![]() |
Quote:
As a matter of fact all of you folks giving him advice are spending $20k plus. What are you folks doing to get this money back? |
It's easy to get the budget to go up, up, up. We increased our production values quite a bit, including hiring a semi-name actor (Jeff MacKay from JAG and Magnum PI, who died shortly after we wrapped, RIP), better gear, great crew, etc., and our budget more than doubled.
But at the end of the day, it comes down to the script. No amount of money in the world can save a bad script. It may look high quality, but if the script stinks, it's high quality garbage. heath |
Quote:
Yes, I'm still around. We've just finished post production and have been sending out copies for festivals, so no... we haven't made any money back. Yet. Heath is right that once you up your production with better equipment and a great crew, expect the budget to jump. And as Heath says, a great script can save a film with bad production quality, but great production quality cannot save a film with a bad script. And ironically, the over all budget for my film ended up being closer to $116,000 (keep in mind this includes the total cost of all the equipment I bought for the film; the budget minus purchasing the equipment was closer to $50,000). |
For tax purposes, I recommend not counting the money spent on equipment towards the budget. You can write off the equipment for years. Check with your Accountant.
Good luck! Keep us up-to-date on everything! heath |
Quote:
I will revise my budget as I have written off my equipment in previous tax years. Thanks again. Todd |
You could do that--talk to an accountant! Are you incorporated? I have an s-corporation (MPS Digital Studios), then I do an LLC company for the specific movie, ie, 9:04 AM Productions, LLC for my film, 9:04 AM.
But we rented gear that wasn't owned by me. However, I know plenty of companies that do it. heath |
Quote:
Thanks for the info and heads up. Todd |
I don't think you'll be able to get any rental fees from the LLC making the movie, since you don't have a separate corporation. If you bought the equipment under the LLC, you might be able to sell it, so to speak, to a newly formed production. Ask the accountant and let us know the answer.
I know a little bit about corporate accounting, but I really rely on my accountant. She tells me what I need to do, and I take care of things on my end. Heck, I haven't done my taxes myself since 2001 (for 2000), because I incorporated soon after. My accountant handles everything. She may not know the movie/TV/video production community like a film accountant would (and those can cost a lot more than a regular accountant), but she understands the laws and what a piece of equipment means to a corporation. She also showed me stuff in accounting books about the film biz. Heath |
Quote:
The Biodome here in Montreal has a gorgeous rainforest environment, and will let film crews shoot for about $300/hr (plus security, plus electrician, etc.). I wanted to go in during regular business hours with a camcorder and a monopod to get stock footage for a future project and they said no. I told them I would be just like a tourist taking footage, no lights or sound or actors, just me and my small camcorder. They said no. I said ok, maybe I can swing a little money, how much would that cost me, without the need for security, electrician, etc.? They said no. Their answer was that they did not do "those kinds" of projects. I asked what "those kinds" of projects are that they refuse to do, since I never even told them about mine and they refused to look at a script; again, they only replied no, without giving an explanation. I was joking with a partner that I must have failed to present my request with the required manila envelope filled with small bills. But I was only half-joking. J. |
Quote:
J. |
The problem with renting is that if your actors/locations free up tomorrow at 4am, you can't just drop and go... you have to take the time to rent (impossible where I live on a weekend as the nearest rental house is a 4 hour round trip)... or clear the time with the pro sound guy.
At the budgets being discussed in this thread, time=money. You need to be much more flexible with time to get locations and talent who have to keep money coming into their businesses/pockets....so you need to be able to work around their schedules. Having the equipment on hand and ready at all times is the only viable option for me personally. ---------------------- response to an earlier posting: With non-actors, you can get convincing and compelling performances, it just takes a goodly time longer than it would with a trained professional actor. Lots of takes, lots of time, lots of tape which means lots of footage to go through. |
To paraphrase Robert Rodriguez, write around what you have readily available, props-wise, locations-wise, etc. Whenever I've had a lack of money, I got really creative. Heck, some of my greatest ideas came to me when I was trying to go to sleep, or about to wake up, and I had a story, production, editing, etc., problem to solve, and it would hit me.
I recommend these two books to help you out: Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices, by Rick Schmidt Rodriguez's Rebel Without a Crew heath |
Quote:
J. |
you can always rent from out of state and have it shipped. A friend of mine did that recently, and saved a bundle, even with shipping costs.
Heath |
The point of ultra-low budget filmmaking is not technical perfection. The point is great storytelling, that a studio would never produce, that is technically reasonable. A big part of making a well-made ultra-low budget film that will get through the quality control protocols for distribution, is know when, where and how to compromise.
|
Well said, Lori! I don't think I'll ever do another dogme 95-style film, like I did on my flick Skye Falling, but I will always look to saving money.
