Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?

Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?

  • Total voters
    157
Jawa Ex Machina said:
So post-production doesn't need to be taken into account? Just production?
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Package licensing isn't post-production because it isn't required for people to actually see the film.

I agree that the goal posts need to stay in the "shooting" realm and "shooting" means having a watchable cut of your film.

I only say this because in the *spirit* of the thread, I think the question has become can you make a saleable film for 10K. After the film is sold a million things might be done to it, but the actual *shooting* costs didn't exceed 10K.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
So post-production doesn't need to be taken into account? Just production?
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It does, but what they're saying is that what happens after distribution is done, then the distributor decides to get a 5.1 Mix done (Dolby Digital sealed or not), M&E, etc is not part of the equation. Honestly, what you and I are doing--by paying for all of these things, is counter-productive to our level or tier. If we have a solid product that someone wants to buy, then they'll foot the bill for whatever extras they need to pay for.

So, you get it to the best possible point you can with your current budget then let it fly. What you're talking about is definitely to be considered, just not so much in this discussion.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
So post-production doesn't need to be taken into account? Just production?
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Let's just say....a finished product that can be shown. If this discussion is including some sort of transfer to film, .....then we can ALL just say "NO, it's not possible" and be on our way. I was assuming that it would be shot, edited, and READY to be viewed in full, but not marketed or mass produced, etc, etc.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
What about the cost of crashed external hard drives during post-production? On "Marianne" that cost was over $1,600 USD, and we used all kinds of brands. We even had a Samsung Blackarmor just completely die after two weeks of use.
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Cost of Drive Space, Duplicating a few terrabytes worth of RED footage, for me didn't exceed the 1,000 Mark.

I'm sitting here with 8+ Terrabytes of raw RED footage and transcoded ProRes footage from Superseeds in Seagate GoFlex Drives. Drives are inexpensive here, 100-150 per 2TB external. Firewire, eSata.

I even bought two more 1TB drives for the purpose of moving DPX sequences to my friend for VFX, and that cost 200.00 for the pair.

Sucks to hear about the drive failures, though, and I'm knocking on wood! We've got the footage backed up for the most part and it wasn't a crazy expense.
 
I'm not getting into the post-production cost because we'll be stuck here for another 500 posts debating make believe accounting on a variable cost issue. Show me your post guy and I'll show you mine (me).
 
vcassel said:
I'm not getting into the post-production cost because we'll be stuck here for another 500 posts debating make believe accounting on a variable cost issue. Show me your post guy and I'll show you mine (me).
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So true....because if you shot on a DVX100B, or even HDV you wouldn't need NEAR the system that you do with some other formats. My 2002 E- Machine edits DV just fine!
 
Kholi said:
Cost of Drive Space, Duplicating a few terrabytes worth of RED footage, for me didn't exceed the 1,000 Mark.

I'm sitting here with 8+ Terrabytes of raw RED footage and transcoded ProRes footage from Superseeds in Seagate GoFlex Drives. Drives are inexpensive here, 100-150 per 2TB external. Firewire, eSata.

I even bought two more 1TB drives for the purpose of moving DPX sequences to my friend for VFX, and that cost 200.00 for the pair.

Sucks to hear about the drive failures, though, and I'm knocking on wood! We've got the footage backed up for the most part and it wasn't a crazy expense.
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What brand are you using? La Cie?

I've decided to not use external drives at all next time. I'm spending the money on a NAS with four 2TB (or larger) internal drives instead. I've had enough problems.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
What about the cost of crashed external hard drives during post-production? On "Marianne" that cost was over $1,600 USD, and we used all kinds of brands. We even had a Samsung Blackarmor just completely die after two weeks of use.
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Now that I think about it, as I wait for REDCINE to kick out some ProRes...

This is kind of what I mean when I say that experience can sometimes be skewed, if not always actually. You had drives fail on you, which again really bites, but I haven't had them drop out on me. We used Seagate products because I trust the brand. But, you're suggesting that hard drives will crash and it should be an expense added before you even consider. In my experience, I would just say get some Seagate drives from reputable dealers (NewEgg would be the only online dealer I'd trust with hard drives) and you should be fine as long as you double-up on capacity for redundancy.

I feel like this is the kind of thing that also distorts the view on "getting it done". There are a lot of people talking about distribution and how it works, but it's only from their personal perspective. My first question, now, is "Can I see a trailer for the movie you tried to sell?", and from there I'll form my conclusion on whether the advice is something that applies to myself or a general population.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
What brand are you using? La Cie?

