If I was going to do this, I should have done it months ago, but for whatever reason [ahem… she knows who she is]; I decided against sharing this. But that was then, and now I’d like to help the readers better understand why the ‘budget’ has evolved the way it has, and to share with you some of the ideas the crew and I have for this film.
I’m going to go back and dig through some early emails between the crew and myself – a lot of information was broken down separately and discussed in depth, and the crew did an amazing job of really scrutinizing ever little detail and giving me feedback on what was good, what would be better and what was just unnecessary. I own them a lot for helping me efficiently squeeze so much into such a low-budget film.
Now, none of the following is necessarily in chronological order, so I’ll do my best at filling in the “blanks”. First off, here’s a list of the equipment the three will be bringing with them, for you technical-buffs out there, this is all very exciting:
· Sony HDR-FX1 PAL + wide-angle + at least 3 batteries (HDV)
· Canon XM-2 PAL + wide-angle + fisheye + at least 2 batteries (DV)
· Homemade MINI35 Kit (fits both cameras)
· Kranogorsk K-3 (16mm)
· Canon EOS 10D (DigitalSLR 6mpx) + batteries
· Canon EOS 300x (24×36 SLR)
· Nikon F65 (24×36 SLR)
· Optics: Nikon (35/50/85mm) + Canon (20-35/28-105mm)
· Glidecam 2000 Pro Steadycam + Body Pod (www.glidecam.com)
· 2 x 5.6” TFT LCD Screens (work on AC/DC)
· 2 x strong PC Laptops + external hard-disks (for file transfer, tapes log files,…)
· Fluid-Head Manfrotto tripod 516/508
The following was the first time the crew [mid-December] took a look at an early version of the budget; I will try to include my response to each topic, to make things a little easier on the eyes; I’ll italicize my comments:
+ Crane: It seems quite complex to build such a huge crane. It would be easier to buy a crane like the Super Jib (269$ at www.habbycam.com) and then build a support to attach it to the car/van. A 20ft crane would be way too much and risky because it will move a lot because of the wind and would be really hard to manipulate. The Super Jib would also work really well on our Manfrotto tripod, so we could also use it to make nice crane shots from the road.
* Crane: I agree that it would be far easier to buy a crane rather thanbuild one, I looked at the Jib you left a link for and I really liked what I saw, I’ve already added into the new budget outline.
Earlier when I mentioned a 20ft “crane” – I didn’t really mean a “crane”, I should have explained better, [I've attached a rough-sketch of something closer to what I had in mind] it would more or less be a very simple “arm” that would have a heavy mounted brace at it’s base. The “arm” would reach out 15-20 ft at a forward angle of 70 – 80 degrees [I'm hoping this will limit the direction of sway while driving], then I was hoping to attach a rope at the very end of the pole, that would loosely hang down and could be held onto, which would help steady it by applying tension / slack as needed.
I still need to test it, and see just how crazy of an idea it is, but let me know what you think about it all the same. And don’t worry; you wouldn’t be the first person to tell me it doesn’t sound like the best idea in the world.
You might also be wondering what would the point of both a crane and a 15 ft arm be? I guess I’m just not sure if the crane would have the ‘birds-eye’ look I’m hoping to capture. Also, I would hope to use the arm not only for “high-up” shots but also for “off-road” shots [see pg.2 of the storyboards to see what I'm talking about]…
+ Steadycam: The steadycam you listed on your budget is really great but you can’t improvise yourself a steadycam operator. It’s really hard to configure it well and it takes a lot of practice to make nice shots using it, plus in such a small budget, it’s a quite expensive item. Personally, I can’t operate this steadycam. I don’t think it would be that useful on this documentary. We do have a more simple steadycam called the Glidecam 2000 Pro. It works really well with the Sony HDR-FX1, easier to configure and manipulate. I did quite a few shots using it and with that kind of camera, you can’t tell the difference with a big steadycam. Another item would be really useful: a shoulder support. We’ve searched on the web for cheap shoulder support for the cameras. We’ll need to be able to shoot fast if something happens and it should be stable and comfortable to use. Here are some options: SuperDV Shoulder Brace (289$ at www.habbycam.com) or the DVRig Pro (629$ at www.varizoom.com). The first one seems to great for the price and way good enough.
* SteadyCam: If your “Glidecam 2000 Pro Steadycam + Body Pod” works just as well as a heavy duty SteadyCam would with the Sony, then that’s good enough for me.
* Shoulder Support: the SuperDV S.B. looks great to me, especially for
it’s price, I’ve added it into the new budget outline.
