Nathyn
Low Budget Ninja
Wages of Sin: An Indy Primer
Ready for an old school B-grade actioner? This our 2007 feature, "Wages of Sin". Some of you have seen it, some have not. Please use this a primer as to what to do and a there's a lot of what not to do. This was shot on the original DVX100. We used the stretch trick I talk about in my Action Filmmaking book to get widescreen format. It's all here, the good the bad and the ugly. (And the hot, as there's some smokin' babes in this film). I suggest using headphones around 22:23 to 23:50 we had some sound issues because of bad booming. (Our normal boomer had to work). We tried to play around with this in post, but it was a no go and we couldn't do ADR at the time. (Fixing sound in post is a headache). This was the last SD feature we produced. The music was either done by JH Rogers III or done in Garage Band. (Sometimes both). We shot this film for about $5000, a step up from our first film which we shot for $800.
1. Backlighting. In the first scene we have a back/front lighting issue. I used to have a bad habit of shooting people lit from the back, without proper front lighting (see my first film "The Fourth Beast"). Even though this looked okay this time (because of decent lighting from the cieling), unless you want a quasi-silhouette look always hit the character/object with some light even if you think it's well lit inside. And don't use the camera's "backlight" function, use actual lights. LOL. Also, don't shoot in front of blinds with light bleeding in. Even with front lighting, it doesn't look good. The issue is it looks fine on the LCD or a computer screen (you won't even notice actually), but not so much on a TV. The light bleeding in doesn't look good at all on an SD TV.
2. Color grading. We pulled this off without any color grading and very little color correction. We were lucky and there's still some colors that are off. What I see in a lot of indie flicks is people grabbing cameras an shooting certain types of movies with no color grading. Color grading can actually help your film look more "filmic" especially in the horror films and darker action/thriller type flicks. We did some color work in the scene with the drug dealer, but the blue look wasn't a color grade, it was a white balance effect. We white balanced against orange and saved it as a preset. In My first film sometimes I would simply point at the scene (usually outdoor stuff) and white balance and got some good looks from doing that, but it's better to shoot natural versus doing in camera color in case you change your mind, which brings us to...
3. Understand White Balance. "White Balance" simply tells the camera what is white. Once the camera knows this it helps the camera's color precision. Point the camera to a well lit "white card" or a white object in the room then set it. Most cameras have the Cloudy, Snow, Tungsten, Fluorescent and Sun presets. When you choose one of these it does the work for you. Tungsten is used a lot for indoor scenes under normal lighting. Play around until you get the look you want for the scene. Try not to do anything you can't change in post. The presets normally shouldn't pose a problem.
4. Learn lighting. Even if it's basic three point stuff, sometimes you (Mr. or Ms. Indy director) are the only lighting person on set. Seriously, it got to a point on one short where we had to bounce lights off a big mirror on to a scene because we didn't have a bounce card. It worked well. You want to have as much lighting on hand as possible even if you're using worklights (up to 5000 watts if you can manage it, or about 1300 watts minimum, I'd say).
5. Dedicated sound person. In low budget filmmaking, sometimes you'll be working with different people on one task. You'll want to have a dedicated sound person. Even if you have more than one, have a person who knows about sound to boom. A boom op knows how to hold a boom mic and what to listen for. It may seem easy to give it to a friend and say, "hold this like this", but it usually doesn't work. In fact you'd be better off grabbing a film student than just some guy or gal off the street.
6. Set design. Do it! Or find a location where it's not needed. Beg or barter your way in if you can't pay. Example: Many times restaurants will let you shoot there if you buy food there for the cast and crew there. Believe it or not this makes your film look more professional and like you spent more money than you actually have.
7. Storyboards. Storyboards aren't necessary, but they sure are helpful.
8. Shotlist. Again, not necessary, but let's take a lesson from a WOS fight. Notice the fight in the warehouse cafeteria. The female guard, played by Makayla Boyd (hire her if you're in Chicago), throws a balled up cup at me. What's missing? There's no scene of me moving to the side. That sucks. And there was nothing to cut to that would make sense. Hard to do to shot list on a fight scene; maybe, but at least list the needed shots.
9. Blocking. Block the shot ASAP. It makes the day go easier.
10. Line Reads. The scene in the restaurant with CiCi and Felicia took about two hours. They had their lines down. We shot the thing and we left. Actors should be rehearsing in their spare time even if you're not with them. Most of the time the indy director can't always be there. Some of my actors would get together and rehearse scenes. They would then do a run through before shooting. I would add my two cents as I watched. You can tell who did what as it really does come out in the performance.
11. Martial arts/Action. A lot of use like to do action films. I find that if you need to do fights, but have limited time, hire martial artist. They already can do the moves. Explain the fight to them. Show them what needs to be done and if needed let them help hash it out. The best fights I did were actually with martial artist or people who have at least done some staged combat. You can tell the difference in how they move.
a. Keep weapons out of view when not using them and if needed, alert authorities and definitely those around your set, what you're doing, this way you won't get shot by and unsuspecting police officer.
b. Also, people will steal props. Weapons, cases of fake money, fake blood (which is cheap to make) and other props that look "cool". A special effects guy told me about how people would always steal his fake money. I mean it's fake! But that was the item people wanted most.
b. Also, people will steal props. Weapons, cases of fake money, fake blood (which is cheap to make) and other props that look "cool". A special effects guy told me about how people would always steal his fake money. I mean it's fake! But that was the item people wanted most.
12. Power. Extra batteries and extension cords are a must. You can never have too many extension cords either.
13. Motion. In most professional films the camera is always moving or your eye is always being directed somewhere. If you sit your camera down and shoot a person talking the shot gets boring. If you move the camera around and cut between the speakers it helps give the scene movement and can build drama. And don't forget you can also use keyframes in your editing program to move the shot around. In the first scene I did this when Mike told the gunman to "Take him down" the scene moved to him. That was done in post not in camera.
Some of the pros might be looking at this list going "seriously dude, it's basic." But these things need to be mentioned because they may not, be getting done or even thought of. The newbies come in thinking, "I'll pick up a camera and shoot a film, what's the big deal?" They put a lot of time and effort into it and then don't get what they want out of it project-wise and sometimes it's because of these basic things being missed.
-Nate
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