Five of the best HD cameras for independent filmmakers
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Distribution
Are you thinking about distribution yet? If not you should be. So how is the most likely way your film will be distributed?
- Theatre
- Festivals
- Television
- Internet
- DVD
Theatre
If you are going for a theatrical release then your film should probably be…well…film. As in good old fashioned 35mm celluloid. That is how it will be shown, so why not just shoot and edit that way. Alternatively, you can go High Definition. HD will probably save big money on production costs, but it may be costly to get the initial blow up to film. Nonetheless, it’s a good alternative.
Festivals
Depending on the festival your going for, you could practically shoot with anything. However, most of your competition will be shooting with 3-chip miniDV cameras such as the DVX100, some of the newer HD and HDV cameras in the $6000 to $10,000 range, a $100,000 “real” HD camera, or on film. That’s tough competition if all you have is a $300 miniDV camera. But a compelling story, and good acting trumps all of that. If you all you have is that $300 camera but you think you’ve got the talent, then by all means go for it.
Television
These days television is sorta tricky. Most of your reality shows are filmed either on digiBeta, or on 3-chip miniDV cameras. Sitcoms are shot on million dollar studio cameras (I personally don’t even know what you’d call them, but if I had to guess I’d assume Ikegami makes them). Episodic shows, like HBO series, most of the time are now shot on 35mm film just like movies.
It’s also a tough market to crack, so if you are shooting a movie you probably won’t get any major television deals unless you’ve either had a theatrical release, or you make Sci-Fi originals. Either way your shooting film or HD. On the other hand, you can get docs and shorts onto channels like IFC that were shot on miniDV. And if cartoon networks “Saul of the Molemen” is any indication…you can probably get on TV with a rectal biopsy scope up a goats ass if you are good enough at negotiating.
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Film_budgeting:
- Story rights: The right to produce a film based on a play, novel, video game or as a remake or sequel can cost anything from a couple of thousand (Leaving Las Vegas) to over $10 million (the video game Halo). An original screenplay by a Writers Guild of America member costs from a minimum of around $50,000 (Quentin Tarantino's True Romance) to $5 million (M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable).
- Screenplay: An A-list screenwriter can be paid $1 million to write the first three drafts of a script, with a further $1 to $2 million sole credit bonus. Once the story has been agreed upon and the script locked, script doctors may be called upon to revise the final draft at $100,000 to $200,000 a week. Recently, Columbia Pictures have been offering the best screenwriters 2 percent of the gross profits (after the production and marketing budget has been deducted). Typically the development of a script consumes 5 percent of a film's budget.
- Producers: Film producers and executive producers are often well-paid, with a top producer earning a seven-figure salary upfront as well as bonuses and a share of the profits. (Often a producer will be given 40 percent of the net profits). For Spider-Man, producer Laura Ziskin is estimated to have been paid over $30 million.
- Director: The DGA minimum is about $14,000 a week, for a minimum of ten weeks' work. An A-list director can command $5 to $10 million a film. Traditionally, a director's salary is about 7 percent of the final budget.
- Cast: An A-list actor can ask for anything from $10 million to $30 million, plus $3 million in perks (trailer, entourage, etc.) and 10-20 percent of the gross profits. The rest of the cast, by comparison, can often come out much worse with many being paid the Screen Actors Guild minimum (as low as $100/day on an Ultra-Low Budget film). Sometimes an actor will accept a minimal fee in exchange for a more lucrative share of the profits. Union extras are paid around $130 per day (plus extra for overtime or if they provide their own wardrobe) but on a low-budget film non-union extras are paid less, sometimes nothing at all.
- Production costs: The cost of actually shooting the film including sets, wardrobe, location filming, hotels and transportation. The most prestigious productions will often employ the most successful, and therefore most expensive, crew, with the director of photography usually the highest paid at about $500,000 to $1 million. Shooting costs could easily amount to $500,000 a day for 100 days.
- Visual effects: Employing a hundred employees of Industrial Light and Magic for over a year can turn a big-budget film into a mega-budget film. Computer-generated imagery (CGI) work in post-production can be expensive; such work on The Hulk is estimated to have cost $100 million.
- Music: The top film composers can ask for a seven-figure salary to compose an hour or so of original music. An original song by Christina Aguilera (Shark Tale) or Kanye West (Mission: Impossible III) could cost $1 million, and the right to use a song by David Bowie or The Beatles could cost $300,000. (In addition, the artist may wish to see a screening of the film to see if it meets their approval; Bowie did so with the film Training Day, giving the film a good amount of pre-release publicity.). More recently, the rights to have Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" on the film Lords of Dogtown cost producers $3 million. Sometimes a film will turn to unknown or little-known artists willing to sell the rights to their song for a small fee in exchange for the publicity. Typically, the music budget of a major motion picture is about 8 percent of the final total; Spider-Man's music budget was $4.5 million, including a brand-new song by Chad Kroeger.
