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HOW-TO, Techniques, & Best Practices Channel
10 Low Budget Guerilla Ideas
By Staff
posted Jul 30, 2009, 14:02 |
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Click here to get a copy of the July
2006 Edition, so you can read and enjoy all of the excellent articles inside. Check out this article in the July 2006 print edition of StudentFilmmakers magazine, page 48.
Anthony Q. Artis is a veteran guerrilla filmmaker and author of
�Down and Dirty DV � Vol. 1: Documentaries� He is the creator of
the instructional series of guerrilla filmmaking books, DVDs, and
workshops at www.DownAndDirtyDV.com. He is based out of
New York City where he manages the Film and TV Production
Center at NYU�s Tisch School of the Arts.
50 studentfilmmakers July 2006
FILM BUSINESS
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1. Get Free or Inexpensive Equipment
One of the easiest things you can do to shave some dollars off
the bottom line is to beg, borrow, or maneuver your way into the
equipment you need to shoot your project. Free or cheap
equipment is all around you. You just have to sniff it out. If you
find a DP, crew member, or friend with their own equipment or
access to equipment, you can a) convince them to work for free, b)
barter for their services, c) borrow or offer to rent their equipment,
d) negotiate a good rate for their crew services and their
equipment.
The other route is to maneuver your way into a free equipment
situation. Hands-on filmmaking workshops are one way, but there
are also multiple jobs at TV stations, film/video rental houses,
colleges, production companies and in corporate video
departments where you may borrow equipment as a standard perk.
Imagine that! Play your cards right and you can actually get paid to
borrow the equipment you need for your project. Now that�s
resourceful filmmaking!
2. Get Free or Low Cost Crew
Crews working for free are pretty standard for tight budgets. Nonfilmmaker
friends and family are cool to use, but only for noncrucial
positions such as P.A., driver, or craft services. Chances are
you are not going to find many experienced film professionals
willing to work for free. More importantly, look for people who are
serious and take a professional approach to their job, even if they
have less experience. You want those hungry and ambitious people
who are more concerned about practicing and stretching their skills
than getting paid at that moment. Seek out the Boom Operators
looking to move up to Sound Mixer. Look for the Assistant Camera
Person that�s ready to be a DP. If you have production skills, you
may also barter your services for those of your colleagues. It�s a
fairly standard practice for small groups of indie filmmakers to just
take turns cooperatively working on one another�s films for free. If
you enroll in a film school or workshop, there�s a good chance
you�ll get a free crew. Everyone on the crew should be offered a
film credit, meals, transportation reimbursement (i.e. gas money or
a subway pass) and a copy of the finished project. If you pay any
crew up front, first in line should be the DP, Sound Person, and/or
Editor as these are your make or break positions.
3. Get Free or Discounted Meals
If they�re working for free, at the very least, you need to provide
good food. Feeding your crew good food can get expensive,
especially with larger crews and longer shoots, but there are a
number of ways to shave some food dollars off the budget without
resorting to hot dog carts or fast food. As any hungry college
student knows, free or cheap food isn�t too hard to come across if
you know where to look and who to ask. Hit up the local
restaurants, enlist friends and family to cater, break out the grill and
have a cookout for lunch, barter for free appetizers, desserts or
drinks for large orders, and grab as much free napkins, plates,
utensils, cups, ice, etc. as the restaurant is willing to give you. (See
my article in the April issue of StudentFilmmakers for more
specifics.)
4. Use Cars Instead of Production Trucks
I don�t know about where you live, but here in New York City
cargo van rentals top $100/day and Cube Trucks rent for almost
double that. Add in the price of gas and insurance and you�re
talking about a good amount of change. Since most DV equipment
is fairly small and portable, a cheaper more practical alternative for
many filmmakers is to just use cars for transportation of crew and
gear whenever possible. If you empty out the trunk first, you should
be able to easily accommodate a DV camera, sound gear, light kit
and accessories. Even if you don�t own or have access to a car,
renting a car or SUV is always cheaper and more fuel-efficient than
renting a van or truck. I know it�s cool to pull up in a big cube
truck, but if you really don�t need it for your small production, put
that money up on the screen.
