Filmmaker
You write it, film it, and put it together: the whole film is yours. You don’t need a crew or anyone’s permission anymore either, one person can do all of it and put it in front of real people.
Related: Editor, Animator, Content Creator
The day in the life
The video · the plan
- 1.Cold open (no title, no setup): one striking image
- 2.Noa, mid-song
- 3.A beat of energy
- 4.Last card: the band, and when the song is out
the rough beats, before any footage exists
You've got the song. Now the video: what should it LOOK like, so a stranger feels it in the first second?
Try a day as a filmmaker
A short, playful taste of the real work.
People will always want stories, but there are fewer paid jobs in film and TV every year.
Nobody picks you: you get in by making your own work. But steady money means one job on somebody else’s film, like cutting the film or pointing the camera, since almost nobody lives off films they direct themselves.
What you’d do all day
The picture is the director calling the shots in a glamorous world; the real day is long, irregular hours and a lot of unglamorous logistics (setup, waiting, and especially editing), where a story gets shaped. The part that lasts is the taste and story judgment: knowing what’s worth making and how to cut it so it lands.
- Planning & writing20%
- Filming & directing25%
- Editing, sound & color35%
- Funding, pitching & distribution5%
- Admin & coordination15%
The biggest slice is editing: sitting with everything that was filmed and turning it into something that works. Mostly on other people’s films.
“Filmmaker” isn’t one job. What you make changes everything about the work.
- Narrativetelling a made-up story with actors and a script.
- Documentaryfollowing something real and finding the story that’s already happening.
- Commercialmaking short films that sell a product instead of tickets.
- Music videotelling a story or a vibe in the length of one song.
A typical early-career day
- 9:00Watch yesterday’s cut fresh
First look of the day at the rough cut. Write honest notes: where it drags, which two shots aren’t working, what the story still needs.
- 10:30Make new takes for the gaps
Reshoot or remake just the shots that failed. You can spin up a stack of options fast; picking the one that serves the story is the job.
- 1:00The re-cut
Back in the edit. Swap the new takes in, tighten the pacing, decide what stays and what goes. This is where a film is really made.
- 4:00Get eyes on it
Send the cut to a friend or the client and watch their reaction. Notes sting, then they make the next cut better.
- 6:00The unglamorous half
Emails, invoices, posting your work, chasing the next gig. Nobody puts this part in the trailer, but it’s how a solo career keeps running.
One day in the middle of a project, not the whole film: a real piece takes many days like this (write it, film or generate it, edit, get notes, edit again). On a big crew the roles split up, but for most people getting in now this solo loop is the realistic path.
The outlook
Where it’s going
Two big things are happening at once. Traditional film and TV work is shrinking hard: US production dropped about 40% from its 2022 peak, and LA alone lost roughly 41,000 entertainment jobs in three years. At the same time, making something that looks like a movie has gotten cheap enough that one person can do it alone (AI tools are part of why), so the work is moving from big crews toward solo creators. And as footage gets easier and easier to make, the scarce thing gets more valuable: taste, the eye for what’s worth making and what connects.
Right now
Be clear-eyed: this is one of the toughest job markets right now. Paid traditional film and TV work is in a multi-year slump, and the squeeze on crews is still tightening. There’s no gatekeeper to get past, but that cuts both ways: the honest path in is making your own work and getting it seen, not waiting for a studio to hire you.
Would you like it?
Worth a look if you live for story and would make films whether or not anyone paid you.
Tap any that sound like you.
In practice, people realize it’s their thing when…
…and it probably isn’t their thing when
How people get in
- 4
- Years it takes on average
- $48K
- Average cost
- 5 in 1,000
- Get a short film into Sundance
Every way in
A film degree
About 7 in 10
Four years · About $48K at a state school
The famous film schools come after a bachelor’s degree rather than instead of one, and a year at AFI costs $108,395 once rent and everything else is counted.
Learn on other people’s sets
About 3 in 10
Four years · No school fees
Those are the two. A few people arrive from somewhere else entirely: the Navy, Air Force, Marines and Army all send camera crews to Syracuse for ten months to learn how to make documentaries.
How your first job gets decided
There is no exam to sit and nobody votes on whether you are in. The people who decide are festival programmers, whoever is paying for the film, and whoever is putting a crew together this month.
