Jason Sherman

In this episode of Strap On Your Boots, I reflect on nearly twenty years of independent filmmaking and why I believe there has never been a better time to make a movie. Using my latest documentary, Before the Moon, as an example, I explore how affordable cinema cameras, drones, editing tools, social media, direct screenings, physical media, and digital distribution have transformed what independent filmmakers can accomplish. The technology is more accessible than ever, but the real advantage comes from finding a great story, building an audience around it, and creating something people genuinely want to see.

Listen to the podcast:

Get ready to strap on your boots. I’m your host, Jason Sherman. Today I want to talk about making movies. Because I recently finished my latest movie, Before the Moon, a documentary about the early days of the space race and the people and technology that helped prepare America for human spaceflight. Finishing it got me thinking about how different the experience of making an independent movie is today compared with when I first started Delphia Entertainment back in 2007. I’ve been making films for almost twenty years now, and when I look at the equipment I used, the way we distributed movies, and how we reached audiences back then, it almost feels like another industry.

When I started, making something that looked like a professionally produced movie required a lot more equipment. Cameras were bigger, heavier, and expensive, and getting that cinematic look on an independent budget wasn’t nearly as accessible. DSLRs were starting to change things around that period, and eventually smaller cameras began producing images that would’ve required much more expensive equipment only a few years earlier. Editing was becoming more accessible too, although you still needed a powerful computer, a lot of storage, and enough patience to figure out how all of this stuff worked. I remember constantly thinking about what I could accomplish with the equipment I could actually afford.

Distribution was another challenge entirely. DVDs were still important, streaming was emerging, and independent filmmakers didn’t have nearly as many direct paths to an audience. You could spend an enormous amount of time and money making a movie and then discover that getting people to actually see it was a completely separate problem. Distribution still involved a lot of gatekeepers, and unless somebody with access to those distribution channels believed in your movie, there were limits to how far you could realistically take it.

I kept making movies anyway, and one of the interesting things about doing this for so long is that I got to experience the technology changing from one project to the next. I made Bucks County Massacre, then The King’s Highway, then Cutting Corners, and every time I started another production, I seemed to have access to something that would’ve been difficult or expensive during the previous one. Cameras improved. Editing software improved. Computers became faster. Storage became cheaper. Online video became normal. Eventually drones gave me the ability to put a camera in the air without hiring a helicopter or some specialized aerial production crew.

Digital distribution was changing at the same time. Streaming platforms became a normal way to watch movies, and companies like Filmhub started giving independent filmmakers additional ways to get their work into the digital marketplace. I began realizing that the distance between finishing an independent movie and potentially reaching an audience was getting shorter. There were still plenty of challenges, and there always will be, but I wasn’t looking at the same distribution environment I had encountered when I started.

What really fascinated me was that the quality of what I could produce kept increasing without my budgets increasing at the same rate. Every few years, technology that had once belonged primarily to larger productions became affordable enough for somebody like me to own and learn how to use. Owning the equipment was especially important because I wasn’t paying a rental house every time I wanted to shoot something. Once I bought a camera, a lens, a microphone, or eventually a drone, I could use it on the next project too. Over time, I was gradually building my own little production infrastructure.

By the time I started making Before the Moon, I could see how dramatically all of those changes had accumulated. I was making a documentary involving NASA history, the space race, astronauts, engineers, flight controllers, archival material, and a story that stretches back decades. Visually, I wanted it to feel appropriate for the scale of the subject. I didn’t want people watching it and thinking that it looked like somebody made a small independent documentary because that’s what the budget happened to be.

I was able to shoot the movie in 4K using professional cinema equipment, including cameras that meet the technical standards used for major streaming productions. I could take those cameras on the road for interviews and then put a drone into the air when I needed aerial footage. I had equipment small enough that I could move quickly and handle a tremendous amount of the production myself. Then I could bring everything back to my own editing system and assemble the movie there.

The strange part was that I wasn’t suddenly working with some enormous Hollywood budget. I was still approaching the film as an independent filmmaker. I had simply gained access to tools that would’ve seemed incredibly expensive or completely impractical when I started in 2007.

And I think that’s where independent filmmaking has changed in a really fundamental way. The amount of money separating an independent filmmaker from professional-looking production has dropped dramatically. You can buy equipment and continue using it across multiple projects, and in some cases you can begin with the camera that’s already sitting in your pocket. There are still reasons to use professional cinema cameras, good lenses, proper audio equipment, lighting, and experienced people when the production calls for them. I’ve invested in those things myself. But the equipment is no longer the barrier it once was.

