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How to Make Low Budget Films Look Expensive (Without Spending More in Production) · Indie Film Podcast

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  Making an inexpensive film doesn't always mean making a
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  cheap one. This week we are talking indie
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  film production on a budget without looking cheap.
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  Welcome to indie film podcast. I'm Vic.
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  And I am Chuck today is Part 2 in our inexpensive versus cheap
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  series. Building on our pre production
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  points from last week, this week we're going to be talking about
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  production, which is basically just collecting audio and video
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  assets on your film set. So we will be assuming that you
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  have already figured out your cast, crew equipment and set
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  your shot list. And we want to start with
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  proving the point that just because you have a large budget
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  or just because you have a bunch of expensive equipment, that
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  does not necessarily mean you're going to have a solid film.
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  You can still make something that looks cheap.
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  Case in .1997 Batman and Robin is a cheap looking movie.
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  Oh, additional case in point, Cats.
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  All right, should we start with Batman and Robin?
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  Yes, please. I hope I inflamed or incensed a
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  lot of people out there, not just.
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  Kidding. Oh no, that movie.
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  Just how it's like the best little spot in my little girl
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  heart. So I'm excited to hear you just
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  tear this movie apart. Well, I don't want to tear it
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  apart too much. It was.
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  It's really entertaining. And Arnold Schwarzenegger, his
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  jokes threw out all the puns that he makes about cold stuff.
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  Yeah, it's it's a great drinking game.
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  It came out when I was a kid, so I didn't quite understand the,
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  the, the importance of the drinking game nature.
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  I guess I would have been, I would have been 15 at the time
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  when it came out. But, well, you know, I would
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  don't know if I would have been able to sneak that much booze
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  out of my parents. Your parents would have noticed.
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  Yeah, they would have noticed. They would have.
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  Been like you're playing drinking games, you're playing
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  the pun game to to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Batman and
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  Robin, aren't you? You're going to have to restock
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  our fridge. But I just want to point out
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  that so to me, that movie looks cheap.
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  A lot of the shots are done on like studio sets and for some
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  reason the costumes kind of have this uncanny valley nature to
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  them. In my opinion, it almost looks
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  like the most expensive costumes that you can buy at Spirit
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  Halloween. Like that's.
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  Which, by the way, is still very expensive.
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  Some of those costumes are outrageous for sure.
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  But their budget was $125 million.
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  And in 1997, I didn't realize this like in 30 years, because
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  of inflation, that would equate to about 250 million. 2%
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  inflation. Yeah, it's just, it's just.
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  Doubled. That's a larger topic than we'll
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  be covering in this podcast. Moving along.
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  And probably a good chunk of that is the last five.
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  But yeah, I just, I just want to point out to everybody that, you
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  know, having a huge amount of budget doesn't necessarily mean
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  you're going to make something that looks that awesome.
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  I think, you know, you can argue that Batman and Robin was kind
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  of cool looking, but like in Mr. Freeze's layer and when he's
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  like freezing things, yeah, it's Freeze gun.
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  Like it just in the background, you look at like the ice and
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  stuff. And there's that one scene where
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  they're playing hockey with a diamond and it's just, it just
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  looks like it's shot on a studio.
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  Yeah. And and the other example I can
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  point out is like Indiana Jones and the, the, the Crystal Skull
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  one after the trilogy. Oh.
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  Yeah, I did not see that one. The Alien one, that was all shot
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  on studio sets and obviously they blew a lot of money on that
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  movie. But you know, I don't, I don't
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  know what it was for. Probably salaries for actors and
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  things like that, but you can still have a cheap looking film.
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  You can. I would like to emphasize cats,
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  OK? Not the animal, the movie Nice
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  from 2019. That was a really horrible
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  looking movie. That one was a rough one.
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  So the budget was $95 million and that does not include their
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  marketing budget, which I think we can all agree was.
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  Pretty high. Yeah, too much for what?
