Super16 and HDCam numbers...

**MatJimMood** · March 30th, 2005, 10:29 AM

Originally posted by jb.:

I am still waiting for a miniDV feature to be shown at my local cinema. Does one exist that has been distributed?

http://www.nextwavefilms.com/moviemaking/bullfront.html

thats quite an old list as well

[ March 30, 2005 06:31 AM: Message edited by: MatJimMood ]

**jb_617** · March 30th, 2005, 10:44 AM

Far out. Thanks for the list Matt. I knew about "Bamboozled" and "Buena Vista Social Club". Only Bamboozled is miniDv though. The rest are higher formats.

And "The Blair Witch" doesn't really count. [img]wink.gif[/img]

Quite an extensive list, I admit, I didn't read it all, but I'd only heard of five films by the time I got 2/3's of the way down.

All of them transferred to 35mm for exhibition I note.

Thanks again though. Very informative. Although most of them were DigiBeta, SP, DVCAM, or HD. Very few miniDV's in there.

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The exception is not a rule.

**MatJimMood** · March 30th, 2005, 03:26 PM

There was quite a lot i thought - surprised me when i first looked through it.

Whats the difference between DVCAM and miniDV by the way?
The Sony cameras i have used were able to record in DVCAM format onto a miniDV tape so i just thought it was higher quality but still miniDV - a bit like long play / short play recording.

**Actor** · March 30th, 2005, 04:06 PM

...slight change in subject.

I'd like to tell you about three books which have influenced my ideas about filmmaking.

BOOK ONE. - I don't remember the title or the author's name. Its influence was very negative.

Somewhere in this forgotten tome a budget was presented with the figure of $75,000 as the absolute minimum for producing a feature film. This is probably about $250,000 in 2005 dollars. Since this was more than twice my annual salary and over 5 times what I paid for my house the book was, needless to say, discouraging. I pitched the book into the trash can.

As an outlet for my artistic desires I continued to act in community and regional theatre and even directed two plays. But my filmmaking aspirations did not die. I experimented with VHS. Sure it didn't look very good and was impossible to edit, but at least it was affordable.

In 1999 I discovered...

BOOK TWO - Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices: How to Write, Produce, Direct, Shoot, Edit, and Promote a Feature-Lenth Movie for Less Than $6,000 by Rick Schmidt.

Schmidt presented a budget for making a 90 minute feature film using a 16mm camera, hiring a sound man, editing a work print and mag track, comforming the camera negative, getting a answer print with optical sound track, all for only $6,000. He also touched on the possibility of using analog video.

The latest edition of Schmidt's book has $15,000 in the title, not $6,000. Since the book seems to have been published in 1988 this is in keeping with inflation.

The third book was, as you have probably guessed,...

BOOK THREE - Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player by Robert Rodriguez

I'll assume that most readers here are familiar with this one.

You've probably noticed that when I gave the titles of BOOK TWO and BOOK THREE is used the long title, not the short title. That's because the long titles have numbers in them: $6,000 and $7,000.

Using Nigel's numbers for what goes into the camera and US Dept of Labor Inflation Indices to adjust Rodriguez' numbers for what goes in front of the camera I come up with $30,000 as the cost to produce El Mariachi today. Would a title like Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $30,000 Became a Hollywood Player or Feature Filmmaking at New-Car Prices: How to Write, Produce, Direct, Shoot, Edit, and Promote a Feature-Lenth Movie for Less Than $30,000 have caught my eye, made me take the book off the shelf and buy it. I doubt it.

So we seem to have a division here: those of us who can afford (or have someone else pay the bill for them) production costs in the tens of thousands of dollars and those who can't. I can't. For me the question of whether super 16 costs more than HDCam is moot. I can't afford either.

So my choice is between super8 (or maybe 16mm if I stick to B&W) or miniDV.

SUPER8 - 90 minutes with 3:1 ratio.
<ul type="square">[*]108 cartridges @ 10.83 each = $1169.64[*]Processing @ 4.88 each at WalMart = $527.04[*]Transfer by Roger Evans @ $20 each plus $10 shipping = $2,170[*]5 tapes @ $6 each = $30[*]Total = $3896.68[/list]MiniDV = 90 minutes with 20:1 ratio
<ul type="square">[*]30 tapes @ 6 each = $180[*]Camera (bought outright) $300 to $4,000[*]Total = $480 to $4,180[/list]Now it's a mystery to me why Nigel, a moderator, chooses to address the question in way that limits the choices to S16 or HDCam but at the same time has a sticky topic about camcorders under $1,000. Just what role does he envision for camcorders under $1,000? Are they just for people who film birthday parties, vacations and birds in the park? People have made feature with super8 (Jet Benny, The Dead Next Door, Lost Tribes). I assume that people will make features with miniDV if they haven't already. Come to think of it they have, the one about the Falklands. The title escapes me. And there's Tarnation.

