How do the indie crews do it?

H

hvxer

Active member
Lets say you want to shoot something like 'Be Kind Rewind', 'Good Dick' or even 'Elephant'?

What all do you need? Do you need more than one camera? What about sound? Can you technically shoot something low budget all with one P2 card or FireStore and the M2 adapters? Are you going to have to rent lights or just shoot in natural light? I am a story driven not effects driven, lover of film. I just want to shoot something straight forward at 24fps. What is a good place to start getting an inventory of what all needs to be on set? I've got a HVX200A and saving up to purchase the memory and the M2 gear this spring. I live in Olympia Washington and there is a public television station here that you can borrow sound, lights and Sony GL's from. What technical grocery list / recipe should I have if I just want to shoot something like 'Good Will Hunting' or 'Role Models'?

Any help, thanks
 
but for the most part of a indie filmmaker yeah you can do soooo much with the 200a, p2 and m2 but yes you are going to need

good sound
lighting (which is just as important as the quality of your camera)
You'll probably be set if you rent a grip truck ( only 300 bucks a shoot for a small one.)
A place to edit, and good compression software.

(anyone feel free to add...)

But to shoot like those movies, they all have a pretty big budget and are no where with in that price range.


I wouldn't call some of those necessarily indie.. michel gondry and gus van sant have a huuge crew and make a big deal out of most of the movies they do. But that's just my take.

I could be wrong.
 
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If you have the talent and the time, there is no reason why you cannot make stunning results out of a naked HVX (or DVX, anyone remember that camera?) and a few lights. Get good sound and you have it made.

The problem is people either don't feel like investing the time or they don't have the talent, and their excuse is they "need" some other piece of equipment to make their film.
 
Hmmm, I wonder what naked HVX footage looks like. I've seen some stuff on youtube that could have just been a naked HVX but still I think I like the temporal effect 35mm has. I think its funny there would have been a big budget for 'Last Days'.

I am all about letting the story do the talking. But I think there is a bare minimum of gear you need. Good story though is something not a lot of people I know grasp. Their projects are way self indulgent. And when you ask them: How do you think the audience will react to this scene? They don't have a clue. I would figure you would want to cater to audiences with the strength of story, otherwise the audience doesn't take anything away from the film. I am pretty tired of meeting amateur film makers who are trying to make the next quirky zombie flick. But then again, I wouldn't want to alienate everyone but the most trained audience with something as deep as 'Syndoche New York'. I guess I am looking for a happy medium. I really don' t care if all you need is one, naked HXV and sound. I just need to know what is in the technical mix because there might be a correlation between what you write and what you can shoot when budget is an issue. But I can't see something like 'Last Days' costing more than catering if you own the camera and editing PC and you can borrow the lights and sound for free.
 
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All of Cloverfield was done with naked HVX's? First off, that kills the convince-ability because how many 20-something New York city living post grads use a 3000 plus dollar camera and lots of P2 cards for shooting at a party? You know they must of had to have a 200GB P2 card or dump a lot running from the bugs like that. I liked Cloverfield though, and I usually don't like the japanese inspired monster that brings apocalypse to a city type movie. And the use of attractive looking cast members throws me off as stereotypical. But that all those stereotypical post grads eat it in Cloverfield, I do like.

I wonder what Micheal Moore uses for his docus? I bet Reno 911 uses a naked HVX or the likes.
 
No, most of Cloverfield was done with the Viper (Or was it the Genesis?) and Sony F23s because of the VFX plate work. The majority was definitely NOT done of HVX's.
 
Shoot a great script with excellent actors, and a creative, competent crew.

The problem, as pointed out, is that people think gear makes a movie and forget the first and second things.

In my workshops I teach filmmakers that the job of an inexperienced crew is to let the story be the star, and keep from screwing it up. Shooting a great story in a simple way will yield you better results than a crappy script with a million dollars worth of gear. Filmmakers are storytellers after all.
 
Ugh - I should make a post entitled "The Truth Behind CloverField"

Cloverfield used an HVX in the party scene in the home. It also shot everything with Rob and his Girlfriend. The F23 shot the rest of the film because of its ability to shoot in lowlight and the fact it plays better with Sodium Vapor lighting than the Viper did.

The viper was on set though and did shoot. But the CineAlta F23 did the vast majority of the shooting.

And films should not have attractive people in them because that is stereotypical? Or did I read that post totally wrong?

Focus on lighting, story, and sound. Look into an HV20. The workflow is a little tougher - but it makes some amazing images. I would consider holding on the purchase of a 35mm adapter. Unless you know how to use one and have an AC you can really mess up the image.
 
