For the record: I graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in Film.

My 7th feature film, Forbidden Power, produced in 2018, won 39 awards including:

Best Picture (Hollywood), Best Thriller (London),  Best Sci-Fi Feature (India), Best Original Screenplay (Florence Film Awards Italy), Best Feature - (New York Cinematography Awards).

What Do I Do After Film School?

I get this question a lot so I decided to write down what worked for me and other filmmakers who continue to make movies. 

The most important thing is to always keep your shingle hanging out and saying:  "I am a freelance director." Never say, "Ah, I gave that up." Even if you have other jobs, never tear up your business cards.

Now that anyone can make a movie via digital and market it on the internet via Amazon and others, it's best not to think of yourself as just a director or just a writer. But think of yourself as a producing-director or producing-writer. Meaning, you're the one that gets your projected started and completed. 

Keep contact with all active filmmakers from film school. Work on their films. It's a business of showing up. Show up to shoots, in any capacity. Show up enough and do a good job, and be an ambassador of good will, and you have a good chance on being invited to work on other films.

Be courteous and respectful to everyone. The extra or stunt man of today's shoot could be the producer of tomorrow's movie project. It happened to me.

One of my 'swords-women' from Weapons of Death hired me to do a travelogue in Phuket, Thailand.

Actress Barbara Leigh, who I hired for a role in Rock Star Rising, hired me to direct her audio-book The King, McQueen, and the Love Machine.

My career improved when I realized that I was not only in the feature film business, but also in the COMUNICATION business.

In the 40s and 50s, United States train companies thought they were only in the train business. They did not invest in trucks and airplanes and were left behind. The train companies should have thought, "We are in the transportation business", and expanded to trucks, buses, and airplanes.

So be a soundman, an extra, an actor, a novelist, a speaker, a film teacher, (but don't get stuck in a dead end job). Be those as freelance, but not a stunt man, it's too dangerous. Yes, you will direct, but be in the Communication Business.

Also, you must start to develop your own projects that you feel passionate about. You never know when someone with money will ask you if you have a project. You should be able to instantly give him or her a script and budget and location plan and schedule.

Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai) said: 

"Young directors should learn to write. If you genuinely want to make films, then write screenplays. It is only through writing scripts that you learn the specifics about film structure and what cinema is.

Writers today want to get to the end right away. Writing is like mountain climbing; Never look at the peak and develop your story."

QuentinTarantino is the perfect example of this. He broke into the film business by writing scripts. He talks more about writing than he does about film technique. A movie IS the script. Francis Ford Coppola broke in into the business the same way with his Acadamy Award winning screenplay for Patten.

I believe the best way to compete and be noticed these days, with many movies being made and put on the net, is by writing a great script. A script you can produce yourself or make a deal with contacts to produce together or even to sell it to another producer. 

To get a feature film made, one top Hollywood producer said it the best: "You have to stand on a mountain top all alone and yell the name of your movie into the wind for years."

I found this to be true , except one time when I got lucky with my 3rd feature film and raised the money in six weeks. But that was the only time it happened so fast. However, it could happen that fast for you. You never know in the 'crap-shoot' of making movies.

You never know who will hire you or finance your next feature film. Because I was in the karate circles in San Francisco, I met martial arts champion Ron Marchini who hired me to direct my 2nd feature; Death Machines.

It was picked up for distribution by Crown International and opened in 50 theaters in Southern California, and gave me the credit to continue to my next feature. All that good, came from meeting various martial artists until I met Ron, who was brave enough to finance and star in the movie.

I found that the best, and maybe the only way, to get your feature film made is to do every bit of pre-production that you can, without actually making the movie, or spending too much money.

This would include: script, budget, location list, crew list, letters of intent from star actors (who could impress investors, even character actors), all legal papers, investment percentage points that the investors will get for a given amount of money, so that you can say it exactly when you suddenly meet an investor who is interested.

And you will meet them, not only in venture capital offices, but is some unusual places where they hang out. Just remember; Business is where you find it.

