Filmmaking is not an easy adventure no matter how you simplify the process. It's time-consuming, resource-intensive and energy-draining. It's not a casual enterprise by any means and sometimes it can become confusing as to what this movie is supposed to do.

Is this just a way for me to prove I can make a movie, so I can act in it, so I can see my script come to life, or this all just an ego trip? It's hard to know when you're doing it right and difficult to know what to aim for. A movie is many things to many people, but if you keep a few targets in mind you won't stray too far from something people will like.

A Night's Entertainment

Movies aren't seminars or lectures. They aren't educational like school is and they don't solve social problems. They may be about these subjects and you may learn something, but that's information wrapped in an entertaining package. There is value in entertainment on its own. You needn't always have lofty aspirations for blowing people's mind or changing their lives, you can just give them a good ride. That being said even a great movie that blows minds, alters lives, and changes attitudes still should be an entertaining piece.

Demands Uninterrupted Attention

A movie should be the only thing people need to engage them from when it starts to when it ends. They shouldn't need to speak to other movie goers or even do much deep thinking. They should be engaged in what is on screen alone. If your story doesn't grab people and never let go, you might want to flesh out the problem and fix it. There is no prize for making longer movies that bore people that could have been better if shorter. Cut it down to the minimum, say the most with the least. If somebody asked you "what time is it" with a lengthy speech, you'd be upset that he didn't just come out with it instead of a windy digression that had nothing of value for you. Brief isn't just for underwear anymore.

Wants To Be Seen On A Big Screen

Movies aren't just any kind of story, they can only be told cinematically. Stories that are majority based in action and physical movement as opposed to simple conversation. These stories want to accurately show the visual world of these characters and use the big screen to full effect in doing so. These stories may include your typical actions that movies are known for like fighting, explosions and car chases or it may be as simple as a game of one-upmanship between two characters that is carried out in physical action rather than just dialogue. If your story doesn't call for a big screen maybe it doesn't need to be a movie.

Takes Us To The Limit Of Human Experience

Movies aren't just long because we can get away with it, they are long to give the story proper time to take us to the end of the line. In movies we see characters tested in ways you can't do in shorter stories, tested further than you can in stories in other media. We want to see what these people are really made of and this takes time. Your character should have something they want so bad that they are willing to make big sacrifices to get it. The kind of sacrifices that only the most dedicated would make. These aren't casual desires your characters are after, these are holy grails. Desires that they will stop at nothing to get. Goals they are willing to die trying to reach. If your character isn't too interested in whatever is going on, maybe this shouldn't be a movie. It might make a nice short story.

You may have higher expectations for your film than these suggestions. I encourage you to reach for the sky, but keep in mind these are just the basics. You can make a movie without them but an addition of any of them will raise your film to a better place in the mind of an audience.