Fly Filmmaking is closely related to Guerilla Filmmaking. The latter is done literally with all that there is on hand and in the shortest amount of time possible. Spike Lee did this with his film “She’s Gotta Have it” and he has received continuing critical acclaim for his first effort.

Fly filmmaking is similar to that.

It consists of 3 separate teams that are given all that they need to make a film and a time frame of about 10 days. In this time they have to conceive of and create a film. The run time of the films is anywhere from 5 minutes to 22 minutes. The judges view the ending result and announce the winner at the festival.

This challenge is an effort to have film made without the consideration of cost and avoiding the politics that are so frequently present in filmmaking. However, the boundaries of time can be a bit of a headache, but that is the challenge. Participants are surprised by their own efforts.

This form of filmmaking has been “borrowed” has always been a real crowd pleaser. . There may be some differences but basically it is the same model as SIFF’s Fly Filmmaking.

As an experiment I would suggest that as an exercise you try Fly Filmmaking. Of course you may have to use your own camera and figure out how to do your own post-production as best you can, but it may be worth it. Any film school student could probably pull this one off. Use the school’s equipment loan program and you would also have a post facility available to you at not cost. This should challenge you and teach you to economize on the time and resources it takes to make a short film.