No-Budget Film Making: Equipment Costs

Too often, people see filmmaking as a kind of investment. And should that film fail to secure distribution, or, indeed, make it into a festival (as many do), they feel like they've lost money. But they're looking at it the wrong way.

When you buy a car, do you look at it as an investment? No. It's a piece of equipment you use to get you from one place to another. By the time you're done with it (unless you're mechanically inclined), you'll be lucky to sell it for half of what you paid for it. And that doesn't include gas, tune-ups, car washes, and other various and sundry repairs.

Most vehicle owners don't look at a car as something they lose money on. It's something they need, use, and enjoy. The same goes for almost anything. When I look at my comic book collection, I don't think of all the money I've lost; I think of the stories waiting there for me to read, and the pleasure that those stories give me. Once a month, to celebrate our anniversary, my wife and I dine at a restaurant. I'm not thinking about how I'm going to make back that thirty dollars. I'm thinking about the food that I'm going to enjoy.

Think of filmmaking then as more of a hobby or a way of life. Something you do for the sheer love of it. And you'll find that you don't feel like you've wasted your hard-earned moolah.

At the same time, I'm totally an advocate of doing things cheaply. And so, here's a short guide to the finances of filmmaking, on the cheap.

Camera

Which is why I recommend that all burgeoning filmmakers go out and buy a nice video camera. Some of the nice "prosumer" models can retail for four to five thousand dollars. You should be able to find an older but decent one for a little over two thousand.

Now, I'm sure the first reaction of many is, that's a lot of money. And it is. But consider the alternative: renting equipment is going to cost you so much more in the long-run. Renting equipment is going to cost you hundreds of dollars per shoot, and thousands of dollars per film.

But if you own your camera, you're only paying for it once. And that camera, properly maintained, will last you years. That's many, many films. An infinite number of films, only for a measly couple of grand. That, my friends, is a steal.

And should you want to get into side gigs-- weddings, commercials, et cetera-- having your own camera opens those doors up. It also helps to ingratiate you with other local filmmakers (and there are always other local filmmakers), who don't have their own camera. They'd much rather put you on their crew than rent.

For those of us who are shy and socially awkward, having that camera is like having a pretty girlfriend: it's going to get you places. You'll meet other creative types, you'll find new actors, you'll get access to other locations. Let the camera do the networking for you.

I'm a strong proponent of digital video over film, for both economic and socio-political reasons. An hour of sixteen millimeter black-and-white film might cost you close to a hundred dollars. An hour of digital video costs you five. The difference is astronomical, and there's no need to get it developed or to employ a negative cutter.

Lighting

Film requires artificial light because it has a lower contrast ratio than the human eye, and therefore can't "see" in poorly lit conditions. Video has a lower contrast ratio than film, and so it oftentimes requires more light than film. This doesn't mean you have you to purchase an $800 light kit.

We got a few shop lights from the hardware store at twenty bucks a piece, removing the grill and attaching them to a stand. They take one five hundred watt halogen bulb apiece; each bulb costs us a little over a dollar. Your mileage may vary, but it's still much cheaper than an ARRI kit. Five bucks a piece for a couple of bounce boards, and you're in business for under a hundred dollars: no reason to have that "grainy" look, unless that's the look you're going for.

Tripod

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: never trust a man without a tripod. While hand-held camera work can be part of your movie's look, and while it can have an emotional impact, I would not advise using it for every shot, as it makes the audience too aware of the crew. Sometimes a nice steady shot is all that's required.

And, again, this doesn't mean you have to plunk down a thick wad of cash for a fancy-schmancy Italian-made tripod with wheels. A still photographer's tripod will do just fine. You should be able to find one relatively cheap, and chances are, someone in your family has an old tripod their grandfather used to use. (Nothing is relatively cheaper than relatives.)

Generally, still photographer's tripods are shorter than those made for film and video cameras, as the subject in a still photograph is often seated. The easiest and quickest fix for this is to use a coffee table. Clear it off, pull it to whatever side of the room your actors aren't standing in, and bingo!

Audio

Everyone and their grandmother will tell you how important it is to have an external microphone. But, the fact of the matter is, external microphones are expensive. If you can afford it, great.

But, if you're like me and you just emasculated your savings by ordering the camera, you're probably wary of any other major purchases for a while.

I ended up buying a hundred dollar mike that screws right into the camera. Is it the best microphone in the world? No. But it picks up reasonably good, crisp sound within its range.

However, its range is very limited, and unless your film is comprised of single-shot scenes, the differences in background noise from shot to shot are going to be distracting. Between master shots and distracting noise, there is, however, a middle choice, and it's the one we made on our last feature: post-production synching.

What this means is, after you've shot the film and edited it together with the bad sound, you gather up all your actors again, put them right up against the microphone, and have them re-record their dialogue. Then you slowly (and painfully) put each line in, one by one.

It's extremely time-consuming and monotonous, but its results aren't bad. If you're going to go this route, I'd suggest that you do it in a reasonably sound-proofed room. Make sure that you do record audio on the set, so that when the time comes to dub, you have some idea of what they're saying.

Finally, spend about ten or fifteen minutes in the room you're recording in and get some dead air on tape. That way, you can lay the dead air in on its own track underneath the dialogue. This will prevent any abrupt flare-ups of static when dialogue comes in.

It's a lot of work, but it's a lot cheaper than buying a boom mike. I should warn you that this method is not advised for extremely talky or wordy films, or films where the meaning is primarily doled out by mouth.

When we decided to do our audio in post-production, we went through the script and cut about a quarter of the dialogue out. This saved us a lot of work, but it also made it a tighter, better picture. It allowed the visuals and the acting (the strong points of the picture) to stand out, and minimized the importance of sound (the weak point). One thing I'll be discussing in another article is working with your strengths.

Editing

Most computers these days come with some kind of editing equipment. While I was trained on AVID and I recommend Adobe Premiere, I know that both can be prohibitively expensive. Windows Movie Maker is free, though, and you can't beat that.

I would not recommend renting out an editing suite; you're talking at least a hundred dollars an hour, and you'll get saddled with one of the suite's editors. They won't let you do or learn anything, and some of them won't let you touch the machine. You don't need that hassle, and you don't need to give them your money.

Actors and Catering

Now, chances are, if you're doing all this on the cheap, you're not going to pay your actors, instead relying on favours and friendships. And that's fine; that's the way myself and many others do it. But whether you pay them or not, you have to feed them. Let me say it again for emphasis: you have to feed the cast and crew.

Do not ask them to bring their own sack lunch.

Do not tell them to eat before they get there.

You have to feed them. Many people write off catering as a needless extravagance, like make-up, stand-ins, and trailers. Not so. Catering is essential to preventing the cast and crew from strangling you.

Pizza's a nice food, especially for small shoots and rehearsals. First of all, it's cheap. Secondly, it's portable: you can eat pizza while you go over your lines, you can scarf down your slice and get back to work.

For longer shoots, I would suggest capping it off with a meal at the end. We often feed our actors Stouffer's Baked Macaroni. It cooks in a little over an hour and you can get seventy-two ounces of it for six or seven bucks. It's a nice way to cap off a shoot.

In Conclusion

So, there you have it. Everything most filmmakers need, on the cheap.