Stop Trying to “Break In”

There is no door anymore

When I started Raindance the prevailing wisdom to breaking in was pretty much these: Get an agent. Meet a producer. Impress a public funder. Win a festival prize. Persuade somebody in power to open the door.

But then, the damn door disappeared.

The still have traditional gatekeepers. They hide behind committees at studios, broadcasters, distributors, financiers and sales agents. These are the traditional power brokers who wield money and influence. But they no longer control the only route between a filmmaker and an audience.

Today, the gatekeepers are algorithms and audiences.

I used to find that frightening. Now I think it is liberating.

Why wait for the industry to discover you. You don’t need to anymore. Sounds simple, but all you need to do is create bold, fresh and original work, then find the people who care enough to champion it, and then build a system that allows you to do it again.

Here are seven reasons to stop trying to break in.

1. Permission Is Obsolete

The film industry used to be built around scarcity.

I remember the film stock days, where budgets were based on Kodak or Fuji film stock at so much per foot. A minute of 35mm film stock is 90 feet plus development and the cost of striking a work print. We used to go door to door to the film production offices in Soho and blag for ends and re-cans left over from big budget films and commercials. all that would be left to pay for would be the lab bill.

Then you needed the big expensive cameras that went out for a grand a day. And dont forget the price of those expensive lenses. Once finished there was the edit suites - not cheap either. Once finished there was the tricky job of getting a cinema chain to show it.

In those days, every door had a gatekeeper. Unless you could talk your way in, your film would never get made, and made even worse: not seen.

But it’s all changed. and here is where why it’s significant for you. Digital production, once the cussword of ‘film’ filmmakers, means we now shoot and edit digitally. Cameras and apps are cheap.

And then, BAM - the internet changed distribution.

Both gateways to the film industry, ie production and distribution have changed. dramatically

Mates started shooting shorts on their cell phones. In 2004 we launched the Nokia 15 second film competition.. Everyone thought we were mad. And we distributed them on Youtube.

Cell phones where huge breadleaf sized machines when I started Raindance. Now look at what you can do with a cell. You can even edit and patch in sound on your phone. And if you want to go large, edit on a laptop. All for pennies compared back to those early Raindance years.

Whats more, you can now get your movie in front of the world.

None of this is easy. It’s just possible to make a film today without having to abut for a yes from anyone. except yourself.

2. The Gatekeepers Have Changed

Don’t think we have changed gatekeepers. We haven’t. They have changed shape.

It used to be some crust studio exec wondering if greenlighting your film would make them look good. and make them money. It usually meant you had to go through committee after committee. My good friend Simon Hunter was lured to a three year spell in Hollywood following the success of Mutant Chronicles (2008) He recalls having to pitch to a room full of five dozen execs trying to decide if his new film would tick all of their boxes. Dispirited he came back to Blighty and directed Edie which won an award at Raindance. It was privately funded and played in a dozen countries.

Simon now teaches Saturday Film School with me, here in-person in London or Live!Online. Next date is September 19th.

Nowadays its different. Instead of a studio exec its much more likely to be an algorithm deciding whether your trailer appears in an influencers feed.

Here’s the new rule:
Algorithms reward attention. Audiences reward relevance.

Do you really think anyone cares if you went to film school? Do you think you still need an agent? If you have a festival screening, do the number of important people walking the red carpet cutely mean anything?

The one thing that matters to them? Do people stop scrolling when they land onto your trailer?

Here is the 2026/7/8 challenge. And it’s a completely different challenge from anything I have seen. Gone are the days when you walked into a room with a few powerful suits. Now you pitch to a multitude of people all over the place. but you still have to engage with each person one at a time.

This creates a different challenge. You are no longer pitching to one powerful person in a private office. You are pitching to thousands of people in public, one moment at a time.

So you need ammunition. And there is a host of ammo you need to prepare. Your poster is ammo. The movie’s title is a pitch - those 1-5 words, taut and tense. Your opening scene is a pitch. And so are your social posts, trailer, emails and conversations. Each element is part of the relationship between your film and its audience. And no audience? Nobody wants that.

Learning how to reach and engage people is now part of learning how to make films.

3. Your Audience Is Part of the Project

I see so many filmmakers make a film and when they laid out their blood, sweat and beers they then ask who might want to watch it.

That’s like opening a train station in the middle of a wilderness and then wondering if anyone will come.

I now teach my students and mentors that the pathway starts, not from a perfectly typed and bound 90 page screenplay, but understanding the emotional promise of your work.

Those of you who have endured my five week screenwriting class will know that I keep asking these same boring questions:

• Who is this for?

• Why would they care?

• Where do these people gather?

• What films, books, music, causes, hobbies or communities already matter to them?

You don’t want everyone to come to your movie. In fact, trying to appeal to everybody often produces work that means very little to anybody.

You need a defined group of people, a targeted demographic, who feel that your film speaks to them in emotional terms.

Build a group of followers. Bring them to test screenings. Ask them to believe in your vision. Get them to support your crowdfunding campaigns. My guess is that they will start following you from one project to the next.

That is not merely an audience. It is the beginning of a career.