Beg or borrow gear, and make sure you have at least 3-4 good lights. I like Arri a lot. Don't forget diffusion; DV and HD cameras hate harsh light, unless that's what you're aiming for. heath |
Quote:
If this were the only project I'd ever planned on doing, I'd have considered renting every weekend for 2 years to have the equipment available, but the decision was that we wanted to start doing more and learning the craft. So we approached it as hobbyists. I jumped at a chance to get a better camera than I was going to use for alot cheaper than it would have been normally, but it wasn't for the production, it was for me. I got a $25 clearance/open-box microphone I randomly camera across at Best Buy. I made everything else I needed for the project. We learned as we went knowing that we wouldn't make one project, fail because of our lack of knowledge (which we assumed would be the case), and give up. Our approach to scheduling and making sure that everything we got for the production would be free (I was the camera operator who volunteered my personal cameras to the production...and my audio equipment). We purchased the equipment as we could along the way while doing research for the technical aspects of making a feature. Buy what you can and upgrade as you go. Know that you will be making dozens of shorts at the no-budget price point. Learn from your mistakes! If you go into this expecting to make a big budget thing first time out the gate ("I'm going to be the next Kevin Smith/Rodriguez/Whomever"), you set yourself up for failure. This is an ongoing learning experience that will pay off eventually if treated like any other job with skills being fostered and expanded and lessons being learned. You can pay to go to film school, rent equipment or just buy your own. Which ever works for you, but I don't think you need a $5k sound system to make a feature film. If you buy your pieces/parts with the intention of them working together, your $100 Microphone will plug into your $2k camera with the rest of the $$$ going to insurance and food for the cast/crew. Make the rest from scraps and found locations. Get donations from local businesses in exchange for full card billing a the end of the movie. Find a way to guarantee their ads/cards will be seen by people sitting in the audience (i.e. show the film places). Everything is open for negotiation. Contact the local newspaper and let them know you're attempting to make a film with no budget (make sure the script and your attention to detail warrants the attention). Local newspapers are starved for local interest content...all they put in the paper is AP newswire stories this day and age. Run your advertising like a punk band in the 70's. Fliers on campuses, take the door fee and give concessions to the theater. Keep the seats cheap. Make a break in the middle of the movie for people to get up and go to the concession stand. Figure out how to market this product. At these prices, the standard, film festival entry will not get you the success you're looking for, you have to go out and make it yourself, just like you are doing with the movie! A $5k movie budget doesn't allow for a $5k microphone, set your sights lower. Adapt, think through the process. Get your cast/crew/produciton company to help pitch in with $$$ if they are into getting into this through non-traditional methods. You'd be shocked how many creative people live near you who are looking for an outlet for their creative urges! They would normally spend their monies on stuff for their hobbies, just have them redirect it to a common goal. |
Cole,
Great stuff, man, great advice, too. When you're movie's done, don't give up on it and jump into the next film. Get it out there, put it online, screen it, submit it to some fests (good luck, because features are hard to get in, but not impossible), etc. DON'T LET IT DIE! I let one film die years ago, and I'll never do that again. Films are made to be seen, even if you think they stink. heath |
Quote:
I'm re-editing, it'll end up about 30 minutes rather than the original 75-90mins we were shooting for (remember, dialogue only scenes in a script usually mean the script needs work :) - how's that for brutal honesty). I've got a 45 minute cut now that's about 3/4 of the scenes edited (the rest are just placeholder cards)... and I burned out (time = money, it was all my time in post production... oy vay!). So 2 years have passed and I'm starting to look at it again after 4-8 shorts/year (we've come a long way baby) to improve our process, our writing and our story telling abilities. I've got so much dialogue to cut out it's not even funny. Our initial goals were simple: Make a feature length movie that could be submitted to film festivals... that means permissions signed, an original story and finished... only the last bit isn't done right now. Once I've finished the edit and submitted it to a single festival, I'll have achieved my goal for the project. Everyone working on it had fun doing it and most have come back for the work on the shorts... the ones who haven't haven't because of the time investment it takes. If you're interested, here's the current painful to watch cut of it... most of the conversations are cut together a line at a time because the actor's often hadn't even read the scene before showing up on set (day jobs etc... most of us were on call IT staff while shooting, so we had to be able to respond to support calls at all times as well)... So I tried to get them to read 2 lines at a time and react to the one form the other character appropriately so I'd be able to overlap the shots in editing. I encouraged them to just fix it in the singles and have the ability to go back on their own and redo their lines until both I and they were happy with them (lots of footage to go through, but it worked - to the extent we were able to with the skills we had at that time... I'd love to see what we could do now) http://yafiunderground.com/Video/AJ-2007-05-25.mov (don't bother critiquing, it needs help the way it sits currently - but I'll take whatever you choose to dish out anyway, never know what'll end up in the final cut of it) I recommend downloading and watching pieces and parts of it. There's nothing other than assembly editing done here (and it's only 3/4 done). It's certainly not Rush Hour 9, but it's in the can and cost $250 to do... so I see people scoffing at the $5k at the top of this thread and don't understand, because it's been done. The argument could be that I should count the equipment I've purchased as part of the budget... but if you were to do that, the suggestions to hire/coerce people to help out who bring their own equipment bring the same cost assessments with them. This gear is mine, not line items. I still have it all and have used it on a dozen or so shorts... in addition to this feature and some student projects that I've helped out on... and numerous other events and gigs and borrowed it to trusted associates to use for their stuff too. |
I'll check it out later, but yeah, if it's a short, make it SHORT. I have an unreleased, never-finished feature I did over 7 years ago that I turned into a 15 minute short. It works, but the film kinda stinks. Oh, well... I'll probably put it up online one day.
