones and lots of them so that you can add extra light to the background whenever needed to make a "much bigger looking lighting kit than it actually is". For example I used two 2kw blondes side by side to make sunlight, then opposite direction far background windows were lit with 1k vnsp cans, and the middle ground open door sunlight coming in was another tungsten too. Then I had led mat and some smaller leds as fill and lighting the foreground actor and some bounced hmi or led for ambience. Only the leds were bought new, the other lights were mostly from the 80's and 90's and got them for very cheap so instead of spending thousands on multiple high powered cob leds I could do most of the set with very cheap tungsten and only used led on fixtures which needed to move all the time from shot to shot.

[Aapo Lettinen]

 additionally, leds DO age and after couple of years of use you will probably need to buy new ones because the current ones are too green and dim then. So don't expect using the same lights 5 years from now. Upgrading your whole kit often is very expensive but if you have relatively cheap led lights now when starting it is not a big deal to upgrade later on and they save tons of time compared to old technology. Tungsten and hmi fixtures do not age, you just change the bulb after some 1000+ hours of use and you are good as new again. with led you need to buy a new light when the "bulb" ages and it may not be after more than couple of thousand hours.

So leds save time but they are expensive to use. Tungsten and hmi are slow to use but they often save money if used right because they may be much cheaper to buy and will definitely be cheaper to use (if the electricity assumed being free). I think one would have lots of use for both technologies even in today's world where people are fanatic about led being the only sensible technology.

One more thing, on this low budget level, choose your lighting gear so that you can fit all of it in your car and there can still be one passenger fitted in and you can fit the camera gear in too. If you have stuff which you can't fit in the car you will never use it and no sense to keep extra ones as backup at home, you won't get them from there anyway if something blows up on set 🙂  So take stands, frames etc which can fit in your own car and with the stands, lights, flags, sandbags etc. all in the car there is still one passenger seat left and no more than 2/3 of the space used by the lights so that you can still fit the camera, tripod and grip gear etc in with your extra clothing, snacks, etc.

[Tyler Purcell]

I work with young people all the time and many of them are in your shoes, they've always wanted to be filmmakers and they simply don't have the wherewithal to make that career jump for whatever reason. For many, they maybe got sidetracked with a career, for others it was growing a family or even military service, which prevented it. The one thing in common with all of them is that spark, that need to do something creative and share the results with people, kinda like a dopamine release. 

The current landscape with filmmaking in the Untied States basically completely over saturated on the creator side with simply not enough distribution potential for everything that's being made. For every 1 feature film that makes it through from indy to some sort of limited distribution deal, there are thousands of others which are sitting on peoples computers, maybe on YouTube/Vimeo or ever worse; Tubi. The increasing liberal arts degrees and democratization of filmmaking through lowering the barrier of admission, have both destroyed what was left of the already dying film industry. When you see the top filmmakers like Steven Spielberg unable to find funding for personal projects and Disney unable to make anything that isn't some sort of reboot, sequel or live action version of a classic animation, you know the industry is dead. 

So if feature filmmaking is kinda out of the cards for 99.95% of people, what is in the cards? Well, I know it may sound stupid, but going out and shooting stuff with your Bolex with your friends and starting a YouTube channel discussing your experiences, may actually pay dividends in the future. It only takes one person to watch your work and say "hey, I like this guy" and suddenly you're working on that persons project. Youtube is a great resource and if you put some money into your work, make things look good, it's a great calling card, especially in the film world, which is full of people looking for that next 16mm artist. Being a "creative" is easy, just go and create. Making a career out of it, is early impossible today. 

In terms of making a career out of this; it's a slippery slope and the amount of ultra talented and top industry people sitting on the couch these days, would make you sick to your stomach. Many will take ANYTHING to just make some money and it's just going to get worse as the Untied States becomes a more toxic country to do business with. I foresee many of the great resources we once had for grants and production loans, going away. It's see many people selling all their equipment and leaving the industry because the work is so fickle for most people, it's hard to base one's financial life off it. Today everyone is being ULTRA frugal in what they do and how they do it, making shit with minimal to no crew, which means nobody is making a career out of those lower-end shoots, the very same ones we use to make our bread and butter from. It's all about who you know, what they need, your skills and what you're willing to do to help people. You could work for free helping people for a decade and still never get the ability to make money from your learned/earned time on set. I've seen this with so many friends of mine, people who still think that big job that will win them a career in the industry comes rolling around the corner and they'll snatch it up. Those days are long behind us today and it's worse in non-media cities than Los Angeles. At least here, there is plenty of actual work, it's just hard to make a career out of what remains. 

