Theatrical Release from Camcorder, John Carney's Once

D

dtzfilms

Well-known member
I'm a bit slow on this...
I just saw this flick, shot in Ireland for $160K.
Two Camcorders, story is somewhat cliched but
it's a story nonetheless.
Made 20 Million world wide.
Goes to show, it doesn't matter what you shoot on.
But does anyone know what it was shot on?

I watched it with the commentary and it shed light on a number
of scenes they just stole. Very inspiring. Terrible lighting on some
of the scenes, but well acted.
 
ONCE is a great small budget movie, and a perfect example of what can be done with what's available - too many people never get off their butt because they wait until they get the just right equipment. Yes, ONCE was shot in HDV, on Sony Z1s, and it is rough, but it works - AND it won an Academy Award for music.
 
There have been several films from consumer and prosumer camcorders with theatrical releases, including Once, The Signal, Crank 2, Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch, My Date With Drew, Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour, Spellbound, Murderball, Iraq In Fragments, Supersize Me, November, The Aristocrats, the New Year Parade, An Inconvenient Truth, Chosin and more. At leat three of those have gone on to be nominated for or even win Academy Awards for Best Doc (Inconvenient Truth won, Murderball and Iraq in Fragments were nominated). And there have been major-budget feature films where there were scenes or segments that were shot on prosumer-priced equipment, including The Departed and Battle: LA.
 
Just shows to go ya. No excuses. Monsters is incredible! That movie is an inspiration. On IMDB Pro it had the budget for $15,000 which is hard to believe. I would have thought that Scoot McNairy, who works a lot, would have gotten at least that. No matter, if you've got a great script, you can shoot a feature and it can get distribution. Of course, if it has serious effects it doesn't hurt to have VFX chops like Gareth Edwards ;)

From the production shots it looks like it was shot with an EX-1 or an EX-3 with an adapter. Can anyone confirm that? Tech specs say XDCAM EX (1080p/24) (source format).
 
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