Quote:
Originally Posted by dreary louse  Movies are still expensive as hell to make, and always will be.
|
That's not entirely true.
Hollywood would like you to believe that because that's part of the glamour people associate with the film industry. But the basics of moviemaking can be accomplished with very little money. The insane costs come from paying every single crew and cast member lots of money and renting every single location for incredible ammounts of money, staying in expensive hotels, etc.
You can make a movie for under $10,000 with the RED camera and it would completely watchable. It would have to be small, but if it has a great story, and you were clever with production value, it would go far.
For instance, instead of paying your actors and crew, you can defer salaries. This is a pain in the ass because people work well when being paid, but as long as they love the project and are also trying to make a name for themselves, you can get great results. Just keep them fed.
Your locations you can borrow by pretending to be a film student doing a short, when in fact you're really doing a feature, but since it's only one location, they'll believe you. You do that for every location and with some luck and charm, you'll be fine (I've done this).
Most of the costs will come down to the camera rental and P2 card stock, lighting and grip equipment...and you can even eliminate most of that by shooting handheld in natural daylight, or getting a discount rate on a lighting package by finding someone on craigslist....alot of DPs will rent you their camera, lighting and grip package for free in exchange for being allowed to DP the movie themselves.
If you already have a pretty decent laptop you can even edit the thing yourself. Alot of macs come with final cut pro, or imovie...just buy a couple 500 gig hard drives (you can get a good one for under $200), capture at a low res and you'll be okay.
The only thing you're probably gonna have to pay extra for is a sound mix. Most student and low budget movies live and die by this. Your great movie can be completely fucked over by a terrible sound mix, which will decrease its impact, and increase it's irritating factor. But if you have pro-tools, again, not that expensive, and build your own ADR booth (styrophoam enclosure, mic), do your own foley and use pro-tools, it make take a while and be really hard, but it can be done. And a good sound mix isn't really that important if you're trying to get a distributor to buy your movie by sending your dvds out...they watch alot of dvds on just a basic TV, so they wont notice your lack of a 7.1 DTS mix. You can even tell them you couldn't afford a good sound mix, they will understand. If they choose to buy your movie, they will front the money for a good sound mix. But if you get into a festival, you'll need a good sound mix...I'm not sure how much it is, but you can go to a post production house and ask to get a discount by asking for a graveyard shift mix. If you get into a big festival, you can easily get a company to look at your movie beforehand and maybe get them to front the mix.
The point is, if you just use your head, some common sense, and are thorough, and work hard, it can be done.