+ Watertight Casing: It seems possible at first to build one but we’ll have to be sure it works because if it don’t we’ll kill the camera at the first problem that will occur, so it’s risky. We’ve checked your storyboard ideas, we really do like to shot where the camera jumps with the camera into the water. That shot is far to risky with a homemade water-tight casing. It seems possible with a ready-made professional one because it’s made to support a lot of pressure and has a aerodynamic design. It all depends of what kind of shot you want but it’s risky.
* Watertight Casing: For this one I’ll have to see what the budget allows… my Dad knows people who could make a very nice casing out of PVC and plexi-glass, and I would be completely comfortable using it in heavy rain and for [shallow] underwater shots… but yes, to use it to jump into a lake from 10-15 feet up would be far too risky. So if the budget allows for an actual casing; then we could get that shot, if not, I’ll have to go with the homemade housing and just stick to ‘gentler’ use.
+ Tapes: We will shoot HDV and DV. Basically the tapes are Mini-DV tapes but for HDV you need high quality tapes (preferably Sony HDV tapes). The dropouts in HDV are way more visible than in DV, so it’s important to get good quality tapes (at least Sony Premium tapes, HDV tapes would be better). About the quantity, 224 hours of HDV/DV material represent 2688gb of data once captured on a computer. That’s huge. Sure you can choose to not capture all the rushes but you’ll still need at least 1000gb of hard-disk to start the editing. We really do need to consider this tape stock as a kind of film stock that’s in certain ways limited. That will force us to really think about what we’re shooting. So we don’t think 2.5 hours of tapes a day is needed if we prepare more the shots and better know what the goal of each shot is. We’ll keep a precise log file for the tape, so we’ll know exactly where the shots are, what’s the purpose of each one, comments, date,…
* Tapes: Ouch. It took a big bite out of the budget, but you’re right about the drop-outs, I would hate to have an amazing shot and then ‘blurpp’ right in the middle of it the picture jumps half-a-second. So I’ve done some looking around the internet looking for bulk-purchasing of Sony HD DVC tapes and so far my best deal is $1,950 for 147 hours of tape, which turns out to be around 1.6 hrs per day over a 90 day period… but 90 days is really dragging ass, I doubt it will take that long. I just doubled checked the pace, and if we rode 4,500 miles over the course of 90 days, it would equal 50 miles per day… and that’s really, really slow.
* 2688gb: Yes, the nightmare of importing and storing hundreds of hours of HD footage is something I’m not looking forward to… well I am… but I’m a little unsure still of “how” I’m going to do so. I’ve been looking at the LaCie Extreme 1TB Firewire hard-drive [http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10504], it’s $999. I personally have an 80 & 200 GB…
+ Generator: If you can get a generator it will help a lot. We’ll probably need to stop sometimes to charge all the batteries. In case of “emergency”, it would be great if we could charge the batteries on the generator (a 2KWA is enough). We’ll try our best to bring some lights that we can use on the car battery (car-lighter adapter,…) but it won’t work forever. If we want to use lights, the only solution would be a generator. We’ll also need a lot of electric cables.
* Generator: I found a Coleman 2500 Watt portable generator for $300-some. Somehow the 2500 was cheaper than the 2000… beats me. Let me know if you come across anything better.
+ Microphones: You’ll have to check with the sound person to see what you exactly need. It would be so much easier if the sound person could bring his equipment. We don’t know much about sound but you’ll probably need at least one directional mic + boom stick, two lavalieres, one omni-directional mic, a DAT and a mixer.
* Microphones: I am hoping that I won’t have to buy a DAT recorder, DAT tapes, or a mixer… [without sacrificing sound quality] I’m still looking for a sound person, but if they say that feeding everything into the camera [using wireless mics’, boom-mics’, so on] will work – then I’ll go with that, if not, then I’ll have to re-think the budget. Of course I don’t want to use the camera’s mic to capture sound… that would be suicide for the documentary – eh, it’s a whole thing I’m looking into at the moment, I have a friend going to Cal-Arts right now, she’s taking a handful of film classes and I have her searching for a great sound person for me… I’ll keep you posted.
+ Gas: We’ll a lot of gas because the car/van will be heavily charged and we’ll probably won’t be driving very fast.
* Gas: I also upped the gas allowance to $600 – which should be fine considering we probably won’t drive further than 120 miles in one day considering some back-tracking.
