Before you dive into the sea of online filmmaking courses, you should decide what kind of filmmaker you want to be.

Have you ever struggled to learn something new? You start to wonder if there’s something wrong with you because you can’t seem to progress past a certain point.

Do you hear the word “sales” and think of a guy with a comb-over wearing a polyester suit and trying to talk you into buying a used Honda Civic?

Learn the basics of cinematic lighting for filmmaking in this epic blog post.

How do you decide what story tell? In this article you’ll learn the top techniques to figure out how to go from bank page to finished product.

Do you have a creative block?

Have you ever felt creatively blocked, stuck or totally uninspired?

Maybe there are voices in your head telling you that you’re not good enough to take that next step. Or perhaps you don’t even know what the next step is.

As creatives, our process has peaks and valleys.

It’s not always a smooth and inspiration-filled ride. Sometimes your creative life might feel dry. You try to make something, come up with a good story idea, brainstorm….

And nothing. Your well is completely empty.

I’ve been there. Many times.

Just last year, my inner creative landscape felt as dry and barren as an abandoned baseball field in the middle of an August heatwave.

In this post, I’ll walk you through some of the things I did last year and other things I have done over my whole life to overcome creative blocks.

With the right filming techniques you can shoot anything. Find out the top 5 filming techniques you should master.

Learn the Film Lighting Basics First, Then Go Crazy with Pro Gear

If you don’t know the basics of film lighting, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in the shallow end of an Olympic pool.

Your footage doesn’t look quite right, but when you try to figure out what lights to buy or rent, you’re lost. There are so many lighting choices. Should you use LEDs or tungsten lights? Soft lights or hard lights? Do you need a reflector? What about flags? Should you be using a soft box or do you need something with barn doors?

You might look up lighting techniques and see images with 17 huge lights and an entire film crew.

If you’re just shooting a short film or doing a solo filmmaking project, then many of the film lighting tips you’ll find online are useless. You probably don’t have the budget to buy or rent 3 HMIs (these are incredible daylight balanced cool lights that are ultra powerful i.e. amazing but expensive).

I discovered the power of story while watching my bleary-eyed ESL students fall asleep in class at 7:30 in the morning.