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  That movie was so 20. 19 I didn't realize it was that
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  recent. It Oh yeah, it was right before
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  the pandemic. Like Taylor Swift and Idris
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  Elba, like a bunch of really popular people in it.
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  I think I shut it off. I think I started it and shut it
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  off. That was really the best
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  decision you could have made. Well they had to release a whole
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  new version of it after opening weekend because the animation
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  for the fur wasn't actually done yet.
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  So the studio actually had to re release the movie after opening
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  weekend because they were just refusing to move the date.
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  Did they just use like cartoon for somebody?
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  Just I didn't see it opening weekend, so I cannot attest to
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  this, but I heard very terrible, very concerning things about it.
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  The whole thing was a nightmare. But I really want to emphasize
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  this little difference here. So the movie is based on the
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  Broadway musical. Yeah.
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  And the Broadway musical opened in 1982.
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  When it opened, it had a production budget of $4 million.
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  Yeah. Now, even if you were to adjust
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  that for inflation, for today's standards, that's only $11
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  million. OK.
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  And that's still 110th of the budget of the movie.
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  Yeah. And I'm going to be honest with
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  you, I'd rather see the Broadway production.
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  I mean, it's still Cats, so I don't know 100% if I'd want to
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  see it. Want might be a strong word
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  there. Yeah, but I would much rather
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  see the Broadway production than the movie.
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  Yeah. Yeah, well, I The thing is, is
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  you could probably figure out a drinking game for the movie and
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  then just watch it at home. Anytime something nonsensical
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  happens. Yes, you would make it to the
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  end. No, you would die.
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  I don't think you'd make it through Act One.
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  I'd like to I'd like to point out a counter example too of
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  budget versus, you know, looking cheap Mad Max 1979.
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  Oh yeah, and I thought. I thought the original Mad Max
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  looked pretty cool. They made some, they made some
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  creative decisions in that right.
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  They decked out the cars, they gave people outfits and they
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  decided that you know the apocalypse is going to be in a
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  desert scape cause. Why wouldn't it be?
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  So art department looked great, but their budget was $350,000.
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  And so that equates to 1.5 to 2 million in that range in today's
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  in today's money. OK, but you know.
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  Which is your average. Pocket.
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  Change indie film budget, right? Yeah, well, quote UN quote indie
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  film, but I know a lot of you out there are shooting for a lot
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  less than that budget and still getting things done.
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  We would love 1/4 of that budget, yeah.
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  Most of us could finance our films with 1/4 of that budget.
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  Yes, and they would look great. Yeah, 6 figures would be
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  amazing. But, and that's The thing is, is
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  I think a lot of US film, indie film makers out there have
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  learned that if you're going to have something look good, you
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  need to just be working within your skill set and not extending
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  yourself. And like a lot of us too have
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  made mistakes. And one of the one of the
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  glaring ones that that I have that you can actually find on
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  Lowered Gentry Studios YouTube channel, it's called Canyon
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  County is the name of the web series that we released.
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  And we filmed it all at once and then released it.
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  I think it was like once a week or once a month we released it.
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  We released the episodes, but we were kind of just biting off
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  more than we could chew. And me specifically with the
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  audio, because we had to ADR so much of that audio and I didn't
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  know exactly how to to get sound in windy environments, in loud
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  environments. And and it was a it was a mess.
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  But I did get a lesson in Foley and ADR and that.
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  But you can definitely tell the scenes that were just what MOS
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  Yeah. So it was, it was, it was pretty
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  rough. But you've learned so much since
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  then, too. So I mean, you, you took the
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  lessons for sure. But also yeah, not do you?
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  Have an example of something? That you.
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  Totally screwed up, but biting off more than you can chew.
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  Yeah, and this one and. It ends up looking or sounding
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  cheap. It was for one of those 48 hour
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  film festivals. It's called I48 here because
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  it's in Idaho. Yeah, this one was specifically
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  called Headshot. Okay, so we got action flick.
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  I was in high school. Nice.
