Need Help Making a Decent Amateur Movie
October 8, 2010 12:23 PM Subscribe
I need help with making a very low budget film. First, what equipment is absolutely necessary for a not-so amateur-ish film?
A little background: I am entering into a very small, local contest to make a film related to my career. My competition is going to be as amateur as I am (VERY amateur), so the playing field is level. I know the basics of storyboarding and creating meaning in my film, but I don't know about equipment and editing. I want this film to not look so amateurish, but all I have at this point is a home digital camera that I purchased for home use. I know that I am not going to win an academy award, but I really would like to make a film that I can be proud of.
My budget: under $500. What materials should I buy? Sound? Lighting? Also, any links to some of these items so I can see them?
Any ideas or advice anyone? Thanks.
A little background: I am entering into a very small, local contest to make a film related to my career. My competition is going to be as amateur as I am (VERY amateur), so the playing field is level. I know the basics of storyboarding and creating meaning in my film, but I don't know about equipment and editing. I want this film to not look so amateurish, but all I have at this point is a home digital camera that I purchased for home use. I know that I am not going to win an academy award, but I really would like to make a film that I can be proud of.
My budget: under $500. What materials should I buy? Sound? Lighting? Also, any links to some of these items so I can see them?
Any ideas or advice anyone? Thanks.
If you do nothing else, get an external microphone and some type of pole to use as a boom. The eye can forgive grainy video, but bad in-camera sound can make anything unwatchable.
posted by the jam at 12:31 PM on October 8, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by the jam at 12:31 PM on October 8, 2010 [2 favorites]
As someone who has watched a lot of low-budget shorts, do not not not cut corners on sound. Shaky or blurry visuals, or bad/inadequate lighting, I can forgive, but if I can't hear the sound or make out the dialogue, you've lost me.
posted by rtha at 12:38 PM on October 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by rtha at 12:38 PM on October 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
Yes, n'thing not using the on-camera mic.
Is there a film community at all where you live? Often times the best way to spend a budget is to hire a camera and/or sound guy for $100 day or so, and then have him bring his own equipment. You take the risk of getting someone bad, but potentially you get his talents and his equipment for less than you would pay to rent.
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:49 PM on October 8, 2010
Is there a film community at all where you live? Often times the best way to spend a budget is to hire a camera and/or sound guy for $100 day or so, and then have him bring his own equipment. You take the risk of getting someone bad, but potentially you get his talents and his equipment for less than you would pay to rent.
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:49 PM on October 8, 2010
You could also try to hire students from the local film school, if there is one.
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:50 PM on October 8, 2010
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:50 PM on October 8, 2010
If you're as inexperienced at this as you say, the limiting factor won't be the tools but your ability to use them properly and coax quality results out of them. You can't just buy a professional look. Especially for $500.
For that budget, you shouldn't buy anything. Rent equipment and find some people with experience in using it who are willing to work for credit. This may be easier or harder depending on where you're located. (Google movie equipment rental.)
But I'm actually totally serious when I suggest that, for that kind of budget, the lion's share of your money should go for beer and pizza. Find people who know what they're doing and keep them happy, and they will be the single greatest factor in making your movie look and sound good.
posted by Naberius at 12:50 PM on October 8, 2010 [4 favorites]
For that budget, you shouldn't buy anything. Rent equipment and find some people with experience in using it who are willing to work for credit. This may be easier or harder depending on where you're located. (Google movie equipment rental.)
But I'm actually totally serious when I suggest that, for that kind of budget, the lion's share of your money should go for beer and pizza. Find people who know what they're doing and keep them happy, and they will be the single greatest factor in making your movie look and sound good.
posted by Naberius at 12:50 PM on October 8, 2010 [4 favorites]
If you live in a city, you can rent some pretty good equipment for $500, instead of wasting money on poor quality stuff you might not ever use again. Something like the old Panasonic DVX100 series cameras that record to DV tape and have XLR inputs. I can't imagine it being more than $100 to rent this for a weekend.
A decent shotgun microphone should rent for around $25 for a day. Same for a good tripod.
Forget rental lighting. You're going to end up setting something on fire. Plan out everything you're going to shoot in advance and start at 6am or whenever the sun goes up where you live. Use mostly natural light.
You can edit in something like iMovie which comes with most Macs or on PC I believe Adobe Premiere has a 15 day free trial.
posted by hamsterdam at 12:52 PM on October 8, 2010
A decent shotgun microphone should rent for around $25 for a day. Same for a good tripod.
Forget rental lighting. You're going to end up setting something on fire. Plan out everything you're going to shoot in advance and start at 6am or whenever the sun goes up where you live. Use mostly natural light.
You can edit in something like iMovie which comes with most Macs or on PC I believe Adobe Premiere has a 15 day free trial.
posted by hamsterdam at 12:52 PM on October 8, 2010
Not an expert, but done some small projects on a handheld.
I assume you have video editing software and some idea how to use it, or have someone to do that for you?
