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I learned from filming my PMP that when you're making a film as small as the PMP keep things as simple as possible. Which is what I did. I think because I didn’t make my story complicated it was very easy to shoot. When I was writing my script, I set it in my apartment so I wouldn’t go through the trouble of losing my location and to make access to the equipment easy. Since we weren’t allowed dialogue, I had to think of a story that would make sense without dialogue. So, I wrote in my script that the characters lose their voices to explain the lack of dialogue.

From shooting the PMP, I learned that I made the right call by making it simple. Because I set it in my apartment it made visualizing everything easy. So, when it came time to shoot almost everything I wrote came to life. I made very minimal changes to the story during production. I learned that I have a visual style of writing, I know how to write action and I think my PMP proves it. However, I must admit that I wish I had written fewer characters. As 4 minutes is not enough for 4 characters. Not only was it hard to cast them but I think if I had fewer characters it would have given me more time to focus on one character instead of making it an ensemble story.

In summary, I learned a lot from making my PMP. I learned that writing action is easier if you have a mental image of where you are filming. I learned that I should write fewer characters if my time is shorter to have more focus on the story. I learned that writing a script is easier if you know the kind of story you want to tell, it gives you focus and keeps the tone consistent throughout. If you have constraints either try to work around them or incorporate them in your script.