+ 16mm: If the budget allows it, it would be really amazing to shoot some 16mm. It would intercut nicely and offer another kind of look/feeling to these sequences. We would shoot in color (b/w can still be achieved in post anyway) using a standard negative film like a 200D or even a 400D (a bit grainier with nice texture). We would probably only shoot during the day outdoors. We can still choose to take some 800T film with us just in case. If we want to shoot 16mm, we’ll need to really choose what and when we shoot. We should keep it for the really wonderful moments and try to do a kind of in-camera editing of these sequences so we will use the film stock in a smart way (plus those white/burn transitions between the shots are really nice in a kind of old-school organic way). To choose the actual filmstock we’ll need to know more about the road,…and what you want those sequences to look like. We thought about a real natural filmlook that will contrast well with the HDV color-corrected look, a bit like the movie Gerry but a bit more oldschool (because of the 16mm and not 35mm). We’ve searched on the web for a good film deal. The best we did find was at www.pro8mm.com .To make it short, for 10 rolls of 100ft 16mm film (30minutes of rushes) + processing + prep/clean + telecine to miniDV, it’ll cost about 800$. Now, the best would be to have a Uncompressed HD telecine of those sequences. Therefore, the best is www.bonofilm.com (film + processing) and www.bonolabs.com (HD telecine to Hard-Disk).
* 16mm: How much is the film-stock all by itself, before the processing + prep/clean + telecine to miniDV? I’m pretty sure I can fit it in the budget – I’ll have to, I think it would be great to have 16mm to inter-cut in the film.
I do think a more “natural” filmlook would be best – I wouldn’t want to go to the effort of buying actual filmstock and then wash it out or some other look that could be easily achieved with DV in post – the more it stands out as “film” and unique from the rest of the documentary – the better.
Have you actually seen Gerry? I’m surprised… it’s pretty unheard of and unpopular from what I’ve read, but I’m a sucker for those amazing long-tracking shots.
+ Bike: One of the best way to shoot people riding a bike is to shoot from a bike. Its way easier to keep the same speed, distance, FOV,… We’ll build many camera supports to fix the camera to the bike in many different positions but having a additional bike for the cameraman would open many new angles. It wouldn’t cost anything in gas and we’re all ready to ride the bike. The absolute best thing would be a bike for two persons so the first could focus on the road and the other on the framing.
* Bike: Would you rather have a two-person bike or a bike with a wagon on the back of it? I was thinking with a little low-to-the-ground wagon you would have more freedom to shoot at different heights and be able to turn from side to side if needed… let me know what you would prefer though.
I gotta’ say I’m really, really glad you’re willing to do something like ride a bike to get a shot, I was hoping I could talk you and the rest of the crew into it but for you to just come out and suggest it – is more than great. I’m incredibly thankful I have a crew willing to sweat a little to get a great shot.
+ Food: Regarding your budget, it seems that the budget allocated to food and housing is really low. We know it’s not easy to feed a crew but food is the crew’s fuel. In our humble opinion it’s really different to make such a travel alone and making it with a crew. A lot of food and drinks will be needed. The crew will have long days of work no matter how much is planned, it will be hard, especially for three months.
* Food: Yeah the budget outline for the food has always, from day one, concerned me, I knew it would eventually have to be raised, now is as good a time as any. I’ve moved it from $4 to $8 per day [still over 90 days]. That’s just for food – I’ve still got to set aside money for other crew related expenses: hotels, etc…
I’m thinking about buying a Coleman mini-stove, it might help a lot… allowing the crew to make things like Mac & Cheese for dinner… But let me know if that’s still not enough, and be honest because I don’t want my crew starving half to death.
I’m also thinking about different ways to raise food without a whole lot of money, maybe getting my family to save canned-foods, pasta, jarred fruit, so on… things that could be boxed up and mailed to us on the road. I met a group of 6 bicyclers from Pittsburgh that worked out their food that way, and they managed to get a lot of bang for their buck.
+ Housing: In your budget, you didn’t talk about the housing. It’s no problem for us to sleep in tents or in the van but we’ll have to take showers, be able to clean our clothes, charge the different batteries, clean the equipment and check it,…. so, it may be a good idea to include some nights at cheap motels once on a while during the three months. A good night on a real, even bad, bed will also help to cheer up the hard working crew.
* Housing: Yes… the housing… I know I’ll be taking a lot of showers in the “sink” at local libraries but I don’t expect you to have to do the same. As for the clothes – we’ll stop at laundry mats all the time, every several days. But if you feel like a night under an actual roof every once in a while will greatly lift the crew’s spirits [which I'm sure it would] then that’s more than fine with me. I’ll make it happen.
Well, if anyone is still with me – this turned out to be a much longer post than I originally expected… but all the same, I hope it gave some of you a much deeper look at how things have branched off into different directions over the last several months.