Unless you have access to good lights, try to shoot outdoors in morning or late afternoon on sunny days for the best light.
You can use a monopod stand as a pole; various people online have tutorials about adding weights/pipe to the end to make it steadier/longer, but as I used a Flip which weighs almost nothing, I didn't even have to do that. Made shots steadier, but also allowed me to do "dog's eye" ground level travelling shots (by holding the camera upside down and then flipping the shot in iMovie). Monopods cost about 15.00 at Walmart.
A tripod for static shots.
Watch out for your shadow, random people/wires/trash in the background--and pay attention to backgrounds, period. Interesting settings and angles will make your inevitable errors less obvious.
Be prepared for a scene you storyboarded to just not work as planned and go with the flow of doing it differently.
Shoot much more than you need and shoot lots of "b-roll"--landscape, random conversation, scenery, travelling shots, characters walking and doing other stuff--these keep it from being Nothing But People Talking. You can put incidental music over these, too, or have the audio conversation start right before the scene changes to Characters Talking so that there's some sense of transition. Nearly all the random, casual bits I took ended up being used to break up the rest of it, and I kept wishing I'd taken more.
Have fun!
posted by emjaybee at 12:53 PM on October 8, 2010
I assume you have video editing software and some idea how to use it, or have someone to do that for you?
Unless you have access to good lights, try to shoot outdoors in morning or late afternoon on sunny days for the best light.
You can use a monopod stand as a pole; various people online have tutorials about adding weights/pipe to the end to make it steadier/longer, but as I used a Flip which weighs almost nothing, I didn't even have to do that. Made shots steadier, but also allowed me to do "dog's eye" ground level travelling shots (by holding the camera upside down and then flipping the shot in iMovie). Monopods cost about 15.00 at Walmart.
A tripod for static shots.
Watch out for your shadow, random people/wires/trash in the background--and pay attention to backgrounds, period. Interesting settings and angles will make your inevitable errors less obvious.
Be prepared for a scene you storyboarded to just not work as planned and go with the flow of doing it differently.
Shoot much more than you need and shoot lots of "b-roll"--landscape, random conversation, scenery, travelling shots, characters walking and doing other stuff--these keep it from being Nothing But People Talking. You can put incidental music over these, too, or have the audio conversation start right before the scene changes to Characters Talking so that there's some sense of transition. Nearly all the random, casual bits I took ended up being used to break up the rest of it, and I kept wishing I'd taken more.
Have fun!
posted by emjaybee at 12:53 PM on October 8, 2010
Everyone has covered the sound, which is important, so here's something I'll throw out, as a viewer of many low budget films who has himself worked with some video production: lighting.
DV has a not-wonderful color palette. It is especially bad during the dark. It gets even worse with any kind of shaky-cam — I've seen DV-shot horror films that of course feature the dark and shakycam and ... I have no idea what is going on.
So, first, do a lot of test shots and see how it looks after it gets crunched down. Then light the scenes until you get what you want.
posted by adipocere at 1:23 PM on October 8, 2010
DV has a not-wonderful color palette. It is especially bad during the dark. It gets even worse with any kind of shaky-cam — I've seen DV-shot horror films that of course feature the dark and shakycam and ... I have no idea what is going on.
So, first, do a lot of test shots and see how it looks after it gets crunched down. Then light the scenes until you get what you want.
posted by adipocere at 1:23 PM on October 8, 2010
As adipocere notes, test shots, test shots, test shots. Especially if you're doing any makeup.
One of my shorts had a zombie in an apartment bathroom. Because of the story logic, we didn't need prosthetics or guts or anything, just face makeup to make him look like he'd been dead for several hours. Pale skin, sunken cheeks, blood pooling in the wrong places, etc. We got a makeup artist in and she spent a good hour and a half working on the actor.
And he really looked awesome. I've got stills of the makeup and she did a truly great job. But on camera, it all just vanished. I don't know if was the video or the bathroom lighting, but it was like she'd never even touched him. He just looked like some guy hanging out in the bathroom attacking people and it really undercut the joke we were going for.
So yeah, test shoot everything.
posted by Naberius at 1:45 PM on October 8, 2010
One of my shorts had a zombie in an apartment bathroom. Because of the story logic, we didn't need prosthetics or guts or anything, just face makeup to make him look like he'd been dead for several hours. Pale skin, sunken cheeks, blood pooling in the wrong places, etc. We got a makeup artist in and she spent a good hour and a half working on the actor.
And he really looked awesome. I've got stills of the makeup and she did a truly great job. But on camera, it all just vanished. I don't know if was the video or the bathroom lighting, but it was like she'd never even touched him. He just looked like some guy hanging out in the bathroom attacking people and it really undercut the joke we were going for.
So yeah, test shoot everything.
posted by Naberius at 1:45 PM on October 8, 2010
Is it supposed to be a documentary or a fiction film?
Documentary--shoot enough Broll to cover when you have to make edits.
Fiction--shoot reverses (when 1 actor speaks, show him and then his audience.)