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  Therefore, the majority of our lead actors are all in high
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  school, and our camera OPS and everything are high schoolers.
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  But we did get a few of our teachers to agree to come act
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  with us, which was awesome. My dad was very kind and
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  volunteered his office. I still don't know if he got
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  permission to do that per SE, so maybe we'll keep that a little
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  hush hush, but. How many years ago?
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  I think you're fine. Yeah, right.
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  Statute of limitations has got to be over for trespassing on
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  that one. Anyway.
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  So we had this great environment, like the set looked
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  good. Some of the adults are actually
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  good actors because they were, you know, theatre teachers.
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  OK, that's nice. And being an action flick, of
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  course we wanted to be like spy and espionage, and we're in this
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  office, so let's do it. Even though the only costumes we
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  had access to were hospital scrubs and all of our lead
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  actors were still high schoolers.
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  And yes, you can tell a difference on camera between a
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  high school student and a fully grown adults.
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  They don't look like they would be working together.
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  That doesn't look normal. It never looks normal.
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  You just do The CW thing and all the PHD's and doctors are like
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  23. Makes perfect sense.
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  Yeah, no, I, I think. Talking about the Flash, if
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  you've ever seen that one. That's great.
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  I assume that. Yeah, you don't just talk if
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  you're talking about The Flash. CW did it with.
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  CW did it with a lot of shows. Yeah, for sure.
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  For sure. Not the only one.
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  But what makes me so angry is looking back on it now.
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  We could have set this in like a hospital or a mental institution
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  or some sort of something like that where all the high
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  schoolers would be in scrubs and their patients, and we had
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  hallways and classic break rooms and stuff.
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  We had everything to make it. Yeah.
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  Work for that. But we were just so adamant
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  about doing spy espionage in an office that we didn't even think
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  to creatively film in the hallways and stairwells in
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  places where it could have also been a hospital.
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  We just didn't. We didn't.
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  We were so stuck on the idea and I'm so mad about it because
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  maybe then it could have been a passable film.
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  Nice, adaptability is super important.
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  It's very important. We did not have that in high
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  school, obviously. Our first gunshot scene, we
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  decided to try to show it on camera, but we had no idea how
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  to do a gunshot and have blood. Like a squib.
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  Yeah, yeah. We didn't know.
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  We had no idea how to do that. So we had like tubing going
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  behind the actors head and then we just and then we didn't shoot
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  for the cut either where it's like if you want to show a
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  gunshot. Show the gun, Yeah, and the.
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  Gun and the firing and then and then cut and we tried to speed
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  him up, dropping out of frame, but it's like we were just
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  working outside. Oh.
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  You just made the person fall. Yeah, we just made the we just
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  speed up the fall. Oh, yeah, it was, it looked, it
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  looked pretty rough. But that's how you that's how
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  you learned. That's how you learned things.
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  Now you know how to not exactly film that.
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  Now you know. Should we talk about some some
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  red and green flags about production?
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  I think we should. We came up with some examples
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  here. The first one is we'll talk
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  about a cinematographer, right? Yes.
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  You receive a demo reel from a cinema talk.
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  You receive a demo reel from a cinematographer.
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  The footage looks gorgeous. You ask about shot listing and
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  they respond. They prefer to feel things out
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  on the day of the shoot. Is that a red flag or a green
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  flag? I'm assuming that since there is
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  no shot list, there's also no storyboard like neither so I'm
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  going to say red flag. There needs to be.
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  I am all for flexibility and adjusting on set but you got to
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  do some pre production. Absolutely.
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  It's good to feel things out for sure, but you kind of want to
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  have a baseline of what you want.
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  And then the only caveat I would say is that I do have some
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  friends that have turned out some decent short films that
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  they just kind of like go and on the day figure things out.
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  No script. But you know, The thing is, is
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  you want to have a, you want to have a cinematographer that
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  you've worked with before, location sound recorders that
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  you've worked with before. Actors that you trust.
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  Actors that know how to improvise, yeah.
