The Film Lab · Online · Your pace · Coming soon
Christopher Liebe's filmmaking course, refined over two decades in the classroom and now rebuilt for online. Learn at your own pace from anywhere in the world. Make your first short early, with the camera you already own, and keep making them.
The method
Film school can take years and cost a fortune before you make anything. In the Film Lab you make three films, each one a little bigger than the last. Move as fast as your life allows. What matters is that you finish each one.
A clear beginning, middle and end in twelve seconds, in one location, made solo or with a friend. No dialogue, so you learn to tell the story with pictures.
Now the actors speak. Coverage, sound and editing start to matter, and you've already finished one film.
A real short, from idea to screen, made with whoever you can gather. This is the film students send to festivals.
Use the people, the free locations and the camera you already have, wherever you live. Spend nothing or next to nothing.
Your first films happen in a single place you control, with one actor, or two if the story needs them. Every extra location multiplies the work and the things that can go wrong.
A finished small film teaches more than an unfinished big one. Don't break your spirit or your bank account.
The course
The same course Christopher has refined in person for two decades, rebuilt for online: short video lessons, hands-on camera, light and sound tests, quizzes, and goals you set for each film. Start on your own, anywhere in the world, and join the weekly live class whenever you can.
Also coming: a module on AI filmmaking, for building sets and worlds around real actors, so one or two people can work like a studio.
Free · Works on your phone
Interactive simulators that follow the real rules of light, lenses and sound. Each one ends with a challenge.
Film festival achievements
Most graduates of the Hollywood Film Lab had never made a film prior to taking the course. Many of our students have gone on to create projects that have become Official Selections or won awards at film festivals around the world. Most of their projects were made during the course or soon after graduating. Those classes were in person in Los Angeles; the online Film Lab brings the same method to wherever you are.
How it will work
Start with free lessons, the quizzes and the simulators. No card needed.
Every lesson, recorded, to take at your own pace, with quizzes and levels to earn.
A weekly live online class with Christopher: questions and feedback on your films. Watch the replay if you can't make it.
Post your films, get feedback, find collaborators near you, and learn from Film Lab alumni and working pros.
Everything above, from wherever you live. Shoot with friends, family or yourself, and share your films with the community. This is where the Film Lab starts.
Live near LA? In-person workshops and shoots with Christopher are planned for later. Join the waitlist and say you're local.
Enrollment isn't open yet. Join the waitlist and you'll be first to know when it opens.
Join the waitlist
Your teacher
Founder of the Hollywood Film Lab. Award-winning producer, cinematographer and actor, and a Meisner teacher at Playhouse West. As a guest lecturer, he taught a Film Lab intensive for the University of Cincinnati's entire BFA Acting program and its faculty. He learned on set from Academy Award-winning cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, holds Aputure Lighting Certification, completed REDucation through RED Digital Cinema, and is a lifetime member of the Digital Cinema Society.
