"Corrado" - A production blog

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Hey Adam, I've heard you say several times here that the distributors you're talking to don't care what the film was shot on. I'd heard from a an interview with a sales agent back in 2007 that every distributor she talked to wanted to know what a film was shot on.

Since you're in the trenches, so to speak, do you see this as just different distributors with different requirements? For instance, if you are shooting for direct to DVD, does it matter less what it's shot on, if you never want it to hit a big screen? Or do you think it's more of an industry-wide change from 2007 to the time you started shopping your film around?

And I'd be very curious to hear from anyone with an opinion on it.
 
Maybe it's because I haven't entered into serious negotiations on the film that the question hasn't arisen more often, but I can tell you I've spoken to dozens of distributors, and had meetings with a handful. A couple have asked, but no one has raised any objections whatsoever to the format Corrado was shot on.

We all left it that they need to see a finished film. You should see the color on the Spirit machine, it's amazing. That's what happens when you spend $10K on color. The movie does not in any way look like video - we used the Letus Extreme and then went on to do this amazing color.

I won't go so far as to say it looks like film, but it is very filmic. Maybe that's why after seeing the demo no one asked what it was shot on!
 
DavidG said:
haha great about the VW, I think you should take the car for sure! Blow it up!...OR sell it after filming it, increasing money income!

DG.
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Well I don't think they're giving me a car, probably just the use of it. Still a good deal.
 
taormina said:
Maybe it's because I haven't entered into serious negotiations on the film that the question hasn't arisen more often, but I can tell you I've spoken to dozens of distributors, and had meetings with a handful. A couple have asked, but no one has raised any objections whatsoever to the format Corrado was shot on.

We all left it that they need to see a finished film. You should see the color on the Spirit machine, it's amazing. That's what happens when you spend $10K on color. The movie does not in any way look like video - we used the Letus Extreme and then went on to do this amazing color.

I won't go so far as to say it looks like film, but it is very filmic. Maybe that's why after seeing the demo no one asked what it was shot on!
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Yeah, I have no doubt. I have footage that Timur and Joe Johnson shot on my films that I would put up on a big screen any day.

I'll be curious to hear if you run into any prejudice about it. In that interview I mentioned, the woman was talking to someone who said that at the low level the only HD option was HDV, and that it was crappy, etc. Which was surprising to me that the guy was not even aware of all of the tools available to very low end filmmakers.

So I'd be curious to hear if you hit any situations where they have specific prejudices against video formats.
 
Hey, Mark, it's no longer a matter of "digital looking as good as film" or as some video fanatics would say, "digital is better!" LOL

There is a glut of digital features in the market -- thousands!

So, the buyers are always looking for a way to knock the price down. "Oh, it wasn't shot on film? Send us a DVD screener then."

If you don't want to hear that, shoot 35mm. It's much cheaper than shooting digital. It costs $25,000 extra to shoot on film, but you don't have to spend $250,000 to make it look like film. LOL
 
Adam, would it be possible at some point to put up some pre/post color shots or footage for comparison? Maybe on DVD extras?

It would be nice to see just how much that stage can upgrade footage on a camera like the HVX.
 
filmman said:
Hey, Mark, it's no longer a matter of "digital looking as good as film" or as some video fanatics would say, "digital is better!" LOL

There is a glut of digital features in the market -- thousands!

So, the buyers are always looking for a way to knock the price down. "Oh, it wasn't shot on film? Send us a DVD screener then."

If you don't want to hear that, shoot 35mm. It's much cheaper than shooting digital. It costs $25,000 extra to shoot on film, but you don't have to spend $250,000 to make it look like film. LOL
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can you be more specific? i used 16 n 35mm n i can honestly say its not cheaper than digital. or are you being sarcastic?
 
Video

Video

Mark Harris said:
So I'd be curious to hear if you hit any situations where they have specific prejudices against video formats.
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DVD companies don't mind digital, they just care about quality of production. If it looks really amateur, they don't want it. They do usually want a high quality master though (usually D5 or HD Cam--Digibeta maybe), plus standard deliverables.