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  And be able to capture all of that stuff and trust yourself in
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  the edit. And I think going into it, being
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  excited about improv and trying something new and just playing
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  is very, very different from, well, we have this movie we have
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  to shoot and we only have so many days on location to shoot
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  it. Yeah, for sure.
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  So, but I do encourage everybody to go out and and play with
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  those types of things. Oh yeah, don't let pre
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  production stop you from doing something if that's the only way
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  you're going to do it. Yeah, but if you have a script
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  that's going to be tricky to execute, you want to put the
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  plan in ahead of time you. Do OK, All right, I have a
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  situation for you. You are either acting or on crew
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  for a set. There was something with the
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  previous shot that could have been improved.
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  So you asked the director for another take and their response
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  is no. I think that's a red flag.
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  I feel like that's a red flag. Yeah.
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  I think if the there's also the situation where if you're
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  running behind, at some point you're going to have to that's
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  move. On if it was the AD saying no, I
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  would say green flag because that means your AD really cares
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  about this schedule. Yep.
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  If it's the director being like no absolutely not.
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  I don't give up what you think then.
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  Yeah, red flag for sure. Especially if it's the sound.
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  Sound person directors, please listen to your sound people
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  because I've had to fix so many sound issues in post and I
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  imagine it's because the director did not want to do
• 13:00
  another take when the plane was flying overhead or when the
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  truck was driving by and it just destroyed the dialogue.
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  So yeah, definitely listen to your cast and crew.
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  Yeah, and I, I get it. Some directors want to have that
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  creative control and they have that specific vision.
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  They're like, no, that was exactly what I wanted.
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  I got it. But at the same time, I mean, if
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  you have the time and the schedule, yeah.
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  And at least one person is saying no, I want to do more.
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  Yeah, listen to him if you can. Yeah, unless it's just an actor
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  that did not bother to learn their lines and they're like,
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  wait, no, I can get it better next time.
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  And it's like, no, it's just fine.
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  It's never going to be better. Just.
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  One coming up here in a second, but so here's the red or green
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  flag for you. You see a boom operator without
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  headphones on. You say as if I've never been a
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  boom up with no headphones on. I have seen that on set.
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  I know, I'm, I know it's supposed to be a red flag, but I
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  also know I've literally done that and that's why people
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  should not ask me to be a boom op.
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  Yeah, not a good one because I won't wear it.
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  No, I just forgot them and nobody had a pair.
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  So we just got to roll with it and I just got to the standby,
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  the monitor and see if the lines were ticking up and hope that
• 14:08
  that meant we were capturing. Nice, I always keep a set of
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  earbuds even in my my camera kit bag and then that way cuz I've
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  been on sets before where it's like we don't have headphones
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  and I'm just terrified of that situation all the time.
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  No, it's not even. If it's not my responsibility,
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  yeah, to do location sound, if I haven't met the location sound
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  recordist, I always have headphones on me and just those,
• 14:29
  those earbuds that you can roll up and throw in a bag somewhere.
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  And they're super easy to just like wipe off with a
• 14:34
  disinfectant acting wipe if somebody's like, concerned or
• 14:36
  whatever, like, Oh yeah, yeah, that's nice.
• 14:38
  For sure ear diseases ear diseases that spread by.
• 14:41
  Earwind don't want to shine? Earbuds are definitely gross.
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  I would not use somebody else's earbuds.
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  Well, the I'm talking about the really cheap ones.
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  Oh yeah. Like airplanes hand out where
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  there's nothing that goes up in your ear or anything.
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  Oh yeah, You know what I mean? They kind of just sit right at
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  the, I don't know, ear anatomy very well.
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  So I'm going to stop trying to describe this because I have
• 15:00
  headphones on, so it's not like I can even show.
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  Yeah, either way, it's a podcast.
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  Yes, that is supposed to be a red flag.
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  And in my defense, I did go out and buy a new set of headphones
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  and it does live in my camera bag now, so.
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  Yeah, good, good. Yeah, So I have headphones.
