ENTIRE INDIE on a XLs

[Eli R Cantu]

INDIE FLICK COMPLETLY ON A XLs


(LONG STORY OF PRODUCTION /SKIP DOWN FOR TRAILER LINK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ IT)

Ive been a member on this forum for a long time and occasionaly popped a few questions and answers. Mostly researched from all the kick A$$ advice you guys provide. I never contributed anything untill now.

About 5 months ago, some friends and I got the notion to do a short story no longer than 15mins for our own amusement. That short story spirled into a 62min indie being shown at the CineSol festival.

This was shot with no-budget and completly on a single dying XLs Camera. Our biggest expense was getting a Sennhieser boom mic and m-audio 24/96khr digital recorder. Everything else I built with everything you can find at your local Home Depot. Dolly and track, car mount, 7 ft camera crane jib, chinese light ball & camera stabalizer. Every problem in the book was incountered.


The Bad

*Absolutly no production experience for 90% percent of the crew.

*Broken lens assembly giving me focus issues from hell

*2 Crappy used monfrotto tripods, wich one broke (the cause of the broken lens assembly)

*No camera monitoring for crane & dolly shots making framing a huge concern.(made one for final shots from a lcd tv ripped out of my brothers truck.)

*Extreme low light situations with 35 dollars worth of floods bulbs and gels made from neon see through meade folders

*Location with air conditioners louder than jet engines required major audio mojo-ing.

*A Crew of 10-15 people with extreme conflicts in shceduling.

*Lil or no control over locations


The Good

* A kick ass crew that learned quickly

* A music manager who gathered the best music any porduction can ask for. (also thee major player in all our fundraising)

* A ton of bands who supported our cause and donated time for our multiple concert funraiser.

* A local theatre house who support and lends us a whole theatre for screening and for the premiere (coming soon)

* Local news publications that have been tracking our progress.


What format?

It was shot in DV NTSC 16:9 Widescreen (frame Mode) and will be delivered with 48khz 2-channel PCM Stereo & 5.1

Dolby digital audio format.


What was used for editing?

The entire line of Adobe Production Studio was called in for use.
* Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 - Video Editing
* Adobe Audition 1.5 - Audio Editing and Multichannel exporting
* After Effects Pro 7.0 - Effects, Composting, & Titling
* Adobe Encore 2.0 - DVD Authoring
* Adobe Photoshop CS2 -Digital removal of boon, track & equipment, DVD menu creation, graphics





With some ADR and alot of color correction to go. I wanted to give you guys an early first look of what we been doing for the past 4 months of pre, principle and post of production. This is really raw unalterd video straight from tha camera. No color correction has been applied and some scenes are a bit dark. Editing and sound scyncing has been the focus. Plus the bar part is being overdubbed cause of the loud ambience. With that said, please let me know what

you guys think.



CLICK FOR TRAILER (WMV9) 8 MEGS

http://www.savefile.com/files/14811

[Chad Ream]

My compliments. I am currently in the pre production stages of my first indie. The XL1s will be our primary camera used.

I thought the editing and audio was right in line. Very good first effort.

Chad

[Cole McDonald]

well done...looks great!

[Per Johan Naesje]

Eli,
got a server not alive errormessage when I try to download.

[Nick Weeks]

Me too... same error

[Eli R Cantu]

Savefile.com is having issues for the time being. Here is a new link to a slightly updated trailer. This will change once we get our leaf privliges from the CineSol festival.

http://www.savefile.com/files/14811

Chad thanks man. As for doing an indie with a XLs, Be carefull with the lowlight man. I teared up once I saw some of the raw footage off the camera cause of not enough light. But hey you learn.

Thanks Cole for the compliment. I checked out your website and saw "curtain call" for a 48hr film festival. NICELY done man. Were 2 days away from starting on a 36hr film festival an wondered if got any adivce on working on a insane time table.

[Jaadgy Akanni]

Great achievement, considering all the obstacles you had to overcome. The audio seems excellent. Some shots do look a little soft, and the darker scenes a little grainy, but overall, this looks pretty good. Good luck with it.

[Cole McDonald]

Originally Posted by Eli R Cantu

Thanks Cole for the compliment. I checked out your website and saw "curtain call" for a 48hr film festival. NICELY done man. Were 2 days away from starting on a 36hr film festival an wondered if got any adivce on working on a insane time table.

Preproduction will save you...know what you're going to shoot in what order as soon as you finish writing the script, write the shooting script/storyboards/schedule...shoot by the book. Lock your locations beforehand...so scout them for angles and whatnot before that. If you can't get interior locations from places...find locations with exterior awnings ;)

Get actors...more than 2...we had to get friends to fill in the body count when we drew horror...they had to drive 2 hours to get to the set. Have your actors do some auditioning before you start unless you have known commodit actors you've worked with in the past. Our "Director" in the show was one I had worked with in the past...but the female lead was unfamiliar and she apparently hadn't dealt with a camera before (stage exp)...so she ended up looking into the lens alot.

Assign one person to just script supervise. They will be the ones to let you know if you've missed any shots. Take the director/dp/lighting/scripty with you on the location scout so they know the environments before you get there.

setup fast but good...this gives you more takes per shot so you can get better footage.

have at least 2 editors so they can edit in shifts. Have the writer/s waiting by their computer for your phone call from the location where the assignment is made...everything in place for that moment. Then hit the ground running...schedule sleep in...that way folks will stay fresher (2-4 hours twice should do per person).

Have lots of deadlines, make them!