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It depends on
1) if you own/rent the equipment
2) stock to use (slower stock means more light needed, thus more time to setup, thus more food, etc., etc.)
3) Size of cast
4) number of setups
5) rate of shoot (how many pages of the script can you shoot in a 10-12 hour day)
6) editing needs (Rank?, NLE access)
Couple of my aspiring producer friends says that for 16mm flic its about $1000 a minute- with unpaid cast and mostly unpaid crew (DP might be an exception to this since some of them will offer service and equipment considerable below their regular rate). In my experience that is pretty accurate.
For Super 8mm
Since stock is about 33% less and equipment is cheaper- my experience with traditional narative shorts cost about $300-400 per minute with sync sound.
Regarding one take... Unless you are the Mozart of filmmaking ( his early and middle work was 99% composed in his head in its entirety before written down on paper) its would be impossible and foolish. Filmmaking is an art, experiment and 95% of the time a collaborative effort. Thus one take is a foolish expectation, at least in my experience.
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by crimsonson:
[B]"Regarding one take... Unless you are the Mozart of filmmaking ( his early and middle work was 99% composed in his head in its entirety before written down on paper) its would be impossible and foolish. "
Actually, this is even optimistic.
When you consider that Mozart had to only write down accurately what he'd correctly imagined.
This does not account for the accuracy in performance of the work!
In other words, doing all this in one take, would be like being Mozart, and THEN, having the work performed perfectly, the first performance, by an orchestra that had not ever heard the work!
If you'll read music history, you will find this was seldom the case! Both Mozart and Beethoven had to put up with terrible first performances of most of their works, with orchestra members complaining that it was impossible to play the notes, etc.
So your film shoot is NOT going to work with first takes.
There is a lot of BS and folklore in film history, like about Hitchcock cutting in-camera.
Well, I read an interview with one of his editors, and he said this was patently BS. Just Hitch doing a little PR, the same way Spielberg lied about supposedly sneaking into Universal Studios, setting up his own office with a phone & secretary without any of the suits noticing. Yeah, right! Didn't happen!
So, back on the subject, my point is NOBODY has ever shot all first takes, so wake up, you're dreaming.
Matt Pacini
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> my experience with traditional narative shorts cost about $300-400 per minute with sync sound.
really? you're spending too much. you can shoot a minute with 3 minutes of film stock, which costs $30 with processing and rank transfer (or $50 if you're in the united states). and if you shoot about 3 minutes per day, that means you'd spend $750 per day on top of the film stock? without even paying people? doesn't sound reasonable for a no budget super 8 shoot.
i've never spent more than around $100 a minute on a low budget super-8 short. and not more than $200-400 for the more ambitious 16mm ones. and i've actually rented stuff (audio gear and lights) for most of my shoots too.
this is for taking it to a picture lock only of course. buying music rights, making prints and video copies and so on brings the numbers up rapidly. i never afforded to take a project past this stage actually. i have two pretty good shorts just waiting to be conformed, printed and sent to festivals, but it's just *sooo* expensive to get done. one of them was actually accepted to one of the major european festivals, but i couldn't afford to make them a print, so i guess the thrill of seeing my name in the catalogue was all i got. ;-)
/matt
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Matt Pacini:
NOBODY has ever shot all first takes, so wake up, you're dreaming.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Um, errrrr. Not quite true. I will have to rack my brain a bit to come up with some titles and directors, but it has been done commercially. Ah! Okay, here are a couple:
"Chantilly Lace", which was not only shot with the first take but was improvised, to boot. There was a sequel to this shot the same way.
"Stop Making Sense", which was a concert film by Ted Demme.
"Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" shot by some Japenese dude and starring David Bowie and Tom Conti.
There are quite a few others but I haven't woke up completely this morning.
Here's a funny story about "Merry Chrismas.."
The director would send his film back to the studio where it would be processed and edited by this old guy that had worked with him for years. Apparently they had the system down. Anyway, after one particular take, Bowie expressed a desire to reshoot, feeling he didn't give his best performance, and pleaded with the director about it.
The director mulled it over, shook his head and said,"Mmmm. I don't know. My editor very old man. Not getting any younger. Probably only look at first take, anyway."
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Roger Evans
MovieStuff
http://www.afterimagephoto.tv/moviestuff.html
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how about splitting your film stock between two cameras? Might make editing easier.
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Roger, I don't just mean first takes, (lots of Lost Tribes was first takes, in fact, most of it), but in the context that he put it in:
First takes with no coverage whatsoever.
Like one setup, one take, no medium shots, no closeups, just one take then moving on to the next scene.
Documentaries are different, because they can cut lots of stuff out, but a narrative film, where the entire scene has to make sense, if you do it all in one take, with no coverage, it's going to look like a video of a stage play.
Boooooooring!
Matt Pacini
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I changed my mind, I think I will stick to video. I'm going to wait until I need to make my sample film to get into film school before I start with film. Maybe a short film.
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"Ugggggh"
-some zombie from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
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Good going guys. You scared the shit out of him. He's gonna shoot on video now.
But, alas, the boys are right. One take is not very cinematic and will make your life hell in the edit.
Merc
p.s. Hitchcock's 'Rope'. One take (sort of) - for the WHOLE film.
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Good going guys. You scared the shit out of him. He's gonna shoot on video now.
But, alas, the boys are right. One take is not very cinematic and will make your life hell in the edit.
Merc
p.s. Hitchcock's 'Rope'. One take (sort of) - for the WHOLE film.
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Can I make one teeny suggestion?
Start working with film AT LEAST the project right BEFORE you need to make a sample reel for film school.
Starting in a new medium for an important project is not up there on the list of great ideas. Unfortunately, I used to see this several times a day when I was in tech support...
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Mikel Z
[This message has been edited by Cranium (edited November 16, 2001).]