You can also probably use some bits and pieces lifted from DVDs (unless that's prohibited by the rules), like perfect sunset shots and timelapse stuff that would be hard to shoot with a home video camera.
If you're allowed to do so and it helps your story line, think about using vintage photos, ephemeral materials (headlines, magazine stories, illustrations, etc.) Your visuals don't have to be just what you film. You can scan these (or shoot them with the video camera) and then edit them in.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:15 PM on October 8, 2010
Documentary--shoot enough Broll to cover when you have to make edits.
Fiction--shoot reverses (when 1 actor speaks, show him and then his audience.)
You can also probably use some bits and pieces lifted from DVDs (unless that's prohibited by the rules), like perfect sunset shots and timelapse stuff that would be hard to shoot with a home video camera.
If you're allowed to do so and it helps your story line, think about using vintage photos, ephemeral materials (headlines, magazine stories, illustrations, etc.) Your visuals don't have to be just what you film. You can scan these (or shoot them with the video camera) and then edit them in.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:15 PM on October 8, 2010
It's easy, when you shoot your first film, not to anticipate frequent problems that arise in post-production. For example, if you're doing fiction, keep these kinds of thing in mind:
Always make sure to shoot a few seconds of lead-in and lead-out after "action" and "cut". Make sure that the actors are in character for those seconds. You never know when you'll be wishing you could use a take, but the actor drops out of character as soon as they finish their last line, and some other factor prevents you from cutting away to the next shot. Result: can't use the take you want.
Make sure the eyelines of your actors will match up properly. Many a take is rendered useless when you put it into a sequence and a character doesn't seem like they're looking at who they're supposed to be talking to.
And a sound-related tip: do yourself a big favour and record at least a minute of ambient noise in every location you use. If you're in a room, quiet everybody down, check your levels, and just run the camera for a minute to get a track of background noise. If you're outside, do the same. The reason is that when you edit, you will end up using bits of dialogue and then fading those takes down. This results in very obvious silent gaps that jolt the viewer out of the film. You need to lay down a track of background noise to fill the gaps and make the sound seamless.
posted by Beardman at 4:30 PM on October 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
Always make sure to shoot a few seconds of lead-in and lead-out after "action" and "cut". Make sure that the actors are in character for those seconds. You never know when you'll be wishing you could use a take, but the actor drops out of character as soon as they finish their last line, and some other factor prevents you from cutting away to the next shot. Result: can't use the take you want.
Make sure the eyelines of your actors will match up properly. Many a take is rendered useless when you put it into a sequence and a character doesn't seem like they're looking at who they're supposed to be talking to.
And a sound-related tip: do yourself a big favour and record at least a minute of ambient noise in every location you use. If you're in a room, quiet everybody down, check your levels, and just run the camera for a minute to get a track of background noise. If you're outside, do the same. The reason is that when you edit, you will end up using bits of dialogue and then fading those takes down. This results in very obvious silent gaps that jolt the viewer out of the film. You need to lay down a track of background noise to fill the gaps and make the sound seamless.
posted by Beardman at 4:30 PM on October 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
There's not a whole lot you can do with $500 if you don't already own equipment. Renting gear might be possible if you can limit your shooting days, but a long shot (if you'll pardon the pun). At a minimum you'll need a camera, a mic, a boom, someone to hold the boom, a computer, editing experience (or somebody with experience) using a decent DV processing suite like Final Cut Pro. If you have very talented people you're working with, you could maybe get around the mic problem with ADR skills (or, once again, someone with those skills). But to shoot good video you'll need something that can handle HD and you'll need either a good steady-cam-style mount and/or a lens system with image stabilization. There are DSLRs out there that can do HD video. See if you can rent one of those and a 24 or 35mm f/1.8 and a 85mm f/1.4. That's your best bet.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:38 PM on October 8, 2010
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:38 PM on October 8, 2010
Oh, meant to add: this way you can shoot natural light and not worry about lights. You're going to have enough things to worry about, trust me. Any modern DSLR from Nikon or Canon can practically shoot in the dark. Seriously, you can pump the ISO to like 6400 and shoot in candlelight if you like. It's a brand new world.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:41 PM on October 8, 2010
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:41 PM on October 8, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks, all. I am learning from your great advice. Just for clarification: This will be more of a short fiction piece about my career. Most, if not all, will be filmed indoors. Also, I live in a very rural area where I am unlikely to find much to rent. But there is a university nearby....maybe something there.
posted by boots77 at 3:52 AM on October 9, 2010
posted by boots77 at 3:52 AM on October 9, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
Cheap quality lighting: a bounce board goes a long way. You can get away with using some ordinary lamps instead of renting expensive stuff.
Also: do you have friends with gear? Seriously, scrounging pays off big-time. The best thing you could do would be to learn that a generous friend has a camcorder that can shoot in 24p if you want a non-amateurish look.
posted by Beardman at 12:30 PM on October 8, 2010 [1 favorite]