The following post is an extract from the e-book How Improvisation can Improve your Filmmaking by Ivan Malekin, an accompaniment to our updated video course to be published in July.
We all know the maxim time is money and this maxim seems especially relevant to filmmaking. More time in development, more time in pre-production, more time on set usually means more money – either money you are spending by paying cast and crew for more days, hiring equipment, spending on locations, or money and time you are wasting by working on that script day by day, week by week, month by month. Time that you could be spending elsewhere.
Our camera set up while shooting Life Improvised micro short Crossing Paths in Siggiewi Malta 2020
Filmmaking is an interesting artform. Is there any other artform that requires such high initial costs, such high end equipment, such specialised and various personal to the point where budgets commonly top $1 million and crews on film can reach into the hundreds, only to then sell to a consumer for a few dollars on a streaming platform, or for 1 cent per hour if you are an indie filmmaker on Amazon Prime?
The economics of filmmaking are rigged against you. The amount of independent filmmakers who make a living solely on their films is low. But it can be done. Targeting a niche audience is one method and this approach, combined with regular and consistent output, gives you a chance to make money.
But to make this model work you need to keep creating content and you need to get to set quickly. We don’t have time for the traditional one film every two or three years and to spend a year or more in development honing and refining a script over and over.
Instead, use improvisation to get onto set as quickly as you can. Come up with an idea. Write an outline. Sure, do a few drafts. Workshop the characters and story further with your actors in rehearsal. Good actors are fascinated with exploring human behaviour and they have spent years training to trust their instincts. Take advantage of this and allow actors the freedom to contribute. Just like you may trust your DOP or your editor or your music composer to add their expertise and personal experience to your creative vision, trust your cast to work from your outline, expand your ideas, and make the characters come alive.
Shooting a two-character scene at Chelsea Piers Park New York for our improvised feature film In Corpore 2018
The point is, we don’t need scripts to make good films. So don’t get stuck in development. Don’t fret trying to write dialogue that is realistic – let the actors contribute the dialogue on set. So many films over the years have shown you can begin production without a script. Take the multi-million dollar Iron Man; the script wasn’t ready so the actors improvised their way through the film and Iron Man is universally acclaimed as the best film in the Iron Man series and one of the best MCU films.
Of course, Hollywood doesn’t advocate this approach and praises the script as sacred. And despite what it may seem like, we have nothing against script writers. We did it ourselves for ten years as filmmakers before turning to improvisation. But example after example has demonstrated a script isn’t a vital component to make a good film. So skip the script. Get to set and film.
As an example of how quickly you can get onto set, we were in Berlin in 2019 for a screening of our film In Corpore with cast and crew. We had plans to film an episode of Life Improvised — our micro-short series of improvised films dealing with the small moments that make up life and relationships — while in Berlin but those plans fell through with just a few days left on our trip. Rather than give up, we drafted a new outline for a micro-short, gathered a small cast and crew, and filmed Cry Me a River, all in only three days.
Shooting Life Improvised micro short film Cry Me a River in Treptower Park, Berlin, 2019
Or, even more recently during the COVID-19 lockdown, we outlined a feature called Machination about a woman who slowly loses her mind during the pandemic, overwhelmed by fear, media saturation, and conspiracy obsession. It took the month of April to do several versions of the outline, gather feedback, redraft and hone the story until we were ready to film. As I write this we are currently casting and scouting locations, preparing to film in August. By the time it is all said and done we will go from idea, to final outline, to pre-production, to on set filming in a total of only five months. And the only thing that has prevented us from getting to set even earlier is we are currently in production on a feature length documentary called Cats of Malta.
Imagine making films that quickly several times a year? You would soon build up your body of work, and it is your cumulative body of work that has a much greater chance of being a game changer for you rather than any single project. Consistency drives quality. Rather than pinning all your hopes on a single film like many filmmakers do, you need to keep making films over and over again to give yourself the best chance of making a living from this.
And improvisation is a much faster method of narrative filmmaking than any conventional approach.