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  On I've learned and they are over ear headphones so that way
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  other people won't feel scared to use them if they need them.
• 15:21
  Oh, that's a good way to do it. Yeah, that's a good way to do it
• 15:24
  for sure. I like to keep things clean.
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  OK, you are directing and running a rehearsal.
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  One of the actors continually delivers lines that aren't
• 15:31
  exactly what's written on the page.
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  You ask if they'll be off book before the shoot, and they
• 15:35
  respond. I really like to feel the lines
• 15:39
  as they come. Nice red flag.
• 15:44
  It depends. Did the actor write it?
• 15:47
  Oh, I don't know. I think the director wrote it.
• 15:50
  I don't know. Good question.
• 15:51
  No, I'm going to say red flag. Yeah.
• 15:54
  I'm also going to say maybe not for self tapes though.
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  OK, what is that? I feel like for self tapes, it's
• 16:00
  more important to show what you're going to do with the
• 16:02
  character than to necessarily verbatim have the script down.
• 16:05
  And maybe that's why I don't get cast in more things.
• 16:08
  But I do think that. So you're really giving yourself
• 16:11
  an exception to this. No, I'm just saying I've heard
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  that a lot from other actors too, where yes, it is important
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  to get the lines as close as you possibly can, and for some
• 16:23
  things like Shakespeare, it's going to be very noticeable if
• 16:25
  you don't know the line. Oh, good point.
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  And you're going to screw it up. Iambic pentameter.
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  That would be a disaster. Don't throw that off.
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  There's also like a bunch of rhyming couplet moments.
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  And then also the language is very specific.
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  So if you throw out something like toaster oven when you meant
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  to say the fire pit, I don't know if toaster ovens really
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  going to fit if it's a period Shakespeare piece, you know,
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  like. Yeah, for sure.
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  Usually. Usually Shakespeare's word for
• 16:48
  word. Usually I would imagine, but I
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  feel like there's a little bit more flexibility in yourself
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  tapes if you're an actor, or correct me if I'm wrong in the
• 16:56
  comments, feel free. Yeah.
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  It's more important to create a character you're excited to show
• 17:01
  and play and get it as close as you can to verbatim than it is
• 17:05
  to be exactly verbatim if it's screwing up your ability to form
• 17:08
  the character because that's how you're going to perform it
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  anyway. So like, but then you should be
• 17:14
  presenting what you're going to bring to the table.
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  There's a difference between having input as an actor and
• 17:19
  then just disregarding the script.
• 17:21
  Yes. And it's also the difference of
• 17:23
  if you've made a character choice where maybe you don't
• 17:25
  enunciate all the words so they kind of slur together.
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  So if it's in the script as it is important and you say it's
• 17:31
  important, yeah, I feel like that's more what I'm talking
• 17:34
  about as opposed to saying no, it's not important at all when
• 17:37
  the line is it is important. Oh, OK.
• 17:40
  Yeah, I'm not saying change everything.
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  I'm saying if it's not verbatim if you conjugate words.
• 17:47
  I think most people are going to be cool with that.
• 17:49
  I've just, I'm talking about examples that, you know,
• 17:52
  sometimes actors will be like, no, I'm just going to do this
• 17:54
  line differently And you know, maybe they haven't gotten off
• 17:57
  book. Oh no, that feels very
• 18:00
  different. Like I feel, I feel like an
• 18:02
  actor's number one job is to be off book.
• 18:04
  Like that's basically the the the baseline of everything if
• 18:09
  there's a script. What are you hard?
• 18:11
  That's hard. I don't know, because I feel
• 18:12
  like, and this is a little bit of a tangent, right, but I feel
• 18:15
  like the actor's job is to create a character and like
• 18:18
  bring this character to life and, and tell their story in a
• 18:21
  genuine, meaningful. For sure.
• 18:23
  I think that goes along with like memorizing the lines.
• 18:25
  Up they have to do. It within the.
• 18:27
  The realms of the world that this writer has built.