heath |
Starting from scratch, I could shoot and get through post with $8k worth of equipment. I'd need a production budget for actor salaries and SAG expenses, insurance, location and permit fees, catering, some production design, costuming and maybe make up. But even buying the equipment, I could spend less than $35k and produce a feature that distributors would assume had cost hundreds of thousands to make. I'd enjoy the challenge of making a good feature for $10k and the goal would be to have good enough sound that a ton of work didn't need to be done by the distributor once the film was picked up. So many films get hung up on sound.
I produced a feature length adaptation of the Merchant of Venice. We used a Sony F-900 for shooting but kept the budget under $50k. Paramount was going to pick it up and they thought our budget was $2 milllion. It can be done. It requires thought, planning and the appropriate script. But as I said, making a high quality, low budget film is all about knowing when, where and how to compromise. |
Story, a great cast and crew, and good equipment are essential.
heath |
Quote:
One of the challenges of no-budget filmmaking is knowing when to spend a little money to get a lot of results. J. |
Keep your eyeballs peeled too... we found some eggcrate foam that was going to be thrown away (it had been used as large scale packing material in shipping). We use this as a portable sound booth/sound blanket... and it does a pretty good job of eliminating ambient noise behind a subject or killing echoes off hard floors. Feather Duvets also do a good job of muting ambience as do woolen blankets folded in half over a stand... or just about any reasonably dense material.
Using what's at hand saves tons of money, not just in writing your script... but in making your production kit as well. Everything on a set was made by someone in the industry at one point or another... based on an immediate need with junk that was laying around at hand... then it was packaged and bulk manufactured and given a $4000 price tag and everyone thinks they need one to shoot with. To get the costs down, stop thinking like a consumer and start thinking like those folks who made the thing in the first place. As far as actors... I've never used SAG actors (no offense to any SAG members here, I simply don't have the access/budget/desire to jump through those hoops). I've always gone with aspiring actors who love to act. Universities/community theaters/renaissance festivals are all littered with folks who will get in front of your camera with a crappy script and no hope of distribution and take chalk sandwiches as payment thanking you for the experience on the way out the door. 1 out of 1000 are actually good actors if directed well. With good enough direction, you can trick just about any of the other 999 into giving a good performance. Tape is cheap, keep the cameras rolling without telling the actors you're doing so and try out stuff as rehearsal when cut has been called (tape still rolling, crew knows it's not true because they've been briefed independently that "cut" isn't really "cut". Make sure to stay out of frame while giving the direction and having them try other things. You'll get surprising performances when non-actors think the camera isn't rolling. Real actors cost more but take less time to get the results you can cut with. They come prepared and know the characters and don't need as much guidance through the material and character building. They cost money, as always in my philosophy on microbudget cinema, Time=Money. You can use time as currency if you're able to invest the time. You'll even be able to get good salable results doing so if you spend enough of it. Keep in mind that the Italian Neo-Realist movement used tons of non-actors because they just looked like they fit into the environment being filmed (Rome: Open City - Rossellini - 1945). That film cast "real actors" in a few key roles, but the vast majority of the cast were non-actors. Taking the time to light creatively with stuff you have at hand (scrap wood painted black to use as flags, aluminum foil to use to direct the light out of fixtures you have sitting around)... This is, however, one of the two areas I'll actually say it's wise to spend a little money, lights and microphone. These are the two things that should be done starting at a certain level of quality and really shouldn't dip below that imaginary line. Careful lighting staging and framing will help hide the fact that you're using an old, midrange miniDV camera. Set design, costuming and makeup will bring a production value to your shoot that most indies lack (note the -ie ending rather than the -y ending. For me, Indy filmmakers make large budget films with name actors outside the studio system with the hopes of achieving distribution. Indie filmmakers fill that niche between guerilla filmmaker and indy filmmaker). Spending an unreasonable amount of time on the script is tantamount to making this succeed!!! With 99.999% of Indie films next to unwatchable (mine included) due to incomplete writing - I won't say bad writing, just a rough draft rushed into production without brutally honest critique - spending the time up front when a dozen people aren't sitting around waiting for you to fix a problem with the dialog as the sunlight wanes on your shot (personal experience - lesson learned). The hardest part of making films this way is keeping the drive going throughout the seriously protracted production/post-production process. You need to surround yourself with motivated people who will kick you in the ass when you run out of steam... or take over while you rest for a bit. |
Quote:
J. |
Hi Cole,
