Evan Miles

My best advice is to constantly think of things that you think you'd be able to translate well to film. It depends on what you like as far as stories go. I always try to pay attention to people's conversations and if I hear a strange story or something that would work well in one of my movies, I write it down, no matter how small(I carry a small pocket sized notebook.) I also like to read a lot, and while this may sound bad, I take small parts from books all the time. Whether it's a small character quirk or a start for an idea on a scene. I obviously never take actual plot lines or fully drawn out characters, but it's a good starting point for where you may want to steer your movie. I think writing or story telling comes from the individual person, and you may find something that works well for you, so it's hard to give specific advice, but rather what each of us actually does. Another suggestion is talking to your friends about story ideas, whether you have friends that are writers or not, many people have some unique stories that could be part of a film, or be the main outline for a film. You can also talk to college writing students, as they'll generally be happy to have one of their short stories turned into a short.

Thanks for the advice everyone. One other quick question. What do I have to do/ask for in order to be able to edit on my home computer via Avid? Is it not possible with reversal? That wouldn't bother me, as I'm using the reversal for testing, but once I want to start an actual project I'll need to know this. Thanks again in advance, I love this place.

I've been making movies for awhile now, but I've only ever shot on video(miniDV,) and it's really leaving something to be desired. I recently bought a Krasnogorsk-3(haven't received it yet) to start experimenting with film. It was cheap and it will allow me to get some experience with film without paying too much. I wanted to know what film stocks people would suggest for me to experiment on? Any other newb suggestions would be great if you want to drop a few my way. I love these forums, I've spent days reading topics gathering information that I may never need, but it's awesome to be able to learn it all. If this post should have been in the 'film stocks' forum please excuse me, but I figured I'd put it in here to steer it away from serious stock questions. Thanks a ton in advance.