On a $500k to $700k budget - film or HD?

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Mickey Munday

Well-known member
next year there's a possibility i'll be able to raise funds for a feature aimed at a limited theatrical release (1 or 2 name actors) and i'm curious at this production budget is it more cost effective to shoot it in film or using RED and transfer to film?

i've never done anything with film so i only have a basic knowledge of the process
 
If it were me I'd shoot it on Red, or rent a viper and put the savings on the screen. You'll get many opinions on this. I'm not sure what the budget was for "Wanted" first red box office film now out on dvd but I'd assume $15 mil + ? you can find it on imdb, they used red, it worked out well for them. A friend of mine shot a $3 mil budget movie on film and has no regrets.

What type of movie is it? Any special effects etc???
 
I agree with Chip. The Cost for the 35mm Transfer is $30-40K, but the ability to be able to do many tasks easier and cheaper I believe will make up for the $40K loss. I'm trying to raise money for some future projects right now, and at this point it's take a producer who just wouldn't make the Digital Jump, for me to shoot on Film. I figure I may as well get used to the future. ;-)
 
The Reduser board forgot to mention that :) Do you know if there was any Red footage that made it into the movie?
 
aalleexx said:
sorry guys, Wanted was not shot on Red, story goes.... the intention was to shoot it on red but the editors where having a really hard time working with red footie on the avid and they went back to 35mm (again this is what I "heard") the budget for wanted was 75M http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493464/technical
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With $75M they couldn't manage to find anyone who could get RED footage into an Avid? Even though any joker with a MacBookPro or a laptop PC is able to transcode the footage to DPX or even Avid Native format?

Right.
 
PerroneFord said:
With $75M they couldn't manage to find anyone who could get RED footage into an Avid? Even though any joker with a MacBookPro or a laptop PC is able to transcode the footage to DPX or even Avid Native format?

Right.
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Somehow this sounds like a lame excuse... given that most if not all 'big' films are using digital intermediaries... how do those 'get into an AVID' setup???

Heck, it seems if one transcoded each RED frame into an individual 48 bit TIFF frame... one could get the result into an AVID project... or doesn't AVID have the ability to import a numbered still image sequence into a 'movie'... like $29.95 US Quicktime Pro...
 
Mickey Munday said:
next year there's a possibility i'll be able to raise funds for a feature aimed at a limited theatrical release (1 or 2 name actors) and i'm curious at this production budget is it more cost effective to shoot it in film or using RED and transfer to film?

i've never done anything with film so i only have a basic knowledge of the process
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One may call me a 'digital evangelist'... not that I have any affiliation with any particular Digital Denomination... but I 'saw' the light in the 80's as digitization process became better and better, and now, I think there is a certain watershed point at which 'film', that is celuloid, chemically processed, based, is 'dead'.

In the still photography world there may be a few who can command the fees to run a 'all physical film' process, but most commerical photographers have taken up digitial processes, and most camera manufacturers have cut development of 'physical film' cameras...

This transition is 'around the corner' for the movie industry. And it will be in the area of 'no/micro/small' budget films where it will become the only reasonable choice.

Then with the idea that Film-Film is actually going to be telecined into a digital intermediary, which has its costs... there seems to be less of a point to use Film-Film in the first place... unless of course you plan to project on a super wide IMAX screen... like most people here are in that budget bracket...
 
problem is that when wanted was made, red still had a lot of improvments to make to the camera, beta stages you know, now a days any joker with a macbook pro can edit red footie, I guess back then it was still tough, even more so on the AVID
 
The celluloid proponents are barricading the door. The first moat was built around video's poor resolution. That got solved. Then it became a latitude issue. RED, Genesis, F23, etc., have essentially solved that problem. And yes the new Vision 3 stock may hold 15 stops, but there is nearly NOWHERE anyone in their right mind would set up a scene with that much contrast unless they NEVER planned for it to be seen anywhere but a movie theater. Now the last bastion is the storage/archiving. And this one is the best yet. And actually has some merit.

Film is a nice archival format. Digital technology really isn't. Not at this point.

I don't think film is dead. But I do think that digital moviemaking is become more and more viable for those who choose to use it. The romantic idea of cutting on film and finishing on film is still quite nice. But probably overkill for most people.

I did find it funny a year or two ago when people were talking about how RED was nice, but didn't hold up to film's resolution. And in one article, a cinematographer said, "Call me when you get to 8k". I wonder if he's answering his phone these days... :)
 
The idea that shooting a feature on Red is cheaper than shooting film, is NOT entirely accurate. Call around and see how much it will be to handle the post with Red. (dailies, conforming, grade and print to film from the R3D files)- its just about the same as starting out with film- and sometimes more.

