Ren Moulaison is the Founder, Executive Producer, and Main Screenwriter for the HQ Team, as well as the Website Admin. You have him to thank for coming up with the idea!
Ren has enlisted plenty of his friends and family members, including his mother (Kris) and two out of his three brothers (Conner and Christian), to help with making these films a reality! Check out our Meet The HQ Team page to learn more about our core team members!
Well, thankfully, most of the creative process - characters, worldbuilding, themes, etc. - has already been taken care of by the original writers, so you don't have to worry so much about that; but, here are some of our tips for low-budget fan filmmaking:
Assemble a team of people to work with
Ask your friends and family if they want to be involved
If you don't have any friends or family members who are interested or have any expertise, hold auditions or post a notice
Once you have a team together, take into account what each person is best at and assign them to that role
Make sure you have an Executive Producer or two contributing to the budget so you can feed your cast/crew and get few of the essential things you'll need
Make sure you have filming equipment, like a camera, tripod, lighting, etc. If you don't have something you need, you can probably find a cheap one online or use something around the house
Start off adapting an existing fanfic!
Get the author's consent to use their story as blueprints for your screenplay
With the author's okay, open the fanfic and a screenplay templated word document and copy/paste or reword as much you can into the doc
If you decide to use a new prompt or idea, go through the same creative process as you would with any of your fanfics, but with the screenplay template on your Word document
Get together with your crew and discuss ways to edit/revise your screenplay
Scout for locations in your area
Storyboard
Gather props
Hold auditions, if needed - this can be as simple and laid back as having people send in videos of themselves, so don't stress yourself
Print scripts and distribute to cast
Schedule filming (and optionally, rehearsals)
Memorize (and rehearse, if needed)
Film your movie, series or short
Edit
Upload the final product to the Browse Works category of the Forum!
For actors/parents: It depends on the crew you're looking to join; some allow people under 18 to work with them and some may not feel comfortable with that, so just ask the producer and/or casting director if they allow it! If they do, make sure to ask a parent/guardian for permission and if they say yes, you're good to go!
For producers/casting directors: If you're going to allow it, then be very careful about the ages of your cast and crew members - especially the ones who will be playing love interests! You don't want the age gap to be too large, and if someone ends up getting hurt and you don't step up to rectify the situation, it will end up reflecting badly on you!
Here at HQ, we prefer to cast people 18 and over, because it makes things a lot less complicated - as far as managing relationships appropriately, and making sure no cast/crew members get in trouble in the event of disapproving parents or guardians finding out. But again, that's just us - you can make your own rules for that!
Email your question to us at rilayaindieproject@gmail.com! We will try to get back to you as soon as we can!