Putting together a short film (questions)

Sajc05 said:
tanks for the tanks and the good/civil discourse... but my Q's (questions) still stand and would love some A's (answers) if anyone knows: How does a man of a decent sized budget for a short go about finding a dp? is it craigslist? and if my 32 pager is too long for festivals how much do i have to cut out do you think? i don't think i can realistically go from 32 to 10 pages. maybe 20 but not 10 or 12.
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Sajc05,

The rule is that you can safely shoot 4-5 pages a day. To get a decent film, that is, and to spend time on your shots and not rush anything. I made my film (a 6page no dialogue with over 57scenes) in three days, and man it was hell. we had to add an additional half day to finish it decently. It ended up being 18minutes long.

I assume your 32pages has a lot of dialogue, and man, unless you have very good actors, you'll get problems in shooting and reshooting because of bad lines. I am not a very experienced filmmaker, but that's what the experienced mentors I've got told me. Maybe, if you would like help with the script, I could give you some support? Reduce it to 15pages or so.?

My email's dilmandila@yahoo.com

Cheers man, and have fun!
 
thanks for the tip, dilmandila, i'm in the process of rewriting right now and am shooting for the low to mid twenties while adding on an extra day for shooting, but as you point out - that might not be enough.
 
No, I haven't got to putting a crew together yet because I'm still fine tuning the script. This would be my first shoot working with a dp and hopefully others since the commercials I've shot in the past I was working on my own. My last rewrite took 4 pages off the script total but I'm still at a fat 28.

I guess when I'm set with the script and the dates, I should post something on this site and some others... does that sound right?
 
Dude I shot my short film for $10,000US. We shot on Mini-DV, SD, without a 35mm adapter, but we had a talented DOP and connections to rent a very large lighting truck over our 6 day shoot (13 pages of script, 13 minutes film running time).

You can check it out here: http://www.vimeo.com/769224

That's what $10,000US can buy you if you play your cards right, produce smartly and get the right people excited about your project! All is not impossible! :)

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Oh and yeah - 35 minute short is not good for film festivals dude. Keep it under 15 or go feature length if possible!

Get a kick-ass DOP, a lighting truck and learn from the expierence of doing things the right way first up. We even had liability insurance! :)
 
dilmandila said:
Sajc05,

The rule is that you can safely shoot 4-5 pages a day. To get a decent film, that is, and to spend time on your shots and not rush anything. I made my film (a 6page no dialogue with over 57scenes) in three days, and man it was hell. we had to add an additional half day to finish it decently. It ended up being 18minutes long.
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I would more so put safe in the 3-4 page range, of course this is not taking into account the fact that you may have a few long dialogue scenes, or a 1 page intense action sequence. Either one can either speed up or slow down production a whole lot. This is also your baby. Don't let it get ruined because you didn't give yourself enough time to make it, I'm sure you had to go through that once already sajc05.

Basically though. If you're going to make a feature for fun, go ahead, shoot it for 10k. If you want to make a film that will actually get recognition and be a decent film, work on the story, use that 10k to shoot a short, and then use that short to raise as much money as you possibly can for the feature. It takes more work, sure! But heck, is it going to be worth it? Yes. There's no two ways around that.

Also, realize that you're making an independent film. Chances are if your film has more that 5 locations and 5 characters, you're making a pretty big mistake. (A slight overexaggeration, but sometimes those are necessary, right? :))

Just do yourself a favor, do it right.
 
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ryanT

thanks for the tips, and your film is awesome, very humorous and beautifully shot.

I've had this story since 2004. It's a detective story (comedy mostly) centered around a small produce store/deli. i originally wrote a small 3 minute version of it in 04 right out of school and shot it by myself with a few people. obviously wasn't done very nicely at all but i loved the story and the main character. so i wrote a 90 page script.

realizing i do not have feature experience or the resources i took it down to 28 pages. maybe i could get it to 20 pages if i sucked it up and got rid of some of my favorite funny moments.

I guess what I should do is maybe condense it entirely and take out a lot of the story OR go back to the drawing board and write a 10 page short abandoning this project for now.

when i'm done with this editing program i'm taking in late june i only have a 2-3 week window to make this movie before i have to go back to work.
 
Yeah, Sajc05. I might go over the script with somebody who isn't involved in the project at all. Ask them what you could cut or maybe how you can restructure it and I'm sure you'll find something. Chances are you can tell the story just fine in 10-15 pages.

Also, at the same time don't let preproduction go to waste. You should probably be spending the most time on writing the script, then preproduction, then post, then writing. Leave nothing to chance and give yourself way more than enough time to shoot it. Then you can just spend your time in production on actually making your film, and not worrying about if the lead should be changing clothes for the next scene or not. Good luck though. Hopefully you figure out how to make things work.
 
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