Posted by Michael Raben at spider-th062.proxy.aol.com on July 02, 2000 at 02:16:01:
In Reply to: A clueless filmmaker. posted by Banta on July 02, 2000 at 01:12:04:
: One of the greatest dreams of my life has been to write and direct a film and now that I have written a really "decent" screenplay, I believe that I can do that. Now, I know that to make a film independently is quite costly to us that have little cash, but I would like to know specifically how the costs are divided, such as camera rental, stock, editing, etc, etc. Now, I know Clerks was made for roughly 27k and I would be shooting for a budget of that or a bit less. If I could for instance, find out some of the specifics of the Clerks production, that would help greatly in telling me where I can cut costs if at all possible.
You probably won't like what I'm about to say, but here goes: the 'Clerks' budget breakdown has absolutely nothing to do with your impending project. Even relying on it as a guide will end up hurting your work more than helping it. What you *NEED* to do is start doing some research (make calls, check the 'net, talk to some people who are in production, ASK SPECIFIC QUESTIONS). You need to LEARN what's going to be involved by getting neck deep into the process from the get go. Please don't harp on this message board query as 'doing research' - you're grasping instead of thinking. The filmmaking process is not over anyone's head, it's just very detail-oriented. Start with the basics of what you THINK you'll need and go from there.
I'll give you a nice little cost-saving move from the start, since you sound like you'll be in a budget crunch. Now, I'm a film purist, but if you're working on a tiny budget, shoot DV. I still prefer film, but DV is a more available (re: cheap) option. You can still put a professional effort into the project and if the end result is really *GOOD*, the format won't matter. You can also bounce some ideas around at Film-411.
Always,
Michael Raben