Wake the Witch

[gk16blman]

Wake the Witch - A Japanese style horror film from the Wilderness Park area outside Lincoln, Nebraska.

Like many films on the DVXuser site, this has been over a year in the making. Our Unfiltered Entertainment group put this feature together, and although its not the first feature film, it certainly is one of the biggest projects to date. We tried to strive for many important details. Sound work and sound effects creation. Oringal music score. Extra time with specail effects, including green screen. We even used gren screen suits for actors to show multiple arms and hands reaching out from the wall void in the "witch room" set. (see attached photo) Which has been a challenge for our special effects guru, Andrew Johnson to work with!

Written and directed by Dorothy Booraem and photographed by Chad Haufschild on his JVC-GY250, its been an exciting ride from doing shorts to now doing feature work. I personally have been the on set photographer and recordered over 20 hours of interviews and behind the scenes footage. As the project has been finishing up, it has become very important to have these materials for promotion of the film to the public. The Behind the Scenes has been important enough to be its one DVD, creating a 2 disc DVD set when we finish. The project was cut on multiple computers using Premiere Pro and the fabulous Proscpect HD plugin to handle the HDV footage. Neat Video should also be mentioned because they have a fantastic noise reduction plugin to assist in some of the issues with the HDV format.

Several photos of the production here:

We were fortunate enough to be picked up by Studio Daily/Film and Video on line edition for how we made the film, you can see it here:

http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/projects/11308.html

And check out our website for our trailer and more information!

http://wakethewitchmovie.com


Greg Kubitschek

 

[Azmyth]

Great stuff.

I like to read these success stories of low budget film makers..

I have a question though, and try not to take offense.. as none is meant.

How do you guys come up with the budgets for these films?

You say it was a 10,000 budget.. but your shooting with a 10k camera. I'm going to assume that someone on your crew already had the camera, so it wouldn't have been considered an expense. I read that most of the funds went to craft services, and that makes sense as well. I'm just trying to find out what the basis is for these budget numbers.

I'm just trying to decipher the numbers, since some people may see "OOOOH 10,000 budget" and think that includes everything you used, not stuff you may have already had".

Its like that low budget zombie movie "Colin" they claim it was shot for 70 bucks.. which anyone knows is bull poo. A license to the cheapest editing software will cost you that much. I think what happens is most first time indie film makers, don't see that alot of these people making cheap movies, are doing it with stuff they've accumulated over time. They aren't just going "hey, I want to make a movie" and then spending 10,000 to get it done. 10k won't go very far if you have nothing to begin with.

At any rate, great job! I certainly couldn't tell you only spent 10k

 

[Chad Haufschild]

Thanks, Azmyth. And what a great question.

I'm Chad Haufschild, producer and DP on Wake the Witch. I thought I'd chime in here on this one.

You are totally correct. $10000 is what we paid out of pocket for this production as it stands alone. The camera, lighting, sound and other grip equipment are not included in that $10000 because we had the equipment already. I purchased the camera three years ago specifically for digital filmmaking, but that was my personal expense. The same goes for the other equipment which was accumulated over the last several years working in the commercial video business and some for the short film work that lead up to this project.

That $10000 also does not include any in-kind donations of time, props, locations, costumes, sweat, blood and tears. We got lucky finding people who where as passionate as we were about the project and the process. What a difference a little love and appreciation can make.

So, what did the cash pay for? Food first and foremost. Good food makes for a happy cast and crew. The rest included set construction, makeup, some props, one location, art work and some equipment that was purchased specifically for this project like the greenscreen and green suits and misc. lighting and camera support gear. We also reimbursed cast and crew some gas money.

I think some filmmakers are apprehensive to give it all up like I just did, but the reality of it is that most low budget flicks are budgeted this way. This movie should have cost at the very least $56000. But it didn't.

Thanks so much for your interest.

 

[Azmyth]

Thanks for the reply. I think you did an excellent job, and stories like yours are inspiring.
I'm just getting started, and actually taking the something from absolutely nothing approach. I guess budget numbers just really come down to a few simple aspects..

- how much stuff do we already have?
- how much stuff can we get for free?

 

[Martay]

So, what did the cash pay for? Food first and foremost. Good food makes for a happy cast and crew.

Indeed. Never scrimp on this if you can help it. Poster looks very good by the way and congratulations on getting this completed.

It is a good chunk of our Budget on 'Battle' (blog below) as well as location expenses, etc.

The equipment access is ordinarily something that must be optained through your crew or else that expense alone would seriously keep you from being able to shoot anything.

Light and Camera rental prices are pretty steep.

We've hired crew with the equipment we needed to get it done and compensate the crew member and supplement their gear with anything additional that might be needed.

In-kind services and deferrments are costs that will be incurred at the end of the process when it hopefully secures distribution and eventually...revenue.

-M