Arthur P. Jacops, got Planet of the Apes financed by paying for colorful drawings of special scenes from the script that he could show studio heads and investors.

And though it's good to have various scripts and projects that you're interested in, it's best to have one project that is most important to you. So much so, that it wouldn't matter if it were your only movie, just as long as you make it. You would even sell your Porsche to make it.

One guy I knew personally, who was 28, had been trying to make a movie he wrote starring himself. (Like Marchini succesfully did with Death Machines a year earlier). When he inherited $100,000, enough to make a techniscope 35mm movie at the time, he went out and bought a Porche.

He actually said these words to me; "Well, since I bought the Porche, I quess I can't make the movie."

Hey, it's okay to buy a car and less risky. Maybe he was right to do it. But his Porche has now gone to rust and Death Machines recently went to Blu-ray with my commentary. Both choices are right. Make your choice.

As Fess Parker said, "To be in the entertainment business, you have to be in a state of unreality." (To others, that translates as 'crazy'.)

To keep your mind focused on your project, continue watching your favorite films. Keep reading books by directors and watching DVD bonus programs and listening to commentary tracks. This is an incredible teaching device that will help program your subconscious to keep you on the right track. 

If you are truly in it for the long run, join and actively maintain social networks. There's plenty of film groups on Facebook, Linkedin and others.

All the fortune 500 companies and Hollywood studios are on Linkedin. You know, all that 'non artistic' but 100% necessary business. Not as fun as Facebook, but totally necessary if you want to build for the long run, because to be a long run artist takes continued business links.

To repeat, work on everyone's film. Yes, some will not appreciate your help, some will not pay you what they promised, but others will. You must have some kind of short film or video to show someone when you get an opportunity.

I've directed seven features (did post-production on many more) and still want to do more. That's why I wrote & produced six audio-books with famous actors. (They are free on youtube on my channel: Paul Kyriazi)

Maybe a producer who is a fan of those actors will like one of the audio-book stories and ask for a script.

I hired Frank Sinatra Jr. to narrate my full-cast audiobook of McKnight's Memory. (A novel that I wrote.) Frank liked my projects and planned to produce his life story as well as McKnight's Memory as a movie. He said that I would direct both. Before that happened, Frank got sick and left the planet. But that's an example of what can happen.

After that, I used my own money to produce and direct Forbidden Power from the novel I wrote. It was the right risk at the right time. I got very lucky with it.

Beware, age 26. That's when all my movie friends gave up. Four years after college. Their wives, girlfriends, or even parents said, "Well, you gave it a shot, now you have to get a real job."

Note: I recently saw a quote by Ben Franklin that echoes my idea about age 26. I was only off by a year: “Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five.”

Be sure to work other jobs to keep the rent money coming in. I worked freelance day jobs and at night I screened my first feature to buyers and future investors.

Most of all, repeating, stay in touch with every active filmmaker in your group and the ones you meet on the internet. And make a contribution, whether it's passing on your used DVDs, helping to write a project, or participate in the financing. You have to ask, ask the right people, have something to give, make a deal and keep asking other 'right' people.

If you're interested in directing for the creative expression and lifestyle, or to do that one great story you have in your heart, you'll stay in it.

However, if you only dream of fame and money, it's too hard to stay motivated for that alone and you'll seek other paths for that.

And the best part is that you can't even imagine the surprises that come when you follow your dreams. I have too many personal examples to list here, but it's amazing what comes and how it comes. And when you're getting paid to do what you love to do, you'll know that the price of perseverance was well worth it. 

2019 Note: Now that feature films can be filmed on smart-phones in 4K and can be sold on Amazon and Vimeo, the financial risk is lower to make and market a movie. Of course, this means that the competition is greater. But as Tarrentino says;

"Make the greatest, most unusual, most kick-ass movie that has ever been made and you'll be found."

Click the below link to read the very important:

15 Screenplay Points to Engage Your Audience When You Have No Stars

Also read: 'Film Producers Must Read' (here on AD) https://bit.ly/2Cuii9H