1. Get your hands on some material. Write it yourself, buy it from a friend, option the rights of a book - you name it, but get something to shoot.

2. Find yourself a partner. I had two other great partners when working on my first film. You might be able to go it alone, but i don't recommend it. The trick is finding someone as passionate as you, that also shares the same sensibility.

3. Determine what you want to make - is it a movie, tv pilot, short subject, documentary, play, what?

4. Determine the format - are we talking super-8, video, 16mm, 35mm?

5. Determine the cost - how much do you want to spend? How much can you raise (or have in your own pocket)?

Take your time with this - it can only really be done after the script is written.

6. Determine how you want to gather the money - car washes, bagel sales, borrow from a rich uncle (the best way), form a limited partnership (like i have done on several occasions), applying for a grant? Each form of money raising will have its own "costs" and attending paperwork.

7. Start raising the $ - in my experience, this is the single hardest task you will undertake. You will need to put together some form of presentation for any kind of money people (rich uncle or not) that spells out a minimum of the following:

A. A description of the project.

B. A budget of the project - including how much you want from that individual.

C. Risk factors - to warn the investor what they're up against.

D. Some form of business plan, i.e. when you will shoot, when you'll be done and where you will sell it (and to whom and for how much) and when they'll get their money back and how much profit you intend to make.

These are the very basics of what you will encounter.

You will need to fight the image of the "flakey" creative person and must learn to talk the language of businessmen.

Be prepared to spend a minimum of two years on your first project - i spent 4 years on the first film, from beginning to end.

Be flexible, resiliant, creative (on the business end in particular) and bone up on all of the various business-oriented methods of raising money. It's not pretty, but it can be done!

There you have it.