Low budget film making.

[Tom]

I have a finished script undergoing polishing, and a kickass camera (the same model used to film 28 Days Later).

Anyone here have any experience making low budget films? Things to look out for/avoid?

I figure I can make this movie for about $700 in total, if I can manage to score some freebies (locations, mainly).

I have no idea how to light a movie, or edit one, for that matter.

I'd love to hear about other projects, whether they were school things or whatever.

[chino]

(the same model used to film 28 Days Later).

great!

are you planning to do like a shortfilm, because if this is the first film you're gonna do, I think this is the best way to begin.

[viddy]

I go to film school here in Chicago, so I've made a few films. My major is technically in "sound for visual media" but I've been through the film production courses and worked on a number of fairly large producitons. Here is a film I just finished last may as a quicktime file in a zip.

http://www.humanwire.net/media/opodds.zip (117mb, 10 minutes long)

I was first and formost in charge of the sound design (sound effects, foley, ADR, voice over, music editing, and mixing of all of these elements) but I was also a director, I did a little bit of editing, all of the color correction, and the titles. We shot this for less than $150, and it went from idea to finished film in two months. We needed a few more days to finish it, so you might notice continuity errors in the poker game, along with some really yucky sounding footsteps.

Enough about me, I'd like to see the script if you wouldn't mind. :)

email:
matt@humanwire.net (%0Amatt@humanwire.net)

[Tom]

Thanks viddy, downloading the vid right now.

I'll check with the other parties involved before sending you the script, but I'm sure it will be fine. Watch your inbox!

[adam]

Is it a pornographic movie?

[Tom]

While I would love to feature tits in the movie, I am yet to come across a female actor willing to bare all for nothing.

[lloyd]

Adam could wear fake tities..

[adam]

I was going to say, if you fly me to Oz, I'll appear naked in your movie for free.

[lloyd]

See! ;) ..

[lloyd]

Just kidding ofcourse.

I hope you can get it all together and have your film shown at a festival or something.
good luck

[b.miller]

i have no actual experience but from what i see in a lot of internet short films is that they coould use more attention paid to sound and lighting. of course, not having any hints or tips for you in those departments... makes this post REALLY valuable huh...


oh, if your actors can't act do it in long shots where you can't make out their faces anyway :) there's a tip.... a free one too

[the mongoose]

Get the Evil Dead dvd with the three commentary tracks (in America it was sold in a foam rubber Necronomicon case)

They tell everything about how they financed, shot, and edited the low budget classic and give tips on how to improve on what they did with newer technology ("we had to do...... back then, now we can do...." type of stuff)

Very informative and Bruce Campell's commentary is fucking CLASSIC!:D

good luck with your film.:cool:

[patrick]

sound is pretty important... i am pretty sure in most movies when they are shooting in noisy places (outside say), they would actually record the dialogue again with the actors and edit the new audio in (what do you say vidman?) and so they can add a certain amount of wind noise and stuff but not too much...

anyhow, i have made two hour long documentaries, but they aren't really the same since we don't worry about sound too much, and because it is a documentary (to the lightest definition of a documentary) we didn't have much acting... i might be biased, but editing on a apple with FCP is super good... you will need gazilions of hard drives for all the HD footage (i'm assuming your kick ass camera is hd)

another thing is acting, which is hard to control, but if you have good actors th at can obviously go a long long way... i have no idea about lighting though.


the mongooses tip is golden as you will laugh a lot at the commentaries, those two (sam rami and bruce campbell are the two funniest guys in the film industry)

[viddy]

sound is pretty important... i am pretty sure in most movies when they are shooting in noisy places (outside say), they would actually record the dialogue again with the actors and edit the new audio in (what do you say vidman?) and so they can add a certain amount of wind noise and stuff but not too much...


Everything that is possible is done to make a quiet set (with a crew who is good) so that dialogue can be isolated for a good recording. For example if there is a shot with dialogue and you can't see below the actors knees, the floor would be covered with something soft, so you don't hear the actor's footsteps. The footsteps are added in later in post production by the foley artist.

While on location "presence" is also recorded, which is just the sound of the location. All of the actors and crew stand still for 60 seconds and the location sound recordist captures the sonic signature of each location of the movie. Presence is used later in post to, for example, help cover up sounds of airplanes flying overhead when there is no dialogue. A dialogue editor chooses all of the best bit spoken dialogue (whether it be sylables, words, or whole lines of dialogue) and mixes together a clean, seamless dialogue track.

If there is too much noise on a set to begin with that can't be taken away (such as rain or wind) then the dialogue is rerecorded later in post in a studio in what's called an ADR session. The actor listens to the recording of themselves during the shot and after listening to it many times they speak in sync with it. Care is taken to make the studio recording sound like the location recording (obviously without the noisy stuff).

