The Sound of Silence

You need great sound on your film.  Not good sound.  Great.  It doesn't matter if your flick is one of the best looking things to hit the screen in a while.  Production value won't matter.  If your sound is crappy it's going to distract your audience and they will not care for your movie.  Bad sound is annoying.  It grates on people.  All people.
As a rule you should never use your on camera mic for your primary audio.  Cameras never have great mics and they usually take in every sound in the world making for very cluttered audio.  Plus all cameras make internal noise.  Even digital ones make sound when recording.  When filming my DSLR cameras make a clicking sound as the internal mechanisms do their thing.  Those clicks come through onto the audio because all that internal noise is coming from a place right next to the very sensitive mic in the camera.  I've heard this noise on other short films and that's a dead give away that they used the on board mic.
Another issue with the on board mic is that the closest thing to the mic is going to be the loudest thing on the audio track.  That's not going to be your actors lines.  It's going to be your camera man breathing and grunting as he gets the shot. 
On my films I do a quick pass on the audio and then hand it off to someone who knows what they are doing.  I shoot my audio separate from my footage.  It's either going into a sound mans recorder or into a digital recorder.  If I do record sound into my camera its with a different mic than the one built into the camera.  I'll take that audio from the separate recording device and sync it up with the crappy on board sound and make sure that the audio is all at the same level.  That's the extent of what I'm gonna do.  I'll send the project to someone who does sound engineering and what I get back is a clean audio track that highlights my actors voices.
I've seen many an indie flick that hasn't taken the time to work their sound properly.  Ambient noise changes dramatically from one shot to the next giving the audience an annoying dose of random humming off and on during a conversation.  One actor is way louder than the other even though they are standing right next to each other.  It's all a mess and usually that's the thing I come away with at the end of the viewing.
The important part to take away from this post is that all parts of your film are important and need to be treated with as much care and attention as the the rest.

You Are Nobody Special

Arrogance.  I've met a lot of filmmakers in the local indie community over the last few years that reek of it.  Once they get a camera and shoot something they think they are entitled to special treatment.  Here's a news flash... they are not.  Especially if that is the attitude they have chosen to put out to the world.
It's amazing sometimes when I get someone telling me how important they are and how much they have done and they look down upon you for not being as great as they are but when I look into what they have done it turns out that it's usually pretty poor.  It's pretty poor with no intention of trying to get better on the next project due to the fact that they think they know it all and are creating gold from film.
There is an easy way to pick these folks out when wheeling and dealing in such a small film community like the one I work in.  Nobody wants to work with them.  Folks have jumped into that pool already and come out with no intention of jumping back in.  And that's why those filmmakers never go anywhere.  They burn every bridge they come to and think the reason they are having such difficulty in getting things made after that is due to the lack of professionalism and dedication to the craft.  In reality it's because those people have moved on to help out others who put the film first and their ego last.
I met and worked with one guy who held himself so high it was borderline silly.  He commented that the talent in Reno was rock bottom and that no one in this town would ever get anywhere.  Yet here he is.  In Reno.  Not really getting anything done because he's a jerk and people don't want to spend their weekend busting their butts while some yahoo who thinks he's too awesome for words barks orders at them.   I know I'll never work with him again.  And if he's so great why is he here and not killing it in Hollywood?  Cause he can't.  People like that can't make it in the big bad world of Hollywood and so they come to a smaller pond and act like the big fish.  I'm not saying that I'm better than them and that I could do better than they could.  I know I'm not.  But I also know I'm not the best in this small community.  I'm just telling my stories.  Hopefully I'm getting better with each time out.
I have a lot of names getting added to the list of folks I don't want to work with all the time.  I don't harbor any ill fortune to these folks but I'm not going to shed any sweat helping them out on a project anytime soon.  The great thing about this job is that for every person that alienates themselves due to inflated attitude there are seven more folks who are willing to put aside their ego and work along side you.  In the end we are part of a level of film making that is supposed to be fun first and foremost.  If you take away that aspect by working with jerks then you are basically giving up your free time to work for nothing and for someone who regards you as nothing more than a tool to get them what they want instead of treating you like a valuable part of the team.
Beware of becoming one of these people.  It's very difficult to get back into the good graces of folks you may have burned in the past.  This world moves fast and if you aren't careful you may get left behind.

Storyboards

I have come across a couple filmmakers in my time making films and videos who have told me not to bother with story-boarding.  They tell me that they never use them. They whole movie is playing out in their head so why bother wasting time putting it on paper?  I think those folks are wrong.  Really wrong.  And it's also the easiest way to tell if a director is in the project for himself or if he's working to help everyone making the film succeed.
For those not in the know... storyboards are the visual outline for the shots that are going to make up your film.  Little doodles that show someone the shot you are thinking of for a particular scene.  It breaks the whole movie down, shot for shot, and gives anyone that looks at it a really good idea of what the director wants.
Many indie filmmakers bypass the storyboards due to pride, I think.  They can't draw so they don't bother.  It's all in their head.  Why should they?  Because everyone else can't read your mind, that's why.  It doesn't matter if the storyboards are crude stick figure drawings.  Mine look stupid compared to the quality storyboards done on big budget films.  The point is to be able to show your crew and actors exactly what shots you want to get.  You could spend ten minutes trying to explain it to someone or you can show them in ten seconds what you are looking for in a set up.  It saves time and also adds a bit of security when in situations when you can't shoot the film yourself or if you don't have a monitor to see whats happening in camera.
It takes some time to draw up the storyboards but that's ok.  The time you spend sketching out the shots is well worth it to save time on the set when you have to get your day finished.  I've seen a lot of shoots drag on way later than needed while the director stands around with one person after another trying to explain what shot he wants to get.  This is going to cause frustration and annoyance really fast among a crew that is most likely working for free.
The big thing to remember is that you aren't the only one on the set if you are the director.  You have people looking for you to guide them in the most time efficient and clear way possible and if you keep information difficult to access they aren't going to care for following you.  When directing you are not the boss.  You are the leader.  First one in and the last one out.  If you start acting like the king then your people will revolt.

An example of my excellent storyboards.  Crappy drawings work!

Reshoots

I'm in the process of editing together my newest short film SUNRISE.  As I pick through all the footage and piece it together one little snippet at a time I am noticing more and more holes.  I've got all the major parts but there are the little things that get forgotten when working on the whole.

As the edit comes together I'll start thinking about how to plug the holes.  Little pick up shots I can get here and there without having to call together the cast and crew again.  The good thing about this particular shoot is that we did get all the major moments.  Sadly this is not the case for some shoots.  Even worse is that a lot of filmmakers see this as a hurdle too big to jump.  A lot of projects get left behind unfinished.

Don't let pride kill your storytelling.  If you have to go back to your actors and crew and ask for their help again then that's what you need to do.  You might have some issues to work through but it will be worth it to make sure the film gets finished.  Don't betray the trust of those who helped you out by hoping they never ask about the film that you don't intend to finish.

A couple years ago I shot a short that had issues and needed reshoots.  The ending that I had planned had to be scrapped and a new one shot.  I hunkered down and made the calls.  The crew were all on board to meet up to film for another day.  The cast was ready to finish up the film.  But there was one issue.  One of the main actresses had dyed her hair since the last time we filmed.  She went from blonde to brunette.  This was a little bit of a problem as she featured in the new ending.

We didn't let that stop us though.  We did a little addition that explained why the hair was different and we shot the new ending.  Luckily we were shooting a comedy so it was easier to get away with.  But the point is that we finished the movie.  We didn't let reshoots hinder our storytelling.

Don't let this happen to you.