• 18:29
  Yeah, exactly so. You don't just get to take this
• 18:32
  character out. I can't just put an.
• 18:34
  Actor in a box, but we're going to put you in a box.
• 18:37
  OK, OK, let's let's talk. About let's talk about fixing
• 18:40
  things on on production or lessons that we've learned on
• 18:44
  productions that have helped us basically execute you executed
• 18:49
  the man who would not shake hands.
• 18:50
  That looks great dive looks great.
• 18:53
  Thank you. I'm very proud of Stockton to
• 18:55
  Table Rock. Rightfully.
• 18:56
  So and the chit chat series was on it.
• 19:00
  It evolved and that was fun. That was the the web series that
• 19:03
  we shot 1 episode a month for a year and you could see the
• 19:06
  evolution happening there. Yeah, which is cool.
• 19:09
  And us learning to work within our strengths, yeah, as a crew.
• 19:12
  And then the returning cast members so.
• 19:14
  But also some experimentation and where you're excited to play
• 19:18
  and try new things. And yeah, it's cool.
• 19:20
  Yeah. And not experimenting too much.
• 19:21
  So let's let's talk about some of the things to consider when
• 19:24
  you are on set. Yeah.
• 19:26
  So we have a couple of of dichotomies here, right, OK,
• 19:31
  adaptability versus rigidness, right.
• 19:35
  You want to be adaptable on set versus rigid.
• 19:38
  And there's there's one example I have here that I looked up,
• 19:40
  that was the Irishman, Scorsese's The Irishman famously
• 19:44
  has really weird looking de aging CGI on the actors.
• 19:51
  And So what I found out was that one of the issues was that they
• 19:57
  didn't put the virtual effects masks on like Robert De Niro.
• 20:02
  And Al Pacino. So they refused to wear the
• 20:05
  masks because they thought it would negatively affect their
• 20:08
  acting performances. Oh, I do get that.
• 20:11
  Like if you're not a character actor in that style, like you're
• 20:14
  not used to being a mascot kind of thing.
• 20:16
  Yeah, but but then it ends up making it look worse, like it it
• 20:20
  added work to it and I don't know, I just.
• 20:22
  Thought, yeah, I don't know how some of those artists then at
• 20:24
  that point would kind of line up some of the effects.
• 20:26
  And like when you have to like minimize wrinkles and stuff,
• 20:29
  you're doing that very manually all of a sudden without having
• 20:31
  those computer automated points to tell you what gets tucked or
• 20:35
  lifted or moved. It would be a lot of work.
• 20:37
  And then there was also the fact that they're older and they had
• 20:40
  some, they just didn't move in a young way if you just watch
• 20:43
  them. Like you know the.
• 20:45
  Scenes where they're throwing punches, it's like that looks
• 20:47
  like AD aged 75 year old man throwing a punch.
• 20:51
  And I think adaptability. Wrong 75 year old man who has
• 20:55
  access to all of the top medical, physical therapy and
• 20:59
  all sorts of treatments and stuff to make them as young as
• 21:02
  possible. Yeah.
• 21:04
  But yeah, there's always so much you can do.
• 21:06
  But I feel like that was a little bit rigid and correct me
• 21:09
  if I'm wrong, make a comment if you think that.
• 21:11
  That's if I'm over analyzing that.
• 21:12
  Because it's obviously you want to be true to the the artist's
• 21:15
  vision, but that includes the actors as well.
• 21:17
  And especially if these are characters they've sort of
• 21:19
  helped craft and create, then I understand wanting to be a part
• 21:21
  of that. You get it.
• 21:22
  Yeah. OK.
• 21:23
  So the next one then is creative problem solving versus the sunk
• 21:26
  cost fallacy. Yes, which is one of my
• 21:29
  favorites. It is because I fall for this
• 21:32
  all the time. Yeah, and if you're not familiar
• 21:34
  with the sunk cost fallacy, the sunk cost fallacy is.