After finishing Before the Moon, I realized that the bigger challenge had moved somewhere else. I had to figure out how to turn all of these accessible tools into a movie people would actually care enough about to watch.

That became especially clear to me while I was making Before the Moon, because the subject already had something that every independent filmmaker should be thinking about long before the movie is finished. There was a community around it. People who care about NASA and the history of the space program tend to really care about it. They know the astronauts, the missions, the spacecraft, the facilities, and all of these stories that most people have probably never heard. I wasn’t starting from scratch and trying to convince people that space history was interesting. I was entering a community that already existed and trying to give them a story they hadn’t seen before.

I started sharing material from the movie online while I was building that audience, and the response surprised me. The Facebook and Instagram pages took off, and within a matter of months the content had generated more than fifteen million views and attracted around fifty thousand followers. I didn’t have some giant advertising budget behind that. People were finding the material because they were already interested in NASA, astronauts, the space race, and the history surrounding it, and then they were sharing it with other people who had the same interests. I could actually watch the potential audience for the documentary forming before the movie was released.

That experience made me think differently about how I would approach an independent film from the very beginning. If I were talking to somebody who wanted to make a documentary today, one of the first things I’d want to know is who already cares about the subject. Maybe it’s a particular sport, a musician, a historical event, a neighborhood, a scientific discovery, a social issue, or some strange subculture that most of us know nothing about. There are communities built around almost everything now, and you can find those people online much more easily than I could when I started making movies.

Of course, having a community doesn’t guarantee that they’ll care about your particular film. You still have to earn their attention. I found that the more interesting material I shared from Before the Moon, the more I learned about what people responded to. Sometimes it was an astronaut. Sometimes it was an old photograph or a piece of forgotten history. People would comment with their own memories, correct details, ask questions, and share stories about relatives who had worked in the space program. That interaction became useful while I was still working on the larger project because I could see which parts of this history had an emotional connection with people.

Eventually, all of that online attention had to translate into something in the real world. We held a private screening of Before the Moon, and around eight hundred and fifty people showed up. Seeing that many people physically come to watch an independent documentary was probably one of the strongest forms of validation I could have gotten. These weren’t views scrolling past on a social media feed. People bought tickets, drove to the venue, sat through the movie, and spent an evening experiencing it together.

The economics of that event were just as interesting to me because the screening helped me recover the money I had put into making the film. We also sold merchandise, books, DVDs, Blu-rays, and other items connected with the movie. Suddenly I wasn’t looking at the screening purely as a promotional event for some future streaming release. The screening itself was part of the business surrounding the film.

That’s an area where I think independent filmmakers can learn a lot from musicians. Musicians have spent years dealing with a world where their music can reach enormous audiences through streaming while the economics of those streams don’t necessarily support the entire career. So they tour. They sell shirts, records, posters, special editions, and merchandise. The people who really care about the artist want something beyond access to a song on their phone.

I’ve started seeing independent films in a similar way. I can show Before the Moon at a theater or another venue and create an experience around it. Someone might buy a ticket and watch the movie, then pick up a Blu-ray or DVD afterward. Maybe they want a hat, a book, or something else associated with the film. That direct relationship with the audience gives an independent filmmaker ways to generate revenue that have very little to do with waiting for a streaming platform to send a royalty payment.

I’ve actually been surprised by how much people still like physical media. We live in this world where almost everything is supposed to be available instantly through streaming, yet people continue buying DVDs and Blu-rays. Some of it is nostalgia, but I think there’s also something reassuring about owning a copy of a movie you care about. Streaming catalogs change constantly. Movies disappear, shows get removed, services change their libraries, and the thing you assumed would always be available suddenly isn’t there anymore. A disc sitting on your shelf doesn’t have that problem.

For an independent filmmaker, those physical products have another meaning too. Someone buying your Blu-ray directly from you isn’t simply consuming the movie. They’re supporting the next thing you might make.

That has changed how I think about a film budget. If I buy a camera for one movie and keep it, that camera can work on the next movie. The same applies to microphones, lenses, lights, drones, computers, storage, and all the other equipment I’ve accumulated. If screenings, merchandise, physical media, and distribution eventually allow the film to earn back what I spent making it, I still own much of the infrastructure I purchased along the way.

Then I can start the next movie from a very different position than I started the last one.

And after nearly twenty years of doing this, that’s probably one of the biggest changes I’ve noticed. Each film doesn’t have to feel like I’m rebuilding an entire production company from zero. The equipment carries forward, the skills carry forward, the audience can carry forward, and hopefully the experience of figuring out what people actually care about carries forward too.

