…boasting about the size of your equipment?
Sometimes people tell me they’re shooting a low-budget movie, skim over the story part before you see that gleam in their eye and a smugness on their lips – they’re about to tell you the thing they’re most excited about: “We’re shooting on a Red Epic.”
Really? You want me to get excited? You want me to be jealous? Well, honestly I couldn’t give a Ford Coppola.
That’s not what motivates people to watch your film. You’ll notice there’s no films listed with a synopsis like: “Shot with $100k worth of digital cinema technology…” or “A predictable tale of folk shooting each other and stuff. But worth watching due to the most smooth, kick-ass Steadicam shot known to mankind!”
When you’re planning your micro-budget film, either short or feature, choosing your kit can be tricky. But my advice is – keep your kit as compact as possible. And here’s why:
1. Mobility
I’ve been involved in many micro-budget filmmaking escapades over the years. By the time I came to make my first feature, I’d come to the conclusion I should use the absolute minimum I could get away with. Before filming, I’d looked into how other filmmakers had approached micro-budget feature filmmaking. When Christopher Nolan made Following, his self-funded debut feature, they scaled everything so the cast and crew could fit into a black cab. That way they could move the whole set-up across London for the cost of a cab fare.
Likewise, my kit could fit into 2 bags. That included all the camera, lighting and sound equipment. I could carry everything alone, if need be, and often had to. It could fit into the back of my Fiat Punto. I could sling it over my shoulders and jump on a bus or a train (with a light stand in one hand and a mic boom pole in the other)
2. Simplicity
Many aspiring filmmakers approach filmmaking like a train-set enthusiast – the more equipment they bring along, they seem to believe, the more fun they’ll have. And the better the finished film will be. However, I’ve found a truckload of equipment can weigh heavy on the resources of a micro-budget production. Equipment needs to be carried, packed, unpacked, set up – then put away again before you can move on. Every piece of equipment has the potential to need fixing. The more expensive the equipment, the more expensive to fix.
Plus, the more equipment you have, the more crew you need to look after it. More crew means more food, more travel expenses, less reliability. What happens if one day only 5 of your required 10 volunteer crew turn up? Now you spend half the day on the phone, chasing potential replacements when you should be filming. Unless you can afford a pro crew – things need extra explaining, things get lost, broken, left in shot.
Look – often micro-budget filmmakers don’t have much experience. I certainly didn’t. I’d never operated a camera to shoot a movie before (except some 8mm films I made as a kid) and I was about to ‘DoP’ a feature film. I knew my learning curve was going to be steep enough, without adding extra complexity. I knew completing a feature film without money would be a giant task, so I removed as many things which could go wrong as possible.
Even if someone had offered me a Red Epic free for a year, I’d have turned them down. I’d just be adding potential disasters to my production. I’d need more crew, obviously. Plus what happens if the camera breaks? Can I afford to fix it? Probably not. With my camcorder, even if I drop it off a cliff halfway through filming, I could replace it for £600. There’s no way I could replace a Red Epic – it would be a disaster my shoestring production couldn’t survive.
3. Efficiency
With less equipment, you have less to worry about: less to set up, less to break down, less to carry around, less crew to carry it around for you, less people to organise. And sometimes, less very much equals more: more time to spend doing the important things; more time with the actors, more time experimenting, more time to shoot more more footage to get the best takes you can and the best performances.
In the build up to shooting my first feature, which I’d decided to shoot pretty much without any crew at all, I needed to convince myself I could do it. So I shot a short using a £200 stills camera – nothing more than a Nikon Coolpix you’d take on holiday (in the days before smartphones with great cameras). It took a day to make – my own personal 24 hour film challenge. A week later I was screening it to a Kino London audience of 200 people. When the host asked if I was a pro filmmaker, that was all I needed to hear. Maybe he was being sarcastic, but luckily I took it as confirmation: filmmaking is about the story, not the equipment.
DSLR or smartphone?
Many filmmakers will tell you there’s no reason to choose a smartphone over a DSLR. You’ll get better quality with the DSLR and the cost is low enough that you’re not really saving much.
When I shot my feature, DSLRs were only just in fashion and slightly out of my budget range. I read about a consumer camcorder with a cult following – the Canon HV30. But one of my reasons for using it was, although I felt I had a good eye, I didn’t have the technical knowledge to use a more complex camera. The HV30 has basic controls and no lenses – I just added a wide-angle adapter.
What I lost in photography options, I gained in speed and fluidity. Over the shoot, I became an expert in getting the maximum out of the camera. When you’re shooting guerrilla style, like micro-budget filmmakers often do, speed and anonymity are essential. For example, we shot a scene in Waterloo Station – if you have a camera which looks in any way ‘professional’, you’ll need permission (in other words, a big budget).
I’m thinking up a quiet train scene in the intro for a new film. With a traditional camera set-up, again I’d need quite a budget to shoot. With my smartphone, it’s for the cost of 2 train tickets – me and the actor. Who’s going to stop me? Other passengers probably won’t even notice. I’ll get some free, natural-looking extras (if I include their faces, I’ll need consent forms signed).
When Chris Bergoch spoke at MoMo last year about they shot Tangerine on an iPhone 5, he described how director Sean Baker achieved some tracking shots riding a pedal bike – one hand on the handlebar, the other holding the iPhone 5 and mount. Not sure if you could do that so easily with a DSLR.
Art or Craft?
Cinema is about expressing your story in ‘film-language’. Most of film-language was invented during the early days of cinema and many silent movies are masterclasses in the art. Without sound, without special effects, filmmakers were forced to focus on shot composition and lighting. But when synced sound was added in the late 1920s, however, filming became burdened with having to worry about microphones. Noisy old cameras had to be housed in a stationary sound-proofed box. Shots therefore became static and boring. Cinematography took a temporary step backwards, until they worked out how to make quieter cameras and better mics.
There can be a resistance from industry people (or those aspiring to be) to do things in a way they’re afraid might be perceived as not ‘correct’. I never went to film school, so I don’t have that issue. Raised by artists, I’ve always seen film as an art and assumed the technical stuff should serve the art, not the other way round. A film-school trained crew will often take the reverse attitude – technical qualities cannot be compromised, no matter what the story needs. And if that’s your way of making films, I say fine – good luck. But I’m here to tell you about the alternative.
Did you know Picasso used ordinary house paint? I’m sure when he was emerging as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, other artists would have considered this as an act of an amateur. ‘How can he be a serious artist if he doesn’t use professional-grade oils?!’ I’m pretty sure he could afford oil paint. Presumably, he found it liberating. Or the house paint had a quality he found exciting.
In the same way, micro-budget filmmaking can be a liberation – you can create an aesthetic impossible to achieve with a huge crew and trucks of equipment. But it’s only a liberation if you embrace it for it’s differences. If you try to mimic a big budget style, you’ll only achieve a cheap imitation.
For me, filming with a smartphone camera is like Picasso and his house paint – it’s an alternative with different qualities, and offers opportunities otherwise not be available to you. It’s only ‘amateur’ if you consider Picasso to be amateur too. By the way, his Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O) recently sold for $179m. How much is a litre of house paint these days?
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