Do the thing, start the thing, make the thing. I started because I had previously handed off all my projects to other people to direct and I was tired of the waiting – but I wasn’t confident that I could do anything other than write, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to do anything other than write, I didn’t feel anything like a director.
Sidebar – There is a myth someone started that directors are all cool young-ish artsy dudes who went to film school and have tattoos and stubble and can talk about like, how fucking underrated Kurosawa is and like, dude, I just watched this French New Wave film, no, not that overrated one everyone’s seen, and God, Sundance is getting so mainstream these days, y’know? When I was in college, I helped out on a couple student film sets populated almost entirely by these guys and I would wear like a sundress and flats because that’s how I dressed and people would tell me, “You need to start dressing like you work in film.” Fuck those people. Guess what, I direct things now, I wear sundresses all the fucking time. As long as they have pockets. Sorry, angry digression from the topic. The point of this paragraph is that you should throw away that mental picture of “who a director is” and crazy glue in a shiny happy photo of yourself, if that’s what you want to happen.
But back on point, you’ll have a much easier time picturing yourself doing it once you start.
Re: equipment and all the technical things, the funny thing about directing is that you’ll probably feel like a fraud a large percentage of the time. Your job is to have knowledge a mile wide and about an inch deep in every subject so you can talk to your department heads in a way that helps them realize your vision of the film. I used to spend a lot of time hoping my gaffer wouldn’t ask me a question that would make me feel like an idiot because I didn’t know the difference between X and Y light and haha what’s a color temperature.
I didn’t go to film school, so when I first started I was just always very self-conscious and unsure if I was using the right language. Which was silly of me I’ve realized, because honestly, a good DP won’t think less of you for not knowing the difference between an OTS shot and a profile shot. That’s their job, not yours – they just need to know what you want the film to look like. Grab a YouTube clip of the movie you want it to look like and send it to them. Boom, done. If they use a word you don’t know, just say, “Oh, what does that mean?” and they’ll explain it to you. Unless they’re jerks who you really just shouldn’t work with.
And as you do the thing more and more, you realize (like with everything) you pick up knowledge as you go. Find friends who have an interest in making films, or find people using online resources if you have to. When you’re starting out, don’t expect things to be good, expect them to be homework. No one makes something good straight out of the gate, it’s the people who stick with it because they love it who stay in the running.
So tl;dr, start making things if you want to do it. That’s the best advice I can give. Filmmaking is a hard enough endeavor on its own, don’t be your own gatekeeper.
