"Corrado" - A production blog

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They don't scrutinize your budget very hard. When you are wrapped, before they give you back your bond money, they want to see your final budget.

They take your numbers just as you present them. If you can squeak under, then by all means do it. In my case I wasn't even close to the 625k threshold, so maybe that is why they paid little attention to my budget.
 
seunosewa said:
The quality of life in New York city is high??
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Socially in particular. It's the ultimate American melting pot. I've never been anywhere that had anything like the kind of egalitarian social subtext that Manhattan has, and I've been to a lot of places.

The tendency of Manhattanites to accept one another as they are, unconditionally, is largely invisible to tourists though, who are generally just overwhelmed by the pace and the spectacle. And in fairness, it's true that there is a small (but seemingly ever-shrinking) 'nastiness' subculture here, but for most of us it's just background noise. The vast majority of this society is so accepting that it borders on Utopian.

No, I'm not kidding...

But again, pretty much only full-time residents and former residents will know what I mean. And of course, not all will agree. In my experience though, almost all do.
 
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Corrado is in the hands of others now....next week I expect to be in the colorist's studio giving guidlines when the DP flies in. Post Audio will officially commence next week as well, this week is just being spent tying up loose ends on the final final final cut.

My mind is currently elsewhere in this little bit of downtime right now;

I'm negotiating on a location for Hangar 14 right now, and trying to figure out how I can get the private money I need without going outside my circle of investors. It won't be hard at all actually, it's just something I typically worry about for no reason.

I've also assembled a very preliminary cast "wish" list for the movie. You will recognize every name on the list. One of the females I'm trying to get is so big I don't even know if I can get her. I'm channeling every ounce of fame, every article, every molecule of buzz on Corrado to get her hired and on my cast.

There are dozens of B listers I could get easily now due the relationships I have, but as usual I've decided to make my life hard and stretch to get someone really awesome like I did on Corrado.

It's odd what I put myself through - I could have made Corrado with some TV dude instead of Sizemore, some series regular instead of Johnny, but noooooo...I had to go overbudget, I had to fight to get the best people I could get for the money.

Same thing on this. I could have just about any B Lister with the budget but no, not good enough - I have to have a household name. Oh well. Dunno if I can do it but I will sure try.

Ok, I'll throw you a new one, one I have contemplated for a while, one that mainly distributors have told me:

Here is Wisdom: Cast your feature with feature actors if you want to sell it for top dollar.. Reaching down to get TV actors will cost you almost as much money and net you no where near what a feature actor will. Yes, there is a difference.
 
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"I'm negotiating on a location for Hangar 14 right now, and trying to figure out how I can get the private money I need without going outside my circle of investors. It won't be hard at all actually, it's just something I typically worry about for no reason."



You've still got the mind of an indie filmmaker ;)
 
egyptianboxer104 said:
"I'm negotiating on a location for Hangar 14 right now, and trying to figure out how I can get the private money I need without going outside my circle of investors. It won't be hard at all actually, it's just something I typically worry about for no reason."



You've still got the mind of an indie filmmaker ;)
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I think you're right....
 
Ted Spencer said:
You gotta wonder what they're serving for $5 a head for dinner. Tom Sizemore and company will probably not be happy if it's hot dogs, potato salad and root beer...
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Ok I'm only on page 25 of this, been doing my best but it's already taken like two hours to get this far. What a great thread this is to this point! I just wanted to write something now, and then I'm sure I'll learn even more over the next pages I read. It's all worth it, though.

As for that, the assisted living company that I just did work for (I did a training video on food services also) keeps their meal costs to $4.75. Per DAY. That's three meals, and both lunch and dinner have dessert. I've personally eaten at many of their communities, because I went on a road trip to film virtual tours there with a small crew, and we ate at more than half of the communities because of time constraints (easier to eat there than to take our Hummer with a U-Haul attached to another restaurant, then come back, park it, etc.). The food was actually surprisingly good for the most part. The portions were not large, for me, but I'm 25, and these people are 75+, sometimes 100 even, so they don't need as much food for the energy they have. I've spoken with the food service director for the company, and he was telling me he'd be happy to help arrange food sponsorships for the feature I want to shoot and cut down costs, so it's great to have connections like that. I've saved that company a lot of money and he is interested in helping me save money on what I'm looking to do.