• 21:37
  The idea that sometimes it is better to just walk away instead
• 21:41
  of saying, but I've already spent all this time, energy,
• 21:44
  money, effort, whatever on this one thing.
• 21:46
  I have to make it work or else everything I've done so far is
• 21:48
  wasted. And it's not because you
• 21:51
  probably did learn some things along the way, if nothing else.
• 21:54
  But it's never too late to pivot and change.
• 21:56
  And I think my favorite example of this is Sonic the Hedgehog,
• 21:59
  the animated movie, because they they made the movie and they
• 22:03
  released bits and pieces of it and some trailer stuff and fans
• 22:08
  were pissed, OK, Fans were very upset.
• 22:12
  It was not OK. Nobody wanted this.
• 22:14
  This was the Sonic the Hedgehog nobody asked for.
• 22:17
  And they went back and reanimated it.
• 22:19
  Oh, nice. They knew we screwed up.
• 22:21
  We need to fix this. That's cool.
• 22:23
  So I said good for them. I don't think they fixed
• 22:25
  everything that was wrong with the movie.
• 22:27
  But you know what? They listened to the fans and
• 22:29
  said, Yep, we know we spent this much money already, but we got
• 22:32
  to fix it. Well, that's cool.
• 22:33
  Yeah. So they didn't, they didn't go
• 22:35
  into the sunk cost. They didn't.
• 22:36
  They did not. They did not.
• 22:38
  They problem solved it. So I want to talk about about
• 22:40
  punctuality versus tardiness. Yes.
• 22:45
  And obviously you want to be punctual on a film set usually
• 22:49
  and typically, and that that really helps.
• 22:53
  It helps you get things across the finish line.
• 22:55
  And there's like punctuality through every single step.
• 22:57
  I feel like, right. Obviously showing up on set on
• 23:00
  time, making sure that you're organizing rehearsals, making
• 23:04
  sure that you're hitting deadlines at every step of the
• 23:07
  way, you know, from pre production till you finish your
• 23:10
  film. One, one example that I found on
• 23:13
  online that was interesting. I don't know if you've heard of
• 23:15
  the the Bill Murray Groundhog's Day fiasco.
• 23:20
  I know that it's a delightful film and Bill Murray is just a
• 23:23
  delightfully irreverent person. Yeah, well, he was.
• 23:26
  I guess he was just consistently late to set and and that's when
• 23:31
  his relationship with Harold Ramis fell apart.
• 23:34
  And that's the Egon from the Ghostbusters because he directed
• 23:38
  Groundhog's Day. I can't remember if he wrote it,
• 23:39
  but he directed it. And I guess like I knew that he
• 23:41
  directed that. Yeah, Bill Murray was a pain on
• 23:44
  the set the entire time. And so yeah, it's it's like you
• 23:50
  want to show up for people when you're on an indie film set.
• 23:53
  Everybody's usually, you know, donating, working, working extra
• 23:59
  because the budget isn't there. No.
• 24:01
  So there's definitely more than one hat in your closet that you
• 24:03
  got to be wearing from day-to-day.
• 24:05
  And so you want to just respect everybody's time?
• 24:08
  Yeah, you want to show up and and let everyone know that they
• 24:11
  are valued. Yeah, and and I'll add to that
• 24:13
  too, like running over on set, you don't want to, you don't
• 24:16
  want to be too late and that's you.
• 24:18
  Know it's hard. It's so hard too, like sometimes
• 24:21
  you do just fall behind and it's not out of disrespect for
• 24:24
  people's time. It's just, you know, we didn't
• 24:26
  budget something right or this was a new type of thing or
• 24:29
  something didn't go quite according to plan.
• 24:31
  But you do need to kind of own it.
• 24:32
  And and at some point you got to know when to just be like, OK,
• 24:36
  we do need to call it for today. We're going to have to do
• 24:38
  pickups. We just need to call it for the
• 24:40
  day. Hope for the best, yeah?
• 24:41
  OK. The last one is listen or
• 24:46
  listening versus talking, I guess.