With all that said, many of us have resorted to having actual normal full time jobs and creating on the side. I spent 6 years as a freelancer, it was a great time, tho stressful financially and I was overjoyed when I was offered a full time job and money was no longer a factor in my life right before covid. Has the full time job prevented me from going out and making stuff? Absolutely not, in fact if anything I'm more creative because I don't have to worry about money as much, so I can toss quite a bit of my money directly at making products, which is really great. I count myself extremely lucky to have caught the very tail end of this dying industry and been able to re-brand myself very quickly due to prior experiences and it all worked out nicely. Covid was the end for so much work and now that AI has basically taken over the marketing business, I fear those jobs are also long gone. So I launched an industry adjacent business in 2023 which has been a great way to continue being creative AND at the same time, offer resources to many "film" people as well. Maybe one day I can retire off this business, who knows, but having been in your shoes, having switched industries from something that pays well to something that doesn't, I wouldn't recommend that to anyone. Focus on the money, don't allow your need to be creative, suddenly propel you into debt or into some sort of desire to do more, make more, be something you aren't for the sake of switching careers. Nobody is stopping you from making stuff right now, so just do it and enjoy yourself. Whatever happens next in your filmmaking life, is irrelevant, just enjoy creating and showing people your creations. 

 

[Aapo Lettinen]

yes absolutely it is needed to have a day job to be able to do cinematography stuff nowadays. But that also makes it possible to choose which projects you want to do instead of needing to hoard any kind of stuff which pays a penny just to have something to work on. You will make less projects but they will probably be much better quality so you'll potentially get forward at same pace or faster even.

Nowadays when most of the entertainment stuff is mindless "content" and ever growing amount of it is AI generated, you really need to concentrate on meaningful important stories with deep human soul. You really can't compete with the "Oh Look It's a Cool Explosion" stuff anymore as a low budget indie filmmaker, that is the job of the "influencer" content creators using AI and sponsor money.

Just look for deeply human very touching stories around you and make small films out of those. That kind of material is perfect to be shot on real film too. If you have more money then shoot more, if having less then shoot a bit less of projects but keep the quality high

[Garrett Anderson]

On 5/19/2025 at 8:30 AM, Simon Wyss said:

Why did you pick a Bolex?

Always wanted one since I was a kid. They are reliable and have less problems than the K3. Many filmmakers I look up to started on a bolex. I got one that was being used by no one and was collecting dust for 25 years and it still works great. 

 

I shot a roll on one recently it turned out perfectly(only issue was the viewfinder on my lens had a frame mask that was rotated 30° for some reason)

[Simon Wyss]

Yea, there are a few things that are better made than with the Krasnogorsk. My principal concern about a K. is the rather insecure hook-up of the drive spring to the arbor. Maybe some series were okay but in the K. 2 I had to look into I had found this:

 

The Bolex finder mask can easily be rotated with a large enough screwdriver after having removed the finder funnel cover, just while observing the position through the ocular.

[Garrett Anderson]

3 minutes ago, Simon Wyss said:

Yea, there are a few things that are better made than with the Krasnogorsk. My principal concern about a K. is the rather insecure hook-up of the drive spring to the arbor. Maybe some series were okay but in the K. 2 I had to look into I had found this:

 

The Bolex finder mask can easily be rotated with a large enough screwdriver after having removed the finder funnel cover, just while observing the position through the ocular.

exactly- stuff like this- i saw so many posts about problems with krasnogorsk cameras and film that didnt turn out i 100% went bolex. i found one 1953 non reflex for 300$ and it came with a berthiot pan cinor 17-85 lens with a dogleg viewfinder- that lens ill just say is in bad but usable condition. just had another 17.5-70mm lens ordered also with a viewfinder in much better condition

ah no everythings fine on the camera i meant on the dogleg viewfinder on my pan cinor lens. i meeded to open it up and rotate that frame mask on the berthiot lens viewfinder- which also moved around the focus assist circle prism and it was a huge pain in the ass, i got it all straightened out to the best of my abilities after an hour of cursing haha

[Simon Wyss]

Do feel free to ask me questions, if you deem the subject interesting enough for everybody.

Maybe you want to find the way back to the original concept of the (Paillard-Bolex) 16-mm. turret movie camera. The Victor model 3 was first to afford that, some months before the Bell & Howell Filmo 70. The idea is to have ready a normal focal length lense, a wide angle, and a tele. The most used lengths are one inch, about ⅝ in. or 15 or 16 mm, and three inches. Two inches are also nice. The important aspect besides all optical finesses is compactness. Three C-mount primes are often lighter in weight than a zoom lens.

If your model is from 1953, it has the early steel claw and a 190 degrees shutter opening angle. It may shake a little because the claw drive and the shutter aren’t counterbalanced.