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There is no shortage of people nowadays making the claim that modern cinema is overflowing with cheesy and predictable screenplays filled to the brim with abundant cliches and brightly colored explosions. This can be true if you only examine the surface. If one was to dig deeper, they would find that hundreds of cheaply produced films that actually have something to say are being made every year by talented aspiring filmmakers.

Man and camera silhouette image, nofilmschool.com

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Independent filmmaking is the process of making a motion picture without the help of a major production company. They often tell more deep and personal stories than typical Hollywood productions, and focus more on character building rather than grand action set pieces. This is a result of two major factors: the low budget of the film's production, and independent filmmaker's passion for personal and emotional stories. Few actors are typically used, and they are usually unknowns, or even friends of the director lending a helping hand. While there are production companies that specialize in independent film (more on that later), most of them cannot grant the same budget to an independent film that a major studio would give to a blockbuster.

What really is an independent film? image, indiefilmhustle.com

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What goes into making an independent film?

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What goes into making an independent film?

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Say there's a somebody out there who has an idea for a movie. Most people do not have access to the resources typically required, and have no studio backing to cover the budget of acquiring the items. If the filmmaker is dedicated enough, they find any means neccesary to see their idea become a reality. They may need to empty their piggy banks to buy their own camera. Frequent trips will be made to the local thrift store to obtain the costumes on a minimal budget. The actors may not be the most professional in the world, but they'll be appearing out of sheer passion and dedication, rather than the paycheck (which is guaranteed to be quite small). The filmmaker will need to cover these production costs out of his own pocket, and will probably be acting as director, editor, producer, and sometimes even lead star. But if the passion is there, it will show through in the final product.

Quora. “How To Make An Indie Film That Doesn't Look Cheap.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 20 Sept. 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/20/how-to-make-an-indie-film-that-doesnt-look-cheap/#7a00bb58429b.

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How does one prevent a film from looking like it was filmed for cheap? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Scott Danzig, Independent Filmmaker, on Quora:
The old saying goes, you can do things, fast, good, and cheap. Choose two! The odd man out for most indie filmmakers is either "fast" or "good". Let's pretend you want a good film.

Films don't look cheap because they were filmed with cheap equipment. They look cheap when you have a crew that doesn't know what they're doing, or is not putting in the time required for a quality film, or you're not working within the constraints of what you have. Take your time to learn as much as you can beforehand, because the more planning, the better your film will look.
The script
If your story is uninteresting, or dialogue seems unnatural, you started making your movie before you were ready. People expect a quality production to have a good story. Keep iterating over it, removing the unnecessary (especially anything that costs money), and improving what you have. How can you make your script better? Get endless opinions. People should consistently get excited after reading your script. This can be done for free, as long as you want. This phase gives you the best bang for your buck in terms of effort, so take as long as you need!
Acting
There are great actors that will work for free, and although it's very awkward, many will show up to your home. If your film has acting that doesn't seem natural, then you did not do a very good job with your auditions. Find good acting talent and your audience will forgive a lot!
Location
Don't choose locations you can't handle. If you have 1000 watts of light, you're not going to be able to light large rooms very brightly. You can accommodate this with your script. Have the action happen in rooms with big windows, where you can lean on natural light, or outside. You can use your light kit to handle the closeups pretty easily. Also choose locations that are not noisy, and are able to accommodate a more relaxed shoot schedule.
Sound
They won't forgive bad sound though! This is the first thing you should invest money into. Get a good microphone, boom, and recorder, and someone who knows how to use them. If you can't afford that, the typical way I see people avoid a lot of this expense is to use voice over narration instead, perhaps recorded in a quiet basement or bedroom. You can also go with the silent route, leaning on just music.
Camera setup
Take the time to get everything on your camera set how you want it. Get the focus right. White balance. Don't change your shutter speed, aperture, or ISO just to make something brighter or darker. Try to get the lighting right instead. Use whatever hacks you can, opening and closing doors and windows, using whatever you have to block light. Keep your camera at its native ISO, or its minimum ISO if you're shooting with a LOG gamma curve, or something that restricts it. Don't rely on post-production. Don't rely on color grading. Get it right in the camera. Post-production works best when you only need to finesse your footage.
Plan your composition
Don't just capture information with your shots. Look for balance, and for each shot to be done in a way that better tells your story.
Smooth movement
If you don't have a steadicam, gimbal, slider, or dolly, then most if not all of your shots should be on a tripod. Instead, lean on the blocking of your characters and the pacing of your cuts to make your film more dynamic. However, you can use cheap strategies like using a wheelchair as a dolly, and it will turn out perfectly smooth. You can also stabilize things in post later and it can look great if the footage was reasonably stable.
Control what's in your frame
Everything in the shot should be intentional. If you don't have control over what's in the background, reduce the aperture to blur it out, or go in tighter with your framing. The audience should not be unnecessarily distracted, and showing your actors better is sometimes a good thing.
Dress the set and coordinate colors
In addition to removing things that don't belong in the set, you can scrounge, borrow, or shop around for things that can help the location. Color coordination goes a long way to impressing your audience. Choose a suitable color scheme for your film, then go through your actors' clothes and see if you can find some that match. See what you can do with the set to make it suit your scheme more. You can also emphasize your colors during color grading.
Imply rather than show
The worst thing you can do, if you're on a budget, is to include a fight scene. Your fight scene will not look good unless you have trained professionals, or you're being incredibly irresponsible and doing things for real. Even someone collapsing to the ground is not easy to film believably. Show the emotion leading up to the fight, and the aftermath, and let the audience imagine what must have happened. Use sound with reactions from people watching, instead of visuals of what they actually see.
Don't do what you can't do right
If you have an idea, you can try to do it, but if it doesn't turn out completely okay, don't include it. Always have a backup plan for when your experimenting fails. If your fake wound doesn't look real, you might be able to not show it so prominently, so it looks real enough. Otherwise, maybe just show the blood trail and the feet.
Background actors
Background actors are easy to get, and it's okay if one or two of them don't show up for whatever reason. However, having them helps fill in the world your characters live in, and makes it feel more familiar and easier to buy into. If you keep them around all day though, you have to feed them, so plan accordingly.
Post-production
If you managed to produce quality footage, you shouldn't need to do too much with anything. First, there's the color grading. If you have a computer with a good video card, you can get Davinci Resolve for free. Lean on the waveform parade with reference stills to match up one shot to another. Make skin tones match, then the rest of it. If you want a particular look, be sure you don't overdo it. If you try to push your footage too hard, it might look unnatural, and worse, you'll start to introduce banding into your video, where you can see the shift from one shade of a color to another.