Thanks for sharing - always a toughie among your peers but as they say, what doesn't kill you only makes you grow stronger. Actually, looking at the first 10 minutes I thought the actors generally did a good job. As you mentioned, scripts are critical and I'm sure you're making progress over this one (overly dialog intensive in Act I, without plot develpment) - ensure each scene advances character develpment, avoiding exposition. If lighting gear is a problem, try adding some additional practicals to avoid shadows (table lamps, etc). Regarding camera work, the framing is acceptable yet you'll want keep the camera moving (establishment, CU, ECU, POV, OTS, etc). Try using a 300-3200hz bandpass filter to simulate the telephone call. Generally, the audio needs a lot of tweaking, hopefully something you can fix in post (missing ambient noise, etc); it's also noticeable on shots like the missing noise when the actor eats a cracker (ADR). Thanks again for sharing your efforts! Warm Regards, Michael |
Quote:
We started this project with no clue what we were doing, using it as a day to day learning platform. We bought equipment we felt would benefit us as we went along (again, not on this movie's budget, but mine as I've used it all since then and purchased it with the intention of doing so). We actually acquired alot of lighting knowledge on that first day by reviewing dailies every day after the shoot to figure out what we needed to fix for the next day's shoot. You learn very quickly this way! The audio is due to the cheap microphone we used, but we did capture sound, and I can always ADR the whole thing if necessary (time=money ;) ). The camera work, I was only able to get neat shots when I had more than just myself and the actor on set... not that often :(. As I'm still working on the edit, I hadn't gotten to my audio pass (still have to record my voice for the other end of one of the phone calls). This would take care of many of the issues you hear there, just is really just me learning to piece together a dialog (this is the second sound piece I'd ever shot, the first was just little vignettes with one-liners, no conversation necessary). I learned a mountain by having to piece together every single line of dialog from separate takes about the power of the editor ;) Again, I can't believe you'd actually choose to subject yourself to that much of it (it gets away from the dialog later [the unedited bits ;) I really burnt out on editing the dialog, ready to dig back in again and start from scratch])...thank you so much for watching and critiquing. As for the CPU controlled fire simulators... I've programmed stuff like that to solve simple problems..... so yes, I could see a laptop, applescript and an X10 system providing this functionality on a need basis, then becoming a fabricated unit later for much more money :) |
Rehi Cole,
Okay, I peeked at the second 10 minute segment. Again, the quality of the acting was your strong point, well choreographed with the script. The pacing also seemed to work well. The outdoor camera work would profit by matching it to the script as: establishment, wide over the shoulder, reverse, close OTS, close reverse, POV, cutaways, etc. At minute 18, you did a fine job with your camera action. Good try on the intercut, although it needs to have a context. Perhaps you're familiar with Pudovkin's techniques:: 1. Contrast - intercutting two radically different circumstances to exaggerate the drama of each circumstance 2. Parallelism - Intercutting two events that are simply happening at the same time, without drawing attention to their circumstances 3. Simultaneity - Intercutting events where one's outcome depends on the other, to increase the suspense (often with increasingly faster cross-cut edits to increase suspense and tension At minute 16, we learn that your intercut is based on simultaneity. If possible, build up with a stronger thread so the audience can follow the context (or perhaps I forgot it from my prior viewing of the first 10 minutes). Oddly, the contrast is a bit high when the camera is on the male - the medium shots of the female actor seem okay. I get the feeling the camera settings were changed between the actor's individual shoots. The audio begins fine during the dialog sequence until about 13:30, then gets rough and apparently the audio/video editing gets out of sequence. At minute 15, you're missing video footage that didn't render - don't we all loathe files spread over drives! Oh where, oh where did that A_7a_10 video go? At minute 17, you had some nice lighting (especially the hairlighting/backlight and warmth) - great for that scene. Again, the audio was checkered with some tonal problems - hopefully you can mix in some ambient room tone. So up to minute 20 I'm impressed by the acting - cudos. My sense is you've got a fair amount of effort ahead of you either with ADR or doing some reshoots. I'm beginning to see strengths in the story - with editing (flash jumps, etc), I'm sure you could put some necessary pizazz in the critical opening scene to fix the problem with the lengthy exposition sequence - we gotta keep developing our characters and the initial 5 minutes are critical. Feel free to PM me if you'd like some specific feedback. I'm rooting for y'all! Perhaps we can link-up sometime (I'm in Petaluma). Happy Trails, Michael |
Wow, again, thanks for sitting through it (even in small doses ;) - perhaps I've just seen it way too much or been doing to much work on shorts to see it working. I've got better ways to start the piece to invest us in the main character more quickly (I don't think we currently care about him enough when the film starts). I'm going to pull the history reveals fforward and lead with them, they are much more tragic than just being introduced to the main character after those events in his morose, mourning funk.