What gets you the work
- About 7 in 10 of the people doing this went to college for it, and about 3 in 10 never did, so neither answer is the one everybody gives.
- The film itself. Not a pitch for it, the finished thing, watched all the way through by somebody deciding whether to back the next one.
- One door has a real exam behind it. The assistant director training program runs a written test, then an interview, then a last interview in front of a board where the studios and the union sit together.
Almost nobody directs first. The first paid job is a small one on somebody else’s film, and you take it to be in the room while a film gets made.
- The middle of this job pays $90,360 a year. That is the middle of everyone already doing it, not what the first job pays.
- A film degree gets you to about $43,800 by four years out, under half of what the job pays in the middle. That is the bottom of the climb, not the top.
When to apply
The big film festivals pick what they will show months ahead, and you can lose your shot at one of them before you even apply.
- Before you put a film onlineShowing a finished film anywhere the public can see it, free or not, keeps it out of Sundance’s two big feature categories. Posting it for feedback counts. For the 2027 festival the cutoff is February 1 2027, so a film you want to enter stays unseen until then.
- July to SeptemberSundance takes entries in three rounds and the only difference between them is the fee. A short costs $55 if you send it in July and $95 if you wait until the end of August, and every entry is read the same way whichever round you use.
- By October 1SXSW closes on October 1 and takes entries in three rounds as well. Send the cut you mean, because they only promise to watch the first version you give them, and you hear back by February 9.
- December 1The assistant director training program takes applications once a year. It runs two years, pays $1,085 a week rising to $1,333, asks for 350 days of work on real sets, and it ends with you allowed to join the Directors Guild, which is the group you have to belong to before studios will hire you for this work. About 6 people get in out of about 325 who apply.
How long it takes
Nobody licenses filmmakers, so there is no fixed order to any of this. Most people go to college for it and the rest learn on other people’s sets, and either way it is about four years before anyone hands you a film of your own.
Four years of making things is a long stretch before you know whether you can hold an audience. The call that decides it is which take stays in and which one goes, and that part takes an afternoon.
Try deciding what stays in the sceneWrite and Direct a 90-Second Short Film
Make a 60 to 90 second short film with AI tools: write the story down in one tight paragraph, generate the pictures, then do the real work of editing it together so it tells that story. Deciding what stays and what goes is the part of filmmaking that is hardest to fake and the most worth having.
Or try one of these
Where these numbers come from
Written by the Sidequest team, from the sources below.
- Pay: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Producers & Directors (SOC 27-2012), Film & Video Editors (27-4032), Camera Operators (27-4031), May 2024.
- The outlook: BLS OOH (SOC 27-2012 / 27-4032 / 27-4031, May 2024); ProdPro US production-volume report; FilmLA / LA County jobs data (2025); Variety AI-staffing survey (2024). Dated June 2026.
- Getting in: How many people take each route is our own estimate, rounded. O*NET OnLine 27-2012.00 (Producers and Directors), Job Zone Four, SVP 7.0 to under 8.0, and the education responses (57% a bachelor degree, 15% high school, 13% a two year degree); site updated August 25 2026, read September 2026, for the four years and for the split between the two routes. Sundance Institute, Submitting Your Project to the 2027 Sundance Film Festival, read September 2026, for the three submission deadlines, the fees, and the rule that a film shown anywhere public before February 1 2027 cannot enter the two feature categories. Sundance Institute press release on the 2026 short film program, read September 2026, for the 54 films chosen out of 11,480 entries. SXSW Film and TV Submissions and its application pages, read September 2026, for the three deadlines, the fees, and the rule that only the first cut sent is guaranteed a viewing. Directors Guild of America and Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers Assistant Director Training Program, read September 2026, for the December 1 deadline, the two year length, the 350 days on set, the pay of $1,085 rising to $1,333 a week, and the 5 to 7 places filled from 300 to 350 applicants. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 27-2012, for the $90,360 middle wage. U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, field of study data, CIP 50.06 Film, Video and Photographic Arts at bachelor level, read September 2026, for the $43,800 median four years out. College Board, Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2025, public four year in state tuition and fees of $11,950 a year, for the $48K four year total; AFI Conservatory 2026-2027 tuition and fees, for the $108,395 a year. Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Military Visual Journalism overview, read September 2026, for the ten month program and the four service branches. Dated September 2026.