I've decided to not use external drives at all next time. I'm spending the money on a NAS with four 2TB (or larger) internal drives instead. I've had enough problems.
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Seagate GoFlex 2TB Drives with extra Docks (FW800). G-Tech G-Raids are way too expensive and I feel like the quality is dropping due to the demand placed on G-tech to deliver mass quantities for this industry and other creatives.
 
pulpfiction007 said:
So true....because if you shot on a DVX100B, or even HDV you wouldn't need NEAR the system that you do with some other formats. My 2002 E- Machine edits DV just fine!
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My school made me get a Lenovo W700ds back in 2009 which my scholarships paid for, and I'm glad they did as I've never had a problem rendering complex particle simulations or highly layered composites.
 
Kholi said:
Now that I think about it, as I wait for REDCINE to kick out some ProRes...

This is kind of what I mean when I say that experience can sometimes be skewed, if not always actually. You had drives fail on you, which again really bites, but I haven't had them drop out on me. We used Seagate products because I trust the brand. But, you're suggesting that hard drives will crash and it should be an expense added before you even consider. In my experience, I would just say get some Seagate drives from reputable dealers (NewEgg would be the only online dealer I'd trust with hard drives) and you should be fine as long as you double-up on capacity for redundancy.

I feel like this is the kind of thing that also distorts the view on "getting it done". There are a lot of people talking about distribution and how it works, but it's only from their personal perspective. My first question, now, is "Can I see a trailer for the movie you tried to sell?", and from there I'll form my conclusion on whether the advice is something that applies to myself or a general population.
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I meant of course Seagate Blackarmor, not Samsung. Yeah theyre good, but like I said, even a blackarmor died after two weeks of use. That's their top-of-the-line drive, 7200rpm, 32mb cache, eSata. Two weeks of use and busted.

The great thing about Seagate is that they have a warranty that covers these sort of things, but when you're making a commercial product like a feature film, you can't really send in a broken hard drive to be replaced without comprimising the safty of your footage.

The way it works is this: Your drive dies. You return it to the shop. The drive is then shipped by a third party to Seagate, and this third party (which one it is depends on where you bought it, but it's always a third party) does random tests on all incoming drives just to see if they have the problem the person who bought it says it has.
A common problem for drives like this is the external drive box. Often, it's not the actual drive that dies, it's just the power cable inside the box. Your drive with all your raw footage is fine, but there's no way for you to know this because if you open the box yourself, take out the drive and place it inside a computer as an internal device, the warranty will become invalid. You can't open the case.

So let's say your broken hard drive with your raw footage for your feature film really isnt broken at all, it's just that you can't use it. You give it back to the store, they replace it with a new drive and the old one is shipped off to Seagate by the third party. The third party then sample checks your drive and find it's not broken, and they also suddenly have access to all your raw footage.

You can either spend the money on a new drive or take the chance and hand that to the store.

This is why external drives are a pain in the ass.

I think AT LEAST three or four of the drives that broke were Seagates. They were one of the better brands we used. The best one was La Cie.

EDIT: I got the above information from both Seagate and the store I bought the Blackarmor.
 
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vcassel said:
I thought the title of this thread was "Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?" not "Do you think it's possible to sell an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?"

Now you're just moving the goal posts. That's fine and well as an additional or compounded conversation, but let's not confuse the issue more than it already has been.
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If an amazing film is shot for $10,000 but never gets edited and people never see it... is it even a film?
 
keylight said:
If an amazing film is shot for $10,000 but never gets edited and people never see it... is it even a film?
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lol

And here I thought we were drifitng away from existentialism.

No one but the creator of the film need see the film for it to exist as a film -- and I don't even think that's a requirement, but probably unavoidable.

If it's not edited, it's not a film. Just as paint brushes, paint and a canvas sitting in the same room doesn't make a painting.

You'd have what's called *footage*. That's it.
 
keylight said:
If an amazing film is shot for $10,000 but never gets edited and people never see it... is it even a film?
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No, it's not, but these days any schmo with a current computer can edit an HD film.

It might require more work to finish once it looks like a sale is coming, but even on my 8-year-old PowerBook G4 running FCP 5 (no ProRes), I could offline an HD feature film in DV and create an Uncompressed HD online. It would only be a stereo sound mix with lackluster color-correction, but I think it would be passable for showing around to people.

It might take a lot of time, but it can be done, and as we're talking about trying to shoot a feature for $10K, I think we can all assume that means doing whatever needs to be done, even if a lot of is done by yourself.
 
If I remember correctly, didn't RR edit "El Mariachi" on a cuts only 3/4" Umatic linear video editing system at his local cable access station? That was good enough, at the time, for Columbia to buy it. For anyone who hasn't cut video on 3/4" Umatic, let me tell you iMovie and MS Movie Maker are quantum leaps ahead of that.
 
Careful or the energy this thread consumes from you might keep you from making that $10K amazing feature film. Its far easier to talk about making movies than it is to actually make one.
 
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