Audio issues throughout, we had no clue what we were doing... we knew that the furry thing needed to be over the actor's head with access to the air being moved by the vocal chords. Some of the stuff we ended up reshooting to get better audio for the worst of it (reshoots now are out of the questions due to hair/schedule/age changes of the whole cast). Missing clips will go away soon, I'm going to recapture the whole thing from tape again as I had captured in iMovie and moved into FCP later (never do this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - had to re-render every time I made a change in the edit due to the audio sample rate being different than what FCP would play in RT - PITA). I'm going to be D/Ling the edit myself (it's downstairs on my edit station, not on my laptop) to compare your notes at the commented times. I'm really impressed that you're actually finding good stuff in there where I thought there were just learning moments for us all involved. Thanks for bringing a fresh set of eyes to the project. |
About the audio - a few months ago, I made a comment to a beginning filmmaker to think about getting an XL2 to do some of the interviews for his documentary and using the microphone on the camera rather than a boom. This suggestion was met with a fair amount of hostility. But having worked professionally in post for several years, one of the things I see repeatedly is that new filmmakers, shooting with a camera with a decent microphone, frequently fare far better than new fimmakers using a boom. A first time director, running a set for the first time (yes, I know 1st ADs run the set, but this director didn't have one), working with an inexperienced boom operator is asking for trouble. One of the most interesting films that we have ever cut - visually brilliant, great script, good performances - is having to spend almost of the cost of the film to repair the soundtrack because of terrible audio. Everyone has to be ADR'd and the wonderful live performances are lost. A camera with a good microphone would have allowed him to use probably half of what he shot. he still would have needed a boom and sound mixer for some of it.
Part of being a successful first time filmmaker is making choices to simplify some aspects of shooting. You don't need to run the set, in a sense, in the same way a big budget film is run. You have to maximize your opportunities for success and minimize your opportunities for flat out failure. My computer is on it's last legs, and i can't watch videos on it anymore. Hopefully, my IT-employed son with be able to restore some of it's former vitality over Christmas vaction and I can take a peep at what you're doing. So far, it sounds like you've made good decisions, and have learned the right lessons. I look forward to seeing where this goes. I'm enjoying your posts a great deal. |
I said it before, and I'll say it until I'm green in the face: good audio makes a movie, bad audio kills it. I watch a lot of high school film/TV/video students, and even college students before they learn the right way, putting their great-quality mic on the camera! What happens when the actor is far away? What happens when the actor turns his or her head?
Ugh! Put the mic on a boom pole and get someone who's boomed more than once. Heath |
We were using this project as a learning exercise (like most do with their first 8-9 shorts). The audio was recorded well with crappy equipment (mostly due to the fact that we hadn't tested it together). We learned, even the inexperienced boom hanger when we had him on set (often, just a mic stand - scheduling people w/ day jobs & families for 8 full weekends w/o pay is difficult)
|
You're learning, and you're having fun doing it! My first student film stunk, but the last one or two were great (out of 5, I think), but we all had fun making the movies, no matter what.
I wanted my second film to look, visually, like Se7en, but I soon learned a student film shot with two lights and a professional and consumer HI-8 cameras don't look like a $40 million film! heath |
I work with the philosophy that I'm unwilling to work as if I'm working within my means ;)
|
Quote:
J. |
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:59 PM. |
DV Info Net -- Real Names, Real People, Real Info!
1998-2025 The Digital Video Information Network