So some people are going to make miniDV features! Are they fools? I don't think so. Is it worth doing? I say, "Yes!" After all, dozens of people climb Mt. Everest every year. With the possible exception of those who write books about it or lug IMax cameras to the top, none of them ever make any money doing it. Why do they do it? The time honored answer to that question is, "Because it's there!"

So I'm going to try to make a feature. I'll do it with super8 or 16mm B&W or miniDV or a combination of the three. Why do it? Because I can.

If I succeed I may even write a book. I'll call it Old Fart Without a Crew: Or How a 60-Year-Old Filmmaker With a $500 Camera Thumbed His Nose at Hollywood and Made His Movie Anyway

**jbridges** · March 30th, 2005, 10:06 PM

Why does every post, well almost every post end up with this debate? UHHHHHHH! I desperately feel the need to stab myself in the neck.

Just tell good stories through our movies guys. That's all we have to do. Good luck with that.

**Chance1234** · March 30th, 2005, 10:23 PM

ive said it before and no doubt say it many times again,.,.

28 days later, shot on Cannon XL1 with SOME FUCKING EXPENSIVE LENSES on top. camera is only one part of the kit and kaboodle

**Yammeryammeryammer** · March 31st, 2005, 12:36 AM

Ya, I heard there were some modifications made to it to make it shoot 24p, then some lens attachments for regular 35mm lenses. Then some expensive post production.

**jb_617** · March 31st, 2005, 08:20 AM

I think shooting Video for 28 days later was a good idea. It did give it the right look for the mood. Sort of Apocalyptic/documentary style.

It's was a shame about the story and the writing though. Alex Garland has no talent. I believe that a professional screenwriter was brought in to salvage the literary atrocity that was "The Beach". 28 days later was his first attempt at writing a screenplay cold. I hope he quits soon. The structure was all over the shop and it was so loosley paced that I nearly went insane whilst watching it. Plus, I feel sorry for the actors that had to deal with that dialogue.

I feel it necessary to post a public health warning here as well. Do NOT buy or read "The Tesseract", it's crap. Almost as bad as "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen, 672 pages of dense, turgid, purple prose. Hands down, the worst book published since the Grand-daddy of them all Edward George Bulwer-Lytton did us all a favour and died.

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You have been warned.

**miker** · March 31st, 2005, 08:50 AM

Shall we start talking about wages and union shoots?

Nigel's numbers are only part of the equation. If I have a budget of ?10K UKP, I can guarantee you I will use that money to secure acting talent and logistics by which time video becomes the only viable format to shoot on. IMO.

The old business acumen applies here: never spend your own money. By spending my own money I severely limit my options. However, by sucking up to VC's and the like I might eventually raise enough money through over people's tax write-offs. It would take months (likely years) and I would likely lose total control and total ownership and total gross profit.

Maybe I should write a script and pitch that, and let somebody else tell my story (worked for Tarantino).

Basically, I think we all have our own paths but common factors of perserverence, tenacity etc must be observed.

I do love film. But I'm also a dogmatic realist. Film as format just doesn't feature in my moviemaking life right now.

[/ramble]

[ March 31, 2005 04:51 AM: Message edited by: miker ]

**miker** · March 31st, 2005, 08:59 AM

I think shooting Video for 28 days later was a good idea. It did give it the right look for the mood. Sort of Apocalyptic/documentary style.

My personal opinion is that Boyle fucked up on The Beach so bad that he couldn't secure a budget for a celluloid flick with big names in it. The PR machine then spins it into "stylistic choice" with suitably inflated/exaggerated budget figures (all the more for the marketing campaign) and the "cool" factor of being "street" and "down with the kids". Format aside, I quite liked the film but it was so obviously 720x576 pixels, no fucking expensive lens is going to change that unfortunately. (Have to confess I only saw it on DVD, no idea what it actually looked like on the big screen but I would suspect "fuzzy" with a lack of definition).

You're only as good as your last movie.

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