As the end of the semester approaches, final projects can feel like a dark cloud looming over our heads. As a film student, these projects are no small heap. 

Even in an introductory-level course, final projects require writing, directing, producing, and editing a short film; a terrifying endeavor for first-year students with little to no experience. 

I know that’s how I felt last year when I had to create my first short film. As a screenwriting major, I was taking the required course, “Modes of Film and Video Production” with Laura Gede, and as the project grew closer, I was so overwhelmed at the idea of creating my own work. 

But it is doable. The key is to rely on your resources and stay organized. I’m not just talking about equipment. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provides cinema students with all the equipment needed for a project, but students can’t direct and operate the camera and sound all on their own. 

Those resources helped University of Iowa third-year cinema student Abril Garcia Rojas work on her independent student film “The Sacrament.” It’s through the community she built in her film classes that she could staff and produce her feature. 

“Advice I’d give to students is to find community within your classes. Make friends, acquaintances, and find out what people like doing on sets and what their interests are,” Garcia Rojas said. “Get out there, become extroverted, get to know how to network, but also so that people can find their groups and make films together!”

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But working on student films is more than just working on your own projects. Part of building a network is lending yourself out to your friends’ projects. Don’t be afraid to be the boom pole operator, gaffer, or lighting director, because any experience is good experience. 

Those behind-the-scenes jobs might not seem the most glamorous, but those 11 p.m. shoots where you can’t get the take because your actors keep laughing or someone keeps getting the boom in the shot are the ones you will remember long after you graduate. 

Another important thing to remember is one of the oldest rules in cinema: What can go wrong will go wrong. That is the message Gede always imparts to her students. 

“You want to think through all the things you could imagine going wrong and create plans for them. Make sure you check in with your actors, check in with locations, create shot lists and shooting schedules, come up with some backup plans, and build padding into your schedule just in case things take longer than you’re expecting,” Gede said. “All of these things will give you flexibility and the ability to pivot when something inevitably goes wrong on set.”

While the practical production of film is what finishes the film, it’s the imaginative side that creates the story. Carter Routt, a UI second-year cinema major who has made a variety of short films through the program, said creating is the first step to getting better. 

“Make things you believe in,” Routt said. “Put full love and belief into a project you want to make, and it will be good, because you enjoy it, and that’s what matters.” 

The moral of the story is that making a student film is difficult. It’s a stressful process where weeks of hard work get compressed into one final, three-minute clip, which is screened to a classroom of 18-year-olds who will then critique it to your face. The last part, at least for me, has not gotten easier. But the result is worth it. 

There is nothing more rewarding than seeing your work on the big screen for people to enjoy. That’s why we study film. Because it is an art form we can enjoy and create together.