Tactics for cutting costs
- Eliminate night scenes. Shooting at night requires powerful/expensive lighting and the payment of nighttime rates to the crew. Broken Arrow cut costs by millions of dollars by getting rid of the night scenes from the script. Many directors choose to use the 'day for night' technique.
- Avoid location filming in famous or commercial areas. Shooting a scene on, for example, the Golden Gate Bridge, requires stopping traffic with a resultant drop in revenue to the city of San Francisco. Filming such a scene for Interview with the Vampire cost Warner Bros. $500,000. Shifting the location to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for close-ups could save hundreds of thousands of dollars in location fees. Some locations are more willing to allow filming than others - commercial enterprises such as hotels and nightclubs. Some producers of low-budget features avoid paying location fees and seek to capture shots by subterfuge.
- Film action scenes early on Sunday morning. Stopping traffic for a car chase scene is easier in the early hours of Sunday morning, when traffic is at its lightest.
- Use unknown cast members rather than stars.
- Ask above-the-line talent to defer their salaries. In exchange for dropping their large upfront salaries, actors, directors and producers can receive a large share of the film's gross profits. This has the disadvantage of cutting the financier's eventual takings. It has the further disadvantage of ambiguity. ''gross profits is customarily defined as the profits remaining after production and distribution expenses are subtracted from revenues. Disagreements over accounting methods can lead to audits and even litigation, as happened between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema over dividing up the profits from the hugely-successful Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which grossed over 2 billion USD.
- Use a non-union crew. Not an option for studios that have signed contracts with the unions—the Directors Guild of America (DGA), Writers Guild of America (WGA), and Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Directors Robert Rodriguez and Peter Jackson have been known to use the skills of experienced non-union crews for their films.
- Film in another region. For example, many Hollywood movies set in U.S. cities are shot in Canada. These "runaway productions" enjoy lower labour costs, subject to fluctuating exchange rates. As well, they take advantage of federal and provincial subsidies designed to grow and sustain the film and television industries in the area. Many U.S. states have responded with tax incentives of their own. The Czech Republic, Australia, and New Zealand are other countries in which Hollywood movies are often filmed.
The budget as an advertising tool
For blockbuster movies, high budgets are advertised to imply that the film will be worth watching. On the other hand, El Mariachi was advertised as having a shoestring budget of $7,000. El Mariachi's actual budget including the distribution costs far exceeded $7,000. The festival print of El Mariachi was in fact made for $7,000. The additional budget expenditures came when the movie was picked up for distribution by a studio.Going over budget
In the US film production system, producers are not allowed to exceed the initial budget. Exceptions have of course been made, one of the most notable examples being Titanic. Director James Cameron ran aground with the budget and offered his fee back to the studio. In other countries, producers who exceed their budget tend to eat the cost by receiving less of their producer's fees. While the US system is profitable and can afford to go over budget, other countries' film industries tend to be financed through government subsidies.Examples
Unbreakable
- Story rights and Screenplay: $5,000,000
- Producers: $1,878,260
- Director (M. Night Shyamalan & Assistant): $5,081,749
- Cast: $ 31,903,987
- Bruce Willis: $20,000,000
- Samuel L. Jackson: $7,000,000
- Robin Wright Penn: $2,500,000
- Rest of Cast, Casting, Stunts, & Travel: $5,568,388
- Production costs: $26,214,709
- Visual effects: $1,000,000
- Music: $2,253,456
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
- Story rights and screenplay: $4 million
- Producers: $4 million
- Director (Jan de Bont): $5 million
- Cast: $17.25 million
- Angelina Jolie: $12 million
- Extras: $250,000
- Other (inc. Angelina's perks): $5 million
- Production costs: $67 million
- Set design and construction: $17.8 million
- Visual Effects: $13 million
- Music: $3.3 million
- Editing: $3 million
- Post Production costs: $1.5 million
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
- Story rights (Carolco and Gale Anne Hurd): $19.5 million
- Screenplay: $5.2 million
- John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris: $1 million
- Director (Jonathan Mostow): $5 million
- Producers: $10 million
- Cast: $35 million
- Arnold Schwarzenegger: $29.25 million + 20% gross profits
- Arnold's perks: $1.5 million
- Rest of principal cast: $3.85 million
- Extras: $450,000
- Production costs: $58 million
- Post-production costs: $4 million
- Visual effects: $20 million
- Music: $2 million
- Other costs: $33.6 million
Spider-Man 2
- Story rights: $20 million
- Screenplay: $10 million
- Producers: $15 million
- Director (Sam Raimi): $10 million
- Cast: $30 million
- Tobey Maguire: $17 million
- Kirsten Dunst: $7 million
- Alfred Molina: $3 million
- Rest of cast: $3 million
- Production costs: $45 million
- Visual effects: $65 million
- Music: $5 million
- Composer (Danny Elfman): $2 million.
