GO SEE 'ONCE' low budget DV hit!

J

JJ Alexander

Active member
Just saw 'ONCE' in NYC. Shot for $150,000 hand held, digital video with available light. It's wonderful. The reviews have been sensational and its winning awards all over the place. Shot in Dublin. A tremendous inspiration for all those looking to make there own low budget film.

A good story well told can go a long way.
 
It was shot HD. Here's a thread written by the film's DP:


Hi guys, Tim here. Yes the film was shot on the two Z1's shooting HDV. Where to begin!!! This was my first time to work on this format and to work with John. The Budget was the then micro budget from the film board 100,00 euro. John particularily wanted to shoot on a budget of this size to maintain creative control.
The brief to me was, show up every day with no plans and lets see where we get to. This was challengeing for me because as you all know us cinematographer types like to know what awaits us and to be prepared for what might be needed in responce. As it transpired it was a positive experience and responding on the fly was a big learning curve.
The Z1 initially was a nightmare. No real ability to pull focus in the normal dramatic way, and hand held left us with strobing,gut renching for me as in honesty I felt the format just had to many inherent flaws at this stage.We then decided to use monopods, allowing us the same fluid and flexible shooting style with a little more stability.
The scene referred to with Glen wasn't shot by me, a pick up scene for which I wasn't available. I can only presume the cameraman didn't get to see the film before shooting as the lighting and style of the scene bears no resemblence to the rest of the film.
The progression to more solid and stable shooting comes from, monopods!, but should relate to the confidence arc of Guy's charachter more than anything else.
We had a tiny light package, 2 x pocket pars on battery, 1 x 575w HMI, 1 X 4bank 2ft kinoflo, and my usual package of diffusion, green and yellow gels. I have been surprised this format has held up so well, I used notions of silhouette and foreground and background single sources to place action in and went with trusting my instincts relative to the package.
Anyway hope this is of some use. T
 
Raw. Gritty. Real. Good music. No climax or resolution. Inspiring for low budget filmmakers. No more excuses. Go do it.
 
I found the Frames four years ago (The Frames is the real-life group that the lead actor is in) and loved their music. When I heard this movie was coming out, I couldn't wait to see it. But I'm out of the country now and will have to wait til I get back to LA. I haven't seen this yet but I want to help get the word out. Didn't this win the Audience award at Sundance?
 
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