What, How, Who?

If you want to complete a feature project for $4k you need to answer these three questions on a macro and micro level:

What is the story you want to tell?
How are you going to record your story?
Who are you making this for?

You shouldn't start until you have answers to all three AND be aware your answers will/should change, be refined, or jettisoned, as the project moves forward.

From the Holiday project, here's but one macro answer for each question (keep in mind there are many macro and micro answers you will develop--not just one):

What is the story?
A revenge story turned on its head
How to record the story?
iphone 4S at locations near my home
Who is this for?
Cinephiles interested in a challenging story

I'll gloss each of these questions for a few posts, then give some down and dirty advice using specific examples.  I'm not suggesting anything new or radical, these are simply questions designed to cover three basic feature project areas: development, production, business.

Although question one concerning story might seem the obvious place to begin, you can, in fact, enter your project from any of those questions.

I entered Holiday via question two.  I was curious if moving image technology had moved far enough along to allow anyone with a cell phone, laptop, and $4k to make a marketable feature that would play on mobile devices and movie theaters.  An aesthetic experiment asking in the digital age and its ability to target market, how narrow can you make your target audience and still turn a profit to support your existence as a filmmaker?  I'll let you know when I sell this project.

You could also come at it from question three--I want to make a horror film, or a love story, or whatever.  It doesn't make any difference.  No one question is easier to begin with than any other and they all must be clear in your head before you begin monopolizing other people's time shooting scenes.

And again, you must treat all three with equal importance.  If you drop the ball in any of those three areas, downstream you will find your film difficult to sell to distributors.