What I love so far about this thread up through where I read, page 25, is not just the ambition of this feature film but also that I find a lot of the attitudes Adam has are in line with mine, which is pretty encouraging. I was always a buy-whatever-I-need filmmaker, which of course is hard to do if you don't have the money on hand, but as he said, I plan on making a lot of work over my career, this is what I want to be doing, so I don't care about spending money on grip equipment especially. If it's not being used much, it's not being damaged much either, and it'll still be useful and good 10 years from now, 20 years from now. It's not like an HVX200 even, which is a great camera but it has a certain life-span that's certainly not equal to a 1K light or a c-stand. That being said, I bought two HVX200s, one was new, and one I bought from my business partner, it was used two times I believe. I still got a nice discount off the new price because I told him that they were including 16 gig cards and I'm sorry if he paid $5,200 for his, but it's not worth that much anymore. I've rented out my HVX200s several times, made some money back that way, but I've logged I think already 23 days shooting with them myself, plus the rental money I've made from them shooting other peoples' projects. If I wanted to get 23 days of HVX200 rentals, it would cost quite a lot of money. Even at like $150/day, which would be a fantastic rate to get, that would mean I've gotten $3,450 use out of the cameras, which combined with rental revenue would mean I've paid for about one camera so far in only just more than six months of owning them both. By year's end I'll have them both fully paid and more quite easily.

Even when I was a total n00b in this industry and didn't know a c-stand from a KinoFlo, I still thought it made no sense to rent anything at the prices I saw from rental houses. They were all so unfair to indie filmmakers. That's actually one reason I've been renting out my equipment, to indie filmmakers, because I know I can beat the big guys' prices and these people I rent to mostly are friends or connections, so I like being able to save the money. I don't think it's fair they have to pay $70 for one day of a 16 gig P2 card, I think it's absurd, that's about 8-9% of the cost of the card. Instead I can charge $30 and feel good that I'm making a few bucks, but they're saving a few bucks, and everyone comes out happy. Then again I don't have the overhead of a rental house.

I kept thinking "Rebel Without A Crew" in this thread, too, what a fantastic resource. I'm enjoying reading every page I can get to!

Oh, the other thing I meant to add is that if you say your budget is $750,000, but you spend $300,000, you're not necessarily that far off. Not as far as it would seem. I mean, you can certainly make a revised budget where you pay yourself for the screenplay, you pay yourself as the producer, you pay yourself as the director, you are renting equipment to the shoot that is worth a substantial sum of money, and any other responsibilities you take on that would not be normally handled by a writer / director / producer, you can add those separately. I made a revised budget, which I call the "actual budget" (not the "cost") of my last music video. I was if anything selling myself cheap, but the cost was about $9,500 and the actual budget would have been more like $15,500, with several other people who helped not being paid given a deferred payment in the actual budget so that if the video sold to a record label they would be retroactively compensated for their time. I paid myself in that budget as a producer, director, and also production designer because I handled those tasks myself, but I didn't compensate myself as an additional PA, which I was, because I picked up the permit, I picked up rented equipment, I did a lot of PA tasks that a normal video would have had crew to do, not the director, haha. I think it was pretty modest actually because I think I was to receive something like $4,500 for my time and equipment, which was about a month of my life, so my pay would still have sucked, but the point is I wanted to make a budget that reflected what I'd be willing to sell the video for at minimum. Not cost.
 
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Another thing to take into consideration is that that 16gig p2 card is only going to be valuable until the 32's and 64's come out and then it's not really worth much.
Anybody want to rent some 4gig p2's?
But things like cinema lenses that hold their value rent much closer to 1-3%
 
Matty_g said:
Another thing to take into consideration is that that 16gig p2 card is only going to be valuable until the 32's and 64's come out and then it's not really worth much.
Anybody want to rent some 4gig p2's?
But things like cinema lenses that hold their value rent much closer to 1-3%
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Very true. I have to get my money back faster on stuff like cameras, computers, software, media cards, even batteries. I have no idea how long a battery lasts before it is not as functional, but if I get a new camera that doesn't even use that battery, well, that answers that ;)

That being said, I'm pretty happy with 3% of almost any item on a daily rate. The thing with 4 gig P2 cards is they don't hold much at all, they are annoying. The 8s are somewhat acceptable but borderline. I don't want a 32 or a 64, I don't shoot documentary stuff, so until I start using my HVX200s only as behind-the-scenes cameras I won't have much use for them. And when I do that, I doubt I'll care enough to buy new cards, I'll just the 4 16s I have and I'm sure that will be fine. So I don't feel a huge need to charge a ridiculous rate for P2 cards. A 16 gig P2 card is plenty adequate for most peoples' shooting needs, so $30/day seems fair to me.

As for lenses, I am not sure, I know they can last potentially forever, but how often do people scratch them or otherwise ruin them? I'd be so nervous about renting out expensive lenses to other shoots. I'm not sure...
 
Whew! my brain hurts. I just read this thing from page one to 156 in 2 days. very informative and inspiring. I had no idea how much work had to be done before you do more work, only to end up having much more work to do. I have one feature under my belt already. It's not too good but it's done, it's mine, and I am happy with it. Thank you for taking the time to keep us in the loop. HOW IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU EVEN FIND THE TIME TO TYPE SUCH DETAILED POSTS? When it's out, I will buy. End of story. Congrats.
 