4. Build Your Own Pipeline

Forget the ladder analogy to building a career, one slippery rung after another. You know the drill: make a proof of concept short, submit to film festivals, win awards, make your debut quirky low budget feature, rinse and repeat with bigger budgets and bigger stars.

That ladder was an illusion. What’s more, it was missing several rungs at the ground level.

I like to think of career as pipeline. You shove your ideas in one end. You are writing, testing, collaboration and production, and then they become finished work out the other end. That work attracts viewers, relationships, information and income. Those resources then help you make the next project.

Your pipeline might include short films, microdramas, live events, verticals, online screenings, newsletters, branded work, teaching or consulting.

Not every part has to make money. But every part should contribute something: income, experience, collaborators, credibility, useful data or a stronger relationship with your audience.

If every project begins from zero, you do not yet have a pipeline.
You have a recurring emergency.

5. Stop Waiting for the Breakthrough

Two terms really annoy me because they both myths. The first the myth of the overnight success. And the second is the ‘breakthrough’

The film publicists love to trot out the overnight success. Journalists rave about the surprise festival hit. Bloggers and journalists tout the unknown filmmaker suddenly handed a major opportunity. What is missing are the hours of unpaid work on small projects, the failed pitches, the awkward meetings and the slow burn of relationship-building.

I’m not saying that breakthroughs don’t happen. Just don’t be delusional. No one can build a career plan built around being struck by professional lightning.

A career is built through stacks and stacks of little things.

One completed short leads to a collaborator. That collaborator introduces you to a producer. The film attracts a small audience. Part of that audience supports the next project. The next project is better because you learned from the first.

No individual moment may feel life-changing on its own. But added together, they change your life.

Many ask me, “What will make me famous?”
You should ask, “What can I finish that leads to the next achievable goal?”

6. Own the Relationship

This is a lesson I have recently learned: Own your audience.

I was wondering why visits and clicks to the Raindsance website had dropped so suddenly. It was only last week that I discovered why. You see, we use ads on google to sell stuff and fill seats at the festival. But now Google answers these inquiries on their site (thanks to AI BTW). And they can do that because they own their platform, and most likely own your data too.

Basically we are all renters on Google. and last week I found out that Google had changed the locks.

A large social-media following can feel like an audience. It is really borrowed access. The platform you use controls the algorithm. It decides who sees your work. It can change its rules, reduce your reach, close your account or disappear entirely.

Use the big platforms, but do not build your entire career on rented ground.

Find ways to own the relationship. Build an email list. Create a website. Gather audience information with permission. Invite people to screenings and events. Give them reasons to stay in contact after the credits roll.

A distributor may help you release one film. A festival may screen one film. A broadcaster may commission one programme. But the relationship you build with your audience can travel with you throughout your career.

Your greatest long-term asset may not be a camera, a screenplay or even a particular film.

It may be the list of people who want to know what you do next.

7. Build a System, Not a Fantasy

A fantasy depends on someone important saying yes.
Your pipeline system continues even when they say no.

Your system does not need to be complicated. It needs to answer a few simple questions.

• How do you generate and test new ideas?

• How do you meet collaborators?

• How do you improve your skillset?

• How do you finance small projects?

• How do you entive people to discover your work?

• How do you stay connected with your audience?

• How does one project help lead to the next one?

Once you start answering those questions, your career becomes more certain. You lose the mystery of what builds a career.. In other words, you stop banging on a door waiting for a gatekeeper that no longer exists.

Here are the facts. If you make something, and get an audience, that, ironically is when the industry gets all interested. and excited. Look at the success of Succession.

It was made by Curry Barker a filmmaker, actor, comedian, and YouTuber. He is known for the sketch comedy YouTube channel "that's a bad idea" that has over 1.5 million followers. Oncce he had that in place, he made the feature which sold to Focus Features for a very healthy sum. And now he can pretty much do waht he wants.

But by then, you are no longer begging the gatekeepers. You are evaluating offers to see whaich one suits your career trajectory.

From Elliot’s Notebook

When I started Raindance in 1993, I did not have permission. I just did it. In fact I had some very important people wearing well press shirts and expensive shoes at the BFI telling me that I shouldn’t or couldn’t. I can’t repeat some of the language they used.

You see, these powerful bastions of the film industry hadn’t decided that Britain needed another film festival. I didn’t know what I was doing. True. All I knew is that I wanted to do it.

I started with what I had. I learned what I didn’t know, usually by making painful mistakes. And I found people who believed independent filmmakers deserved another route.

That is the heart of independent filmmaking.

You do not wait for the door to open.
You gather the tools, find your people and start building.

Start Building at Saturday Film School

If you have been waiting for someone to explain how the film industry really works, start with the Raindance Saturday Film School. Net one is szeptember 19th. In person or Live Online.

In one intensive day, you will discover the essential principles of screenwriting, directing, producing and how to break in. I dont use jargon. You’ll get no false promsies. Just some basic, home-grown facts based on my 35+ years sweating it out.

You do not need an invitation. All you need is a Saturday
and the determination to make the next step happen.

Want more Raindance?

• The Film Industry You Were Promised Is Gone
  This establishes why the traditional career ladder and gatekeeper model no longer work.

• How to Design a Filmmaker and/or Screenwriter Career Engine
  This develops your central idea that a sustainable career is a repeatable system—not one lucky breakthrough.