Okay -- first and most important -- HAVE AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT -- have a real emotion you have not borrowed from someone else's movie or TV show or comic book. An emotion YOU OWN. Sure, all filmmakers make references to other films. Mozart made references to Haydn too, but Mozart had a vision and a voice and an intellect that was all his own. Filmmakers must also. So, make sure you live and have some kind of life experiences to speak from. Get your hands dirty in Real Life and experience the emotions and dreams and disasters and triumphs of real human beings. Volunteer at a food bank or old age home, walk across Central America or work the night shift at a bus station. In short, LIVE. Filmmaking is privilege, not something you "deserve". It's a privilege to be able to speak with the voice of the world's most powerful and popular art form. So have something to say that lives up to the privilege. No one wants to pay money to see a movie that's a predictable patchwork of other directors' films. An homage to every other director who ever lived? Who cares?! The only reason to slug through all the bullshit in Number Two (above) is that you deeply and desperately have a point of view and need to put it up on the screen. An audience wants to be taken somewhere real and amazing by a guide who knows where he/she is going.