Jim is right but even with the best script for the story you have to have competent lighting and great audio. Audio is half of a movie experience and it has to be clean and music has to be chosen wisely. Today you can put together equipment on the cheap compared to even 5 years ago. Digital video and audio has changed many things in the industry and tons of companies offer great music beds you can buy very inexpensive. Lighting sets the mood and not enough lighting or poor lighting can give you less than optimal footage to work with and no amount of post can fix bad audio and lighting. A great script and the really good lighting and then very clean audio makes for a lot less work in post and gives you more time with editing.

Simple is always better. Even when its technically complicated good story tellers make it look simple. More money can help, bigger better crew can help, but there have been great pieces of film art that have been created with a small crew and sparce equipment.

If you chose actors that can deliver the story with the right emotion and that can act up to the challenge then the story has a chance of being great. All of the above can't make up for bad acting or a poor story line. I believe the story should come first and then good lighting and the clean audio and then its up the the crew and director to pull out the story that should be there.

MT

PM me I live in Renton just south of Seattle.
 
You look at a Transformers, or Twilight movie, the cast has to look 90210 for the eye candy factor. Maybe thats the difference between film and movies. Pi had a really geeky looking actor. Thats why in Fight Club Ed Norton was used for the geek and Pitt for the bad boy hallucination. JJ Abrams makes some really good looking movies but at the end of the day they are all target audience disposable thrill rides formulas. I know most film follows a formula too, but at least as an art form film tries to answer questions instead of distract us from the questions through eye candy escapism. But that's just a bias philosophy too probably.
 
Jim Brennan said:
Shoot a great script with excellent actors, and a creative, competent crew.

The problem, as pointed out, is that people think gear makes a movie and forget the first and second things.

In my workshops I teach filmmakers that the job of an inexperienced crew is to let the story be the star, and keep from screwing it up. Shooting a great story in a simple way will yield you better results than a crappy script with a million dollars worth of gear. Filmmakers are storytellers after all.
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This is so true. Of course having the best gear is always a positive advantage. There is nothing wrong with striving for technical excellence by getting your hands on the best gear you can afford.

But without a good story, a strong vision, and at the very least some decent actors then the most expensive gear won't mean much. Happens to Hollywood all the time. They always have the best gear and the most resources but not always the best script, director, and couple that with all the politics of big budget filmmaking, they will sometimes fail.

Indies have an advantage in that they can be lean and mean and not submerged in a lot of the bullsh*t that you would have to deal with in Hollywood.

One thing that has helped me lately in choosing some of my future filmmaking projects for 2009 is learning and accepting my technical and logistical limitations and figuring out which stories I want to do that will be achievable under these conditions.

You said you have an HVX200. I would say learn and know both its limitations and advantages so that you can work around them on your film. Same with all your other equipment.
 
Nektonic said:
Indies have an advantage in that they can be lean and mean and not submerged in a lot of the bullsh*t that you would have to deal with in Hollywood.
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Yep. The other advantage that indies have, that they rarely take advantage of, is time. Nobody is knocking down your door to meet a deadline. Use that to your advantage and do everything you can to make sure you have the pieces in place before you roll. Almost everybody loves the shooting, but pre-production is where you usually make or break a film.
 
David Jimerson said:
That, however, is a double-edged sword. :)
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Yeah, it can be. Some people work better with a deadline, and when this isn't your day job, other things get in the way and you procrastinate.

But, I can't tell you how many times I have seen people rush in to production (or through post) to meet an arbitrary deadline, or to get in to a festival. And the final product suffered.

I also want to throw out the caveat that I am talking about films that you hope to have some sort of commercial value. Not things you want to do to experiment, or for a fast filmmaking contest or something like that. Doing things like that can hone your skills if you approach them that way, no matter the result.
 
ChipG said:
If you know enough about it you should.
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Eh - I do, but I like coming in on threads and correcting people. Not like anyone would actually care to remember what cloverfield was actually shot on. Since a few scenes (the actual camera had 6 hours of operation on it) we shot on the HVX, everyone instantly thinks the entire film was shot on the HVX and that everyone can make a film like cloverfield.
 
Mattykins said:
Since a few scenes (the actual camera had 6 hours of operation on it) we shot on the HVX, everyone instantly thinks the entire film was shot on the HVX and that everyone can make a film like cloverfield.
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I hope everyone doesn't make a film like Cloverfield, because that would mean I would have to give up watching movies.
 
Mattykins said:
Eh - I do, but I like coming in on threads and correcting people. Not like anyone would actually care to remember what cloverfield was actually shot on. Since a few scenes (the actual camera had 6 hours of operation on it) we shot on the HVX, everyone instantly thinks the entire film was shot on the HVX and that everyone can make a film like cloverfield.
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Your Wrong, Nick T's (the DIT) back up hvx camera had 6 hours on it and no that hvx never shot one scene in the movie, just standby time and it was just a back up camera and the only way you could know this is from when he sold it on eBay. Not a good source to make assumptions from... The main hvx logged over 100 hours.

Here is another thing I bet you didn't know, most the FX plates were actually shot on film.

Please start your thread...
 
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