The look of Independent Film

[Kholi]

From what I have seen, it doesn't seem to occur to most indie film producers to particularly try, either.

Note the common lack of an Art Direction forum on most indie-production-related sites. There isn't the interest to support one.

And yes, sound is another biggie. People for whom I shoot small projects marvel at the amount of time I spend barking at assistants to locate and disable/insulate sources of extraneous noise.

How much Art Direction do you think someone could do on a 10K budgeted feature? That wasn't snide or passive aggressiveness, by the way, it's an honest question.

Are there tips or tricks you know of or can offer? Some insight? I'm definitely NOT an Art director... lol.

 

[jls4]

How much are the Nikon Lenses responsible for that? You have to question that as well. But here's a thought that puts this discussion on topic: if you want SGPro or G35 Bokeh you sacrifice light instead. Which means you need MORE light to get the same image. A good stop or more is likely to be the case. So what you save by not going with the Ultimate costs more in the end in electricity, manpower and lights altogether.

Once you start getting into the "overlit" look, it's another thing that lends it's hand to wondering why the image doesn't look like what we've all been trained as "High Dollar Cinema/Professional Cinema".

Even with the EX-1 being decently quick, this is still the case.

So, it does go back to the "look" of independent film. Also, the less you're using wides the more it screams amateur unless it serves the story.

Everything, down to choice of compositions, should serve the story. And if you're always stuck on a 50 because your 35 has soft edges, then your entire image suffers when you need to go wider for a certain scene or shot.

Thanks for your continual education of me. on my last movie we used a 50mm, 105mm and just took the Letus off the camera and used the wide from the camera itself. We made shure sharpness was set to 0. when we did the edits worked. The 50 and 105mm had more of a "texture" than the wide open, but it worked - it fools most people.

But I don't want to do that again. I want the texture to match throughout the movie. I guess I'd use wides no matter what - but I think we're saying the same thing at this point. It's not about me NOT choosing a RED, but more so figuring out the budget and going from there. Right now anything is an improvement over my 1/4 inch cmos chips.

 

[jls4]

This is significant because it gives you a background in digital image processing of which colour correction is a small subset. It also makes you a better candidate for a Red because the workflow will not only be familiar, but you'll understand at a fundamental level what is going on. If you also had your material output for offset printing and did the correction for that yourself even better.

Thanks for your comment craig. I really want to go the RED route. I'm not that worried about the workflow as I am concerned about the price tag of all o fthe things needed to get the best image out of the RED, along with some of REDs problems mainly with data - I mean start up at 1 minute is scary and annoying but once the camera is on how many times do you turn it off? I mean once ours was on for a shoot it stayed on until we needed to change the battery.

 

[Sad Max]

How much Art Direction do you think someone could do on a 10K budgeted feature? That wasn't snide or passive aggressiveness, by the way, it's an honest question.

A US$10K budget doesn't allow much of anything for construction, but choice of location and dressing can make or break the look of your project and at that budget level an Art Director functions mainly as a locations manager, set decorator and prop master. Depending upon where you are, the resources available to someone who knows how and where to look can make a substantial difference.

Are there tips or tricks you know of or can offer? Some insight? I'm definitely NOT an Art director... lol.

Truthfully - bring an art director aboard (or define the position on your crew, find someone interested in doing it, and let them learn while working with you). As with so much else at the low end of the budget scale, guerrilla art direction is learned by doing.