Just crunching numbers in my head, you can easily shoot a feature on 35mm on an indie budget. By shooting 2-perf for example, you are getting twice the runtime on the same footage of film, So lets say your shooting 10:1 with 2-perf (90-min feature), here is a very ruff film budget for an indie feature:
(no discounts have been factored in)

40,000 feet of Kodak 35mm film = $26,000
Processing = $5600
Dailies = $9000
Budget 2K DI (from your EDL- includes 35mm print) = $60,000
2K DCP from your 2K DI for digital release = $5000

Total = $105,000 (again, no discounts were factored in)

Thats about the same post costs as shooting with the Red, but you actually get to shoot a film with film. And if you pulled the right strings, I bet you could get close to paying 30% less than that. (not to mention if you only wanted to deliver a 2K DCP or HD tape instead of a print)
 
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$105k in post costs for red? Ehh? I worked on a movie this summer that was shot on 2 Red's and $105k is more than the entire films budget.
 
very interesting indeed....

can you give us a budget sample like that but using a red, would love to see the money comparason as to film, thanks

hunter richards said:
The idea that shooting a feature on Red is cheaper than shooting film, is NOT entirely accurate. Call around and see how much it will be to handle the post with Red. (dailies, conforming, grade and print to film from the R3D files)- its just about the same as starting out with film- and sometimes more.

Just crunching numbers in my head, you can easily shoot a feature on 35mm on an indie budget. By shooting 2-perf for example, you are getting twice the runtime on the same footage of film, So lets say your shooting 10:1 with 2-perf (90-min feature), here is a very ruff film budget for an indie feature:
(no discounts have been factored in)

40,000 feet of Kodak 35mm film = $26,000
Processing = $5600
Dailies = $9000
Budget 2K DI (from your EDL- includes 35mm print) = $60,000
2K DCP from your 2K DI for digital release = $5000

Total = $105,000 (again, no discounts were factored in)

Thats about the same post costs as shooting with the Red, but you actually get to shoot a film with film. And if you pulled the right strings, I bet you could get close to paying 30% less than that. (not to mention if you only wanted to deliver a 2K DCP or HD tape instead of a print)
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ChipG said:
$105k in post costs for red? Ehh? I worked on a movie this summer that was shot on 2 Red's and $105k is more than the entire films budget.
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Who handled the dailies? The post? The color? The film print?

I know you can shoot a feature on the RED, cut it and color it yourself on a mac, and deliver a 2k master from FCP- just for the cost of the equipment. That is fantastic! And that is what is so cool about these new technologies, but thats not what I was talking about here.
 
aalleexx said:
very interesting indeed....

can you give us a budget sample like that but using a red, would love to see the money comparison as to film, thanks
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It can be as cheap or an expensive as you want. But to to it the "right" way it would be about the same as that figure above, less film stock. (if your doing it all yourself you can do it for next to nothing but thats not something I think you should do with a $700,000 budget, unless you think you can get as good or better result as having the post handled professionally.)
 
hunter richards said:
I know you can shoot a feature on the RED, cut it and color it yourself on a mac, and deliver a 2k master from FCP- just for the cost of the equipment. That is fantastic! And that is what is so cool about these new technologies, but thats not what I was talking about here.
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Yea, but that *IS* what a true indie would be talking about. Why do dailies when you can have playback immediately on-set if desired? Why factor the film-out into the cost before you get a distribution deal? Go straight to DVD or online stream format. Cost - nearly zero. IF, and it's a big if, you have the budget, sure you can have someone post and color. But if you don't have the budget, then you can certainly do it yourself. This is much harder with film, because you're going to HAVE pay for the telecine.

Digital gives you options. If you can afford the Divinci, great. If not, do your own work in Color. Can't afford 40k ft of 5218? Not a problem, shoot on a couple compact flash cards. Have a geek friend wrangle the data. Want dailies, cut a prores proxy to watch after hours.

No, it's not how you'd do it in Hollywood. That's why it's *indie*. The paradigm shift doesn't end with the camera.
 
hunter richards said:
It can be as cheap or an expensive as you want. But to to it the "right" way it would be about the same as that figure above, less film stock. (if your doing it all yourself you can do it for next to nothing but thats not something I think you should do with a $700,000 budget, unless you think you can get as good or better result as having the post handled professionally.)
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But the nice thing about this process as opposed to film is that you CAN do it on your own, and if you pick up a deal, you can THEN do it the right way, since you have ALL THE RAW DATA. Your EDL still holds flies, or can be of use to a pro editor. Your ideas about coloring can serve as a baseline to a professional. Everything still holds, and you still have a 4k master to work from.
 
The definition of "Indie" is EXTREMELY vast. To some people it means $5000 budget, to others it means $5,000,000. What is the true indie world? Depends who you ask.

I'm all with you though, I shot a feature earlier this year on RED that is going the "DIY" route, Its not my preference but sometimes you just work with what you got. However, this thread is about working with a $500K-700K budget, there is flexibility for higher-end post with that budget (in my opinion).
 
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