But! If you sell your movie outright, you don't have to worry about deliverables. That's not the best option for making money because you lose all rights to the film, but if you don't have the money to spend on deliverables (which can be pretty expensive) it is an option to consider.

For theatrical, it's the same thing about quality. They just want it on 35mm eventually--that's part of deliverables for theatrical, along with the MPAA rating and all that same stuff. Unfortunately, digital projection is not cost effective right now. It could easily cost more to project it digitally than to make 35mm prints because of the ridiculous fees associated with digital projection.
 
Digital Distribution

Digital Distribution

Yeah. When you do digital projection, there are two ways to do it. Either your film is on a hard drive or you send it via satellite. Either way, there is a fee one must pay to show it digitally--enforced by the projectionist union. The fee is something like $2000 per theater. Then, the video is protected with a password and a person from the particular distributor must fly out to each and every location to enter the password, which costs money also because you have to pay for the flights and his time. With a wide release this can add up pretty quickly.
 
AlexGarcia said:
Yeah. When you do digital projection, there are two ways to do it. Either your film is on a hard drive or you send it via satellite. Either way, there is a fee one must pay to show it digitally--enforced by the projectionist union. The fee is something like $2000 per theater. Then, the video is protected with a password and a person from the particular distributor must fly out to each and every location to enter the password, which costs money also because you have to pay for the flights and his time. With a wide release this can add up pretty quickly.
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Wow...I had no idea. Does this make it *more* expensive to project digitally than with 35mm film (aside from the cost of the prints themselves)?

Looking down the road it would seem likely (to me, anyway) that digital projection will become the norm, or at least become as common as film. I wonder if these financially limiting (punishing?) factors will eventually ease as that happens...
 
Kidding aside, if the budget is over $500,000, the cost of the 35mm isn't a factor and therefore the production should be shot in 35mm.

There are exceptions, however.

1) If the shooting ratio is over 10:1, especially if it's over 20:1.
2) If the movie needs a lot of green screen. Blue screen in 35mm is very expensive.
3) If the movie is heavily improvisational and requires a lot of quick setups.
4) If there are a lot of locations all over the world, requiring a huge amount of 35mm camera rentals.
5) If the cast requires over 90% of the movie's budget.
 
filmman said:
Kidding aside, if the budget is over $500,000, the cost of the 35mm isn't a factor and therefore the production should be shot in 35mm.

There are exceptions, however.

1) If the shooting ratio is over 10:1, especially if it's over 20:1.
2) If the movie needs a lot of green screen. Blue screen in 35mm is very expensive.
3) If the movie is heavily improvisational and requires a lot of quick setups.
4) If there are a lot of locations all over the world, requiring a huge amount of 35mm camera rentals.
5) If the cast requires over 90% of the movie's budget.
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But really, now-a-days, unless you do everything old school style, you have to make a DI anyway, so why not shoot digital and just transfer?

I mean, there are clearly advantages and disadvantages to both, but I don't think digital is necessarily a bad way to go even with higher budgets.
 
filmman said:
Kidding aside, if the budget is over $500,000, the cost of the 35mm isn't a factor and therefore the production should be shot in 35mm.

There are exceptions, however.

1) If the shooting ratio is over 10:1, especially if it's over 20:1.
2) If the movie needs a lot of green screen. Blue screen in 35mm is very expensive.
3) If the movie is heavily improvisational and requires a lot of quick setups.
4) If there are a lot of locations all over the world, requiring a huge amount of 35mm camera rentals.
5) If the cast requires over 90% of the movie's budget.
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That thinking is dated and rapidly fading. Going Red will still save you noticeable cost at that budget. At *any* budget, big Hollywood players are deciding Red is a better tool.

Even if I had $100mil, I'd still shoot on Red (supplemented with a Phantom for 1000fps :-)
 
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