5. Shoot and Travel Over Less Days w/ Less People
This is simple mathematics. The more you shoot and the longer
you travel, the more your film will cost. Knowing when to stop
shooting and start cutting is often difficult with unfolding subject
matter, but many projects such as historical docs or reality shows
can be scheduled and planned ahead of time. Do the math for
each shooting day and look for shoots that can be eliminated or
combined. Travel is a necessary part of shooting, but you want to
make sure your travel is cost-effective in terms of the value it adds
to your project. If you are traveling for 6 hours and feeding and
putting up a five-person crew in a hotel just to shoot some B-roll of
your documentary subject�s hometown, is that a wise investment of
your resources? Can you just shoot it yourself or with your DP
only? Could you also interview key family members and figures
from your subject�s childhood or stage another major scene while
there? Do you really need video of the house they grew up in or
would a few still pictures suffice? Ask yourself these questions
when evaluating decisions to travel and house crew. Make travel
count. Take as few people and stay only as long as necessary.
6. Get Corporate/Agency Sponsorships or Product Placement
Deals
Making a documentary about the history of video gaming? Why
not see if the good people at Atari or Activision want to pony up
some dough to support you? Want to highlight the plight of teen
mothers? Why not seek funding from a national charity that shares
the same mission? Does your entire script take place in a bakery?
Maybe Billy Bob�s Organic Bakery will let you shoot there for free
and even provide breakfast as long as you show their logo and
location onscreen. Look for natural allies in your mission who
have deeper pockets than you. While not appropriate for many
films, you may seek a product placement deal for characters or
subjects to wear, use or show a sponsor�s product onscreen in
exchange for value. Don�t count on getting any cash for product
placement if you�re an indie or student. It just ain�t gonna happen,
especially if you don�t have guaranteed mainstream distribution.
However, you can get sponsors to supply specific budget items
such as food, car rentals, hotel, airfare, wardrobe, props, locations,
etc�
7. Use Original Music
Why pay an expensive licensing fee to use a popular song or
stock music from a library, when there are thousands of
independent musicians looking for exposure? Most of these fellow
indie artists will gladly give you pre-recorded songs. Better yet, you
can easily find talented musicians that will create original music for
your project for free or a fraction of the cost of the average music
license. Original music tailored to your project can be an
inexpensive, but powerful storytelling aid.
8. Use Public Domain Footage
Did you know that there are hundreds of hours of footage and
thousands of historical photos and musical recordings available for
anyone to use (even sell) free of charge. This is mostly historical
material whose copyright has expired. In other words, it is in the
public domain. Try a Google search for �public domain� photos,
footage, or music. You will have to pay to have material transferred
or copied, but it�s still a great bargain. In the same vein, you can
investigate whether doc subject�s or actors have appropriate old
photos or home movies they�d be willing to let you use for free.
9. Use Natural Light & China Lanterns
You can avoid some of the cost of rentals and the hassle and setup
time needed for professional lighting instruments by using
available lighting instead. Staging your shots outdoors during
daylight hours is one way to get around lack of lighting gear.
Another way is to position your doc subjects strategically near
lamps or stage your scenes around the available lighting on
location. If you�re shooting on video or high-speed film, you can
get some beautiful lighting using simple household instruments or
inexpensive china lanterns and reflectors. This approach favors tight
shots and close-ups.
10. Log and Transcribe Your Own Footage
Transcripts are indispensable for documentary work whenever
you�ve got hours of unscripted footage including dialogue and
interviews. Professional video transcription is pricey for an
independent doc, even on the low end. If you have 20 or so
interviews to transcribe it could break your budget. Enlist an
intern, a good friend, or just do it yourself. You�ll be more familiar
with your footage and save hundreds or even thousands of dollars
to boot!
Conclusion:
The 10 tips in this article are just starting points to stimulate your
guerrilla brain. In virtually every area of your budget there are
ways to cut back on costs without cutting back on production
value. The trade-off is usually extra time and energy spent doing
things in a non-conventional manner. It�s a tired clich�, but in
order to shave money off your budget without compromising
production value, you really do have to think �outside the box� of
traditional filmmaking.
I teach a guerrilla filmmaking approach based on my theory that,
�It doesn�t take money to make films� It takes resources.� That is
to say, if we put two filmmakers on two different islands for a week
and I gave one filmmaker a pile of cash and the other filmmaker
production equipment, a crew and actors- only one of them is
coming back with a movie.
Understand this, money is just a tool to get the resources you
need to make your film. Money is simply the middleman to the
camera, lights and all the other resources you need to make your
film happen.
If you cut out the middleman and go straight for the source
whenever possible, you will find yourself with more and more
dollars to spend in the areas that matter most to your film.
Scrutinize every item in your budget and ask yourself, �How else
could I get this resource?� Every answer you come up with that
works out in the end is value you can put back up on the screen.
Money is the tool traditional filmmakers use most often to secure
their resources. Creativity and hustle are the primary tools guerrilla
filmmakers use to get their resources. Free your mind and the rest
will follow. Happy guerrilla filmmaking.
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