The other thing I’ve learned is that having access to all of this technology doesn’t necessarily make the actual filmmaking easier. In some ways, it gives you more responsibility because there are so many things you can now do yourself. I can shoot an interview, record the audio, fly the drone, organize the footage, edit the movie, work on the marketing, build the website, create promotional material, and communicate directly with the audience. Twenty years ago, many of those jobs would’ve required different people or companies. Today, one filmmaker can handle a surprising amount of the process.

I did a huge amount of the work on Before the Moon myself, but the technology was only useful because I was willing to learn how to use it. That’s an important distinction because I sometimes hear people talk about filmmaking equipment as though buying the right camera is what finally allows you to make a movie. I’ve owned plenty of cameras over the years, and none of them ever found a story for me. They didn’t research the subject, find the people I needed to interview, convince those people to participate, or help me figure out what to do when the story started moving in a direction I hadn’t expected.

Most of my time on Before the Moon wasn’t spent thinking about whether I had an expensive enough camera. I was researching. I was going through historical material, looking for photographs and footage, finding people who had been involved, arranging interviews, traveling, asking questions, and gradually understanding how all of these individual stories fit together. Then I had to sit down with everything I had collected and turn it into a movie that somebody could follow for more than an hour.

That’s where I think people sometimes underestimate filmmaking. You really can start shooting a movie with your phone now. The image coming out of a modern phone can be remarkably good, especially if you understand lighting, composition, sound, and how to use the camera properly. That removes a financial obstacle that would’ve been much more significant when I started. Once you begin filming, though, you’re still facing all of the creative decisions that filmmakers have always faced. You have to recognize which material matters, what belongs in the story, what needs to be removed, and whether the audience is going to care about any of it.

Distribution has gone through a similar transformation. When I started Delphia Entertainment in 2007, I thought much more about getting through the gatekeepers because there weren’t nearly as many ways around them. Today, I can start building an audience before I’ve finished the movie. I can release clips, photographs, historical material, interviews, trailers, and updates directly to people who might eventually watch it. I can organize my own screening, sell tickets directly, sell physical copies and merchandise, and continue showing the film in different communities.

Professional distribution still matters to me. I wanted Before the Moon to have a life beyond the audience I could reach myself, and the film ultimately landed with an established global distributor whose portfolio includes movies featuring Academy Award-winning talent. That’s exciting because it gives the documentary an opportunity to reach audiences in places I could never reach through my own screenings and social media accounts. At the same time, I didn’t have to wait for that distribution agreement before discovering whether there was an audience for the film. I already had thousands of followers, millions of views, a packed screening, merchandise sales, physical media sales, and direct conversations with people who cared about the story.

If I were starting my first movie today, that’s probably where I would put a lot of my attention. I’d spend serious time thinking about the story and the community around it before worrying about whether I had the perfect camera. I’d start talking to people who care about the subject, learn what fascinates them, and find the stories they haven’t heard a hundred times already. Then I’d start filming with whatever equipment I could reasonably afford and improve things as the project developed.

I also wouldn’t assume I needed a huge crew simply because that’s what a movie is supposed to have. There are productions where a large crew is absolutely necessary, and I’ve worked with plenty of talented people who made my films better. But I wouldn’t allow the absence of a crew to prevent me from beginning. I’ve found that once there’s something real to show people, it’s much easier to attract collaborators, supporters, sponsors, interview subjects, and eventually an audience.

It’s strange for me to think back to 2007 now. If you had told me then that I’d eventually be able to carry a professional 4K cinema camera in a relatively small bag, put another camera hundreds of feet into the air with a drone, bring everything home and edit a feature documentary on my own computer, then promote that movie directly to millions of people online, I would’ve had a hard time imagining how all of that would work.

I probably would’ve had an even harder time believing that I could fill a venue with hundreds of people, sell the movie directly to them, recover the production budget, and still have the opportunity afterward to send the film into worldwide distribution.

After making movies for almost twenty years, I think that’s why I’m so optimistic about independent filmmaking right now. There are more ways to shoot, finance, promote, exhibit, sell, and distribute a movie than I’ve ever had available to me. None of those things remove the months of research, the long editing sessions, the uncertainty, or the enormous amount of work involved in finishing a film.

I just know that when I started, there were things I wanted to do that were simply beyond what I could afford or access. A lot of those barriers aren’t there anymore. Now when I think about another movie, I spend much less time wondering whether I have permission or resources to make it. I find myself thinking about whether there’s a story interesting enough that I’m willing to spend the next year chasing it.

And if there is, I already have a camera.