Wow. Read the whole thing finally -and in two days. Amazing. Inspirational. If you've read it you know.
If I had known about this before last month I would have tracked you down to shake hands at Luis' party. Didn't even know who you were last month, but I'm kicking myself for missing that op :) Thanks for taking the time to write this all down.
BTW my wife and I lived in Long Beach for a while when I used to work for Jobing.com and we went to the big Calvary in Sant Ana for a while. Love Pastor Chuck, but we ended up going to Calvary North Long Beach :)
 
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A quick comment that goes back to making ones film under the Ultra Low Budget Agreement. In addition to what has previously been mentioned a big plus to this contract is that it allows the production to use both Union AND Non Union actors & stunt people. This is great if you need to keep the budget down, but really have a few SAG members you want to have on the show.

You can use 3 Union and dozens of Non Union if that is what works for your production. So you can keep the budget down, but still do a SAG show. To get more info on all of the contracts you can got to:

http://www.sagindie.org/resources/contracts/

Matt Anderson
www.stuntworks.org
 
Hey Adam! I'm nearly caught up in reading and archiving this thread. Before I ask any grand questions, I have a nerdy one.

I noticed in one of your BTS pics you can see an ETC Source 4 lighting fixture (they are those theatrical fixtures that have the four internal blades for light adjustments). Usually they arent used in film, though David Mullen swears by then for certain applications. It was not on any of your earlier lists where you explain your full truck, and yet there it is on the BTS. I know you were busy directing, but do you recall how it was used and how useful it was?
 
Hey Shawn,

Ah, the Lekos. We used them in the bedroom shooting scene because we needed more light in that room. We were shooting day for night and were using them for fill, and bouncing them off some craft board taped between the wall and ceiling.

Interestingly enough, the Lekos were not ours. They actually belonged to the owner of the mansion - he had four of them hanging with pipe clamps on an upstairs balcony and had party gels on the front of them. He's use them for weddings to illuminate his back yard.

He really had no idea what they were. My gaffer asked him for permission and we "borrowed" them while we were there, putting them back before we left!

My DP really liked them, but we did only shoot 3 days with them so I don't know how totally crucial they were.
 
Shawn, Lekos (Source 4's) are used quite commonly in film, but your right, they did get their start in the theater world. They are great for throwing a splash on a back wall, accenting features, adding spots of light, great with atmosphere if you need beams, kickers for backgrounds, to simulate headlamps, the list goes on and on. I love them because of the internal flagging ability. Saves time and equipment rather than having to run and grab a C-stand and flags. It's 4 cutting devices built in!
 
taormina said:
Hey Shawn,

Ah, the Lekos. We used them in the bedroom shooting scene because we needed more light in that room. We were shooting day for night and were using them for fill, and bouncing them off some craft board taped between the wall and ceiling.

Interestingly enough, the Lekos were not ours. They actually belonged to the owner of the mansion - he had four of them hanging with pipe clamps on an upstairs balcony and had party gels on the front of them. He's use them for weddings to illuminate his back yard.

He really had no idea what they were. My gaffer asked him for permission and we "borrowed" them while we were there, putting them back before we left!

My DP really liked them, but we did only shoot 3 days with them so I don't know how totally crucial they were.
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Okay, then you guys did use them exactly as David Mullen ASC describes them. I've heard they are super useful in specific situations.


Andrew Brinkhaus said:
Shawn, Lekos (Source 4's) are used quite commonly in film, but your right, they did get their start in the theater world. They are great for throwing a splash on a back wall, accenting features, adding spots of light, great with atmosphere if you need beams, kickers for backgrounds, to simulate headlamps, the list goes on and on. I love them because of the internal flagging ability. Saves time and equipment rather than having to run and grab a C-stand and flags. It's 4 cutting devices built in!
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I've read quite a bit about them. Over on David Mullen ASC's cinematography thread on Reduser he spent several posts going over how he uses them and how useful they are.
 
Hey Adam,

A question about your IMDB ranking structure for getting talent for your film. In terms of costs of talent, did it prove an effective gauge for that purpose, or was the IMDB ranking just used to help structure the cast?

I'm looking at talent for a potential future feature - very competant actors, all in the 4000-6000 range, all fantastic for what I'm thinking of in their own ways.

Now, the only way I'll know how much they'll cost to be in my feature is to contact their agents, and I know you did well with your contacts to get more people on board. But looking at the IMDB rankings, would you say the money you paid for the talent you got together abided by any kind of natural hierarchy following the sliding scale of the STARmeter?

Also, from your experiences shooting on your budget in LA, do you think that the possibilities for foreign investment in shoots in LA are greater considering the weakened dollar rate and the E-grade investment visas open to anyone with a large enough budget looking to go out and film stateside?
 
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