DVX Feature playing in the NYIIFF.

gbyoung,

watched the trailer - your film looks great! It looks like you have some great locations. Where did you shoot it? Did you shoot it all at 24P? Congratulations and good luck!
 
qemart said:
gbyoung,

watched the trailer - your film looks great! It looks like you have some great locations. Where did you shoot it? Did you shoot it all at 24P? Congratulations and good luck!
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Thanks! We shot it all over southern cali. LA, Oakland, OC, Joshua tree. We shot it oct 2003 to march 2004. We used a DVX100 with the century wide angle in 24pa mode and cut it in final cut pro.

The best part is our budget was $1500. Needless to say, I LOVE THE DVX!!

GB
 
Awesome! What else did you guys use? What kind of sound setup, for color correction etc? Tell me everything! :grin:
 
GB, the teaser trailer looks pretty sick, good stuff, the full trailer looks incredible, specially the lighting... don't hold back tell us, what was your lighting like, what did you use.. don't tell us all your secret but tell us something.

$1500 budget? WOW, what was the $1500 for? Is the movie a Short or Feature? Good luck at the festival
 
capitalP said:
GB, the teaser trailer looks pretty sick, good stuff, the full trailer looks incredible, specially the lighting... don't hold back tell us, what was your lighting like, what did you use.. don't tell us all your secret but tell us something.

$1500 budget? WOW, what was the $1500 for? Is the movie a Short or Feature? Good luck at the festival
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The 1500 was hard cost of the insurance for the actors. We did it SAG modifed low budget. So we have cost in the back end that will be more. but they required insurance. So that is what we spent. Everything else was donated.

Our lighting was done with mostly china balls on dimmers with 200watt bulbs. A few little things here and there. And the theater shots we had a little more to play with. But mostly it was whatever my brillant DP Oliver Ponce could wrangle for the day.

It's a feature film. We shot from oct 2003 to march 2004. No one was paid and I kept the crew without losing anyone along the way. Great family of film makers who work on big shoots, such as spiderman, constantine, unbearable lightness of being.. to name of few. They all believed in the project and put their time in wholeheartedly. My special effects man, Chris Mabli, was a genuis at making things look good for nothing. We had all kinds of industry professionals who came by and helped out when they weren't on the bigger movies. One of Paul Verhoven's special effects supervisor popped in and helped out with a few green screen shots. I was amazingly lucky.

We shot 56 hours of footage. 30 something actual shooting days. built almost all of our own rigs such as cranes, stablizers, and other speciality shots. Locations form OC, to LA, to SF area, and out in the Joshua Tree. We had 25 roles. Children. Animals. Period stuff. Special effects. Digital effects. We basicly broke every rule of no budget film making.

It was good timing. The dvx was just hitting the market and we knew several folks who bought one and loaned them to us. So we shot with two cameras part of the time.

The sound was done in my living room on a laptop using Digital Performer. We designed it in 5.1.

You have to love the dvx. I am lensing a doc next month called "Safe from the surface" with a dvx100 and a fig rig...

thanks for your interest and I am glad to pass on anything I can. We need more people to get out there and make some challanging films on dv so we can stop this idea that dv movie equals shakey cramped visuals. Spread out and bring the cinema to digital.

feel free to ask any questions you wish. I learned a lot over the past two years making this thing happen. It's the least I can do.

Tonight is the screening. Fingers crossed. I can't believe that my little no budget film is playing at a big arthouse theater in LA, for a small town boy from the midwest this is quite a thrill... that kinda gets me a little mushy inside.

Power to the people...
GB
 
The fest is a joke for sure. I knew that going in. I just used it as a way to get a screening in LA. No one was there that we didn't invite, not even the fest people. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Rude, dishonest, and not really a fest.

the best part of the whole thing was the after party. We showed up and they were only letting in hot chicks. What a joke.

But the screening went off well. that's all that is important at this point. Thanks for your concern. I would say avoid this fest unless you really need a screening in LA at a real theater.

GB
 
gbyoung said:
The 1500 was hard cost of the insurance for the actors. We did it SAG modifed low budget. So we have cost in the back end that will be more. but they required insurance. So that is what we spent.
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Was this a modified low budget or the older experimental contract? The older experimental contract allowed you to defer the talents saleires (at normal scale) but the newer low budget contract doesn't allow deferrals (or at least that is my understanding). Also, the dates that you shot would indicate that this was prior to the newer contract coming out. I have worked under the experimental contract a number of times in the past, but not the newer one. Can you clarify this issue for me?

By the way, the teaser looks great! Best of luck at the festival.
 
I believe it was the old contract for sure. I remember my producer telling me we just missed the new one which wouldn't have allowed us to be SAG. Personally I don't think being SAG on that small of a scale production was really worth the issues. In the future I don't know that I would do SAG again because of this. So yes, I believe we fell under the experimental contract.

I think this is a sad development for truely indie film makers and a blow to the Digital indie feature scene. It's just going to force us low budget guys to search for talent outside their gene pool. There are a TON of really great actors out there who aren't SAG who can do the job too. But if you want names, you are being strongarmed into playing SAG's game.

I think it's too bad. The actors on my film were happy to be working on it and it gave them great reel fodder. It was a wonderful symbiotic realtionship. It seems like they are cutting their own throats on this one since more and more films are going to be lower budget minded folks. Rather than allow their memebers to take a chance on a intersting piece they are forced to work on things with enough budget to pay SAG, which most of the time means the project has been comprimised by the sacrifices made to get the money.

Watered down safe cinema. We are all drowning in it now. I worked alot harder as the director, editor, producer, and writer than any of the actors in my film and I am every bit as "at risk" of not getting a dime for it. We were all in it together. We all make money or none of us do. As a matter of fact, with the contract we have with SAG, the actors stand a way better chance of making money from the film than I do. The other two producers and I don't see anything until everyone else is paid. If I can take that risk, the actors should be able to.

Political crap aside, we need actors to make movies, but if we weren't making them they would have nothing to do. I think they should really reconsider this new stand and try and find a happy medium. Actors SHOULD be paid for their work. Everyone SHOULD be paid. But sometimes you take the risk for the exposure or experience.

GB
 
It's back online. We had some glitch with the old server there, but everything is groovin.

cygnet74, love to see some of your stuff as well.
 
Wow, this looks like a great film. In the right hands, the DVX can really shine. Keep us updated on your other project, too. I want to see the whole film. How can we get our hands on a copy?
 
Working on distro. Will keep you posted. We won "best feature" in the screencraft catagory from the fest, funny..

GB
 
Hi GBYOUNG
i am Gopi from India. I came here by surfing and i shocked while read your post.. its amazing that you have finished a feature film within 1500 bugs and also u did it in DVX 100.. it gaves very confidence to me to try my scripts with an indie-film production as a No-Pay or Lo-Pay.. i want some more informations from you.. if you don't bother abt answering and teaching someone unknown to you then i am very sorry.. otherwise you may help me some little Knowledge sharing..
 
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