:D

[King of Snake]

From the extra's on the dvd's of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, they did make use of ADR extensively because they were shooting on sets that had everything from jumbo jets taking off to artillery fire! (there's a great bit where Sam and Frodo are acting trough a scene on location next to a NZ army firing range and suddenly you hear this loud bang of an exploding shell).
It's probably not really an option for a low budget movie though.

As for lighting, I would recommend finding someone with experience to cover this aspect of your production if you have no knowledge of it yourself. I managed to get some equipment (lighting, lenses, video monitor, dolly) sponsored by the rental company for my graduation project. You could try this as well, altough I'm not sure if they will do it as readily if you're not in some sort of filmmaking school.

I think the camera you speak of is the Canon XL1 or 2? If so, that's a great camera. I used one on my graduation film as well (owned by a friend of mine). It's a good idea to use it with a decent video monitor on set since it doesn't have an lcd screen. Also you can fit custom lenses on it (like a fisheye) and if you add a mattebox it takes filters as well.

Good luck with your project. I don't know how much experience you have in filmmaking but I can tell you that it can be a pretty daunting undertaking, even for what may appear to be easy and short on paper. Make sure you have people helping out who know what they are doing. Or if they don't, make sure that you do, and can give them appropriate directions! Come to the set prepared with a shotlist, storyboard and script so you can make sure you don't miss any shots and you don't have to think too much about what kind of shots you're going to make (of course, there will be a lot of improvisation going on because conditions on location always differ from how it looks in your head)

I think people can give more specific advice if you provide some more details. What kind of script do you have? How long is it going to be? How many people will be involved (actors, crew). how many locations? What kind of experience do you have already?
It would be great if you could provide a link to the (draft) script online.

[DeJackyl]

I have been working in indie films for ten years now, and as King of Snake said it is daunting and really challenging work, especially when you want to meet a budget. I've left the craft myself but will gladly offer advice as your querys become more specific.

[Animal Boything]

I remamber TRYING to make a no-budget video thing for a school project once, and it was a nightmare! I think the biggest trick is just finding a group of people who are willing to really give their all to help you out. Anybody who says they'll help out for free but then ends up being half-assed about it will end up ruining a lot of plans. Also, good acting really matters, even if you're just playing around.

I remember there being a great tip in the Clerks commentary... get lots of random footage of things in the room, actors' feet, whatever, that you can cut away to for a second if you want to splice two takes together without any seams showing. Brilliant!

[viddy]

Yes I agree with Animal Boything. Your crew is most important. Finding the right people, you can make a good film for almost no money.

[albert_mckenzy]

hi, im interested in working with you on that project, i know how to light a set, i was a dp before for 2 projects i can help you on that. My goal is to make it to film fest, im working on my 2 shorts right now.

you can contact me for more info on this at xcellencio@yahoo.com

thanks.

-g

[bklyndv]

Yes I agree with Animal Boything. Your crew is most important. Finding the right people, you can make a good film for almost no money.

This is exactly right. Find the right people, and create a community of support, and you'll have a much better shot at watching an enjoyable film in the end, than just finding good actors and knowing proper lighting/sound techniques. Not saying production value isn't important -- it is -- but it takes a back seat to the human side of the art.

That said, filmmaking is a bitch.

Nice to see you've got an XL1 (XL1s?) -- I had one before selling it a while back. Great camera but terrible low-light performance (a Canon hallmark). Before going into production, have your cam refurbed at one of the Canon factories -- there tends to be a lot of focus drift problems with the XL1's due to poor back focus or having it mis-aligned over the course of use. There is a Canon XL1 Owner's Club which costs (I think) $95 to join and entitles you to a lot of refurb/repairsavings. Info is on their site somewhere.

Also, I've heard/read that the audio on an XL1 is off by a slight amount -- 44.1khz is instead something like 44.09999khz. Most likely not a great problem, but people who've worked features with it speak of timing issues down the line -- kind of like laying a brick wall, if you're off even a hair at the starting end, it becomes a cumulative foot at the other. Depending on what you edit with, this could be an easy fix (it would be in Vegas for sure, dunno about PPro or FCP) or a bitch.

I'd recommend two books before you dive in: 'Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics' by Michael Rabiger, and 'Film Production Theory' by Jean-Pierre Geuens. The former puts a great emphasis on learning through doing; the latter is a more open-ended "conversation" aimed at getting you to think about why the application of one style versus another might suit your goals -- it's a book that encourages experimentation. They both interlock hand-in-hand pretty well to get you thinking about working with what you have rather than lament not having Hollywood budgets and crews at your disposal.

As a general rule-of-thumb: in budgetting (time, money, resources, everything), assemble as accurate an outline as you can, total it up, then double it.

Otherwise, don't get discouraged too easily. Understand that with films as with dating, early on in the game your failures will outnumber your successes. Practice, practice, practice. And -- it's tape -- so shoot a shitload.