Go into After Effects, or Fusion, to remove things you don't want, like lens/sensor dirt, a boom pole, and maybe a sign or logo. If the edge of frame shows something you don't want, feel free to crop. Also, if you have an issue with noise, there are a couple of plugins available that do a great job cleaning it up. I can personally vouch for "Neat Video".

Again, sound is something you can't skimp on, and you probably won't get right on your own. The problem is, you can't rely on your computer speakers to tell you what your film will sound like at a film festival. You need someone with large monitor speakers who can adjust your levels for you. They can likely also clean up your sound, removing ambient noises that don't help your story. They can also add in realistic sound effects to help sell your scenes. I collect free sound effects when I find them, but often what I have doesn't quite fit. For a short film, I've seen prices range between $250 and $1000. I tried to let the video editor I hired do sound, but I actually did notice a significant problem when my film was first screened, so now I have someone I go to regularly. As mentioned before, you can decide to avoid using location sound entirely, if you want.
The pitch
If you know how to present your film professionally, it garners more respect that way. Don't appear like an amateur who managed to scrape together a film. When you talk about it, say what it's about and be ready to say some things about the motivation behind the production, and what you focused on.
Presentation
Generally, if there are problems with a film, it will look better on Vimeo or Youtube than it will in a theater. People won't be able to discern as much detail, and the sound will be much more forgiving. Hell, a lot of people will watch it just on their phone. It's another way to make your work look better.

While it's hard to make a good looking film if you have little to no budget, the tools are likely within reach for cheap or free (except for sound stuff), so just be smart about it and go in with a plan, and you can make something that wows your audience for pocket change!

This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

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How To Make An Indie Film That Doesn't Look Cheap

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How does one prevent a film from looking like it was filmed for cheap? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Scott Danzig, Independent Filmmaker, on Quora: The old saying goes, you can do things, fast, good, and cheap.

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Audiences of today are desperately craving films with meaning. Much of what is flung at screens today is seen as passable entertainment that is distracting for the time being and will be forgot within a couple of hours. They want something with some meat to it. Something that inspires ideas or concepts that aren't typically covered in mainstream media. There are few independent filmmakers alive who will tell you that their film was completed simply to make a profit or for bragging rights. The people who are putting the time and effort into crafting a well written story on a shoestring budget are the ones who are keeping the heart and soul of the film industry alive, as they understand what it means to be a cinephile (film fan). They know that the passion comes first, and everything else comes second.

Man filming scene image, cloudfront.net

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When Independent Filmmakers Become Mainstream: Spike Lee

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When Independent Filmmakers Become Mainstream: Spike Lee

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Spike Lee is a director who started off with virtually nothing in terms of budget and resources. But he had an idea, the passion, and the dedication needed to make that dream a reality. He wrote, directed, starred in, and produced his first feature film "She's Gotta Have It" for an estimated budget of $175,000 (IMdB.com), and he's only grown from there. He uses his films to spread a message to the public rather than regurgitate more generic and predictable films. As a black filmmaker, he's used his passion to tell stories highlighting the struggles, triumphs, and lives of African Americans. He's written some of the most profound films ever made depicting racial conflict, including the polarizing "Do the Right Thing", and more recently, the Academy Award nominated "BlacKkKlansman". Here he's got some great advice for aspiring filmmakers

MasterClass. “Spike Lee Teaches Independent Filmmaking | Official Trailer | MasterClass.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1sm4JEqCdo.

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Spike Lee Teaches Independent Filmmaking | Official Trailer | MasterClass

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In the current technological climate we live in now, it's becoming much simpler for someone to conjure up their own independent film. Cameras are easier to come by, as virtually everyone has one built into their cell phones (a very high quality one at that!). One does not need an incredibly large budget to produce their own feature anymore, and more and more people are taking advantage of this to pursue their passion. With indie films on the rise, new production companies that specialize in funding these films came to be, arguably none more famous than A24. One of the most respected production companies out there, A24 has produced a myriad of successful indies, including "Lady Bird", "Eighth Grade", "Mid90s", "The Disaster Artist", "Ex Machina", "Room", and 2017 Best Picture winner "Moonlight".

A24 logo image, wordpress.com

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Independent filmmakers are dominating the film industry, and that statement becomes more and more true with each passing day. What would have sounded like wishful thinking has slowly but surely become a reality, and as technology becomes more accessible to the average person, those numbers will continue to grow. We are living in a time of endless possibilities, where anyone can create their own feature film if they really want it. All they need is passion, dedication, and endless creativity. And of course, a camera. Who could forget the camera?

Horizon image, jaderecruitment.net