• 24:49
  And it's, it's more about being open to hearing multiple ideas
• 24:57
  and not just specifically compromising with your own
• 25:00
  personal motivations in mind, right?
• 25:02
  Yeah, because you have the example for this one though,
• 25:04
  right? Oh yeah, yeah, I found Princess
• 25:06
  Bride. Yeah, famous movie, Rob.
• 25:10
  Rather well known. Rather well known.
• 25:12
  Rob Reiner and so apparently he Mad Max the the Miracle worker
• 25:19
  or Miracle Max, not Mad Max. Sorry.
• 25:20
  Yeah. I was like, wait, I didn't know
• 25:21
  these movies had anything to do with each other.
• 25:23
  Oh, my gosh. Tell me more.
• 25:24
  OK, All right. Never mind.
• 25:25
  I'm. Just miss speaking but so Billy
• 25:28
  Crystal's character Miracle Max in in Princess Bride basic
• 25:32
  basically all of his dialogue was improvised and Rob Reiner
• 25:36
  gave him free rein to do that. Bold choice.
• 25:39
  Yes, and it ended up being like one of the most memorable
• 25:42
  characters in the movie. And so he did allow that
• 25:45
  flexibility on set. He wasn't just telling everybody
• 25:48
  what they needed to do or what they needed to say or where
• 25:51
  their mark was. It was let's, let's experiment.
• 25:55
  Let's see what happens. Let's play.
• 25:57
  But I bet that means they booked a little bit of extra time into
• 26:01
  the schedule to allow for more takes for some of the scenes
• 26:04
  just to make sure that they were.
• 26:06
  A benefit of a large production. Well, yes, OK, Yeah.
• 26:09
  OK. So then to come and kind of
• 26:10
  summarize that some of the best tips as far as production goes
• 26:15
  for your film, despite it being low budget, but some of the best
• 26:19
  ways to keep it from looking cheap are to emphasize your
• 26:22
  adapted. Oh boy, this is going to be a
• 26:25
  fun one. How to emphasize your
• 26:26
  adaptability over your rigidity, to focus on creative problem
• 26:31
  solving and kind of walking away from the sunk cost fallacy.
• 26:34
  To emphasize punctuality and avoid being late and running
• 26:39
  behind on things and being open to listening versus just
• 26:44
  talking. Yeah.
• 26:46
  I think that's, I think that's pretty solid.
• 26:48
  I think those feel like very reasonable ways on a set to make
• 26:52
  some adjustments and make sure things are are gonna go as
• 26:55
  smoothly as possible. And I feel like adaptability is
• 26:57
  one of the largest ones. Yeah, I think that's up there at
• 27:00
  the top for a reason. Yeah, it encompasses making sure
• 27:03
  that you're listening, making sure that you're on time and,
• 27:07
  you know, making, making sure. What was the other point on
• 27:09
  there? Now I totally forgot, but yeah,
• 27:11
  making sure that you're being creative, right?
• 27:13
  Yeah. You wanna, You wanna, you want
• 27:14
  to adapt and you want to use the tools that you have available to
• 27:18
  you and including your skill sets to make sure that your film
• 27:21
  is not looking and sounding bad. Exactly.
• 27:25
  And so and, and like, I have an example.
• 27:28
  Do you? Oh, go ahead.
• 27:28
  Continue. No, no, no.
• 27:29
  Go for it. I was just going to say the one
• 27:32
  of the first projects I ever made with my brother.
• 27:34
  It's on YouTube I believe it's two man crew, all one word and
• 27:38
  we actually ended up winning a prize at a 48 hour Film Festival
• 27:41
  and we shot it on a mini DV Cam and we used the audio on the
• 27:46
  camera. Bold.
• 27:47
  Choice, yes, and it did looks bad and it sounded bad.
• 27:51
  But The thing is, we made it a documentary about two
• 27:54
  pretentious people that are trying to make a film with only
• 28:00
  two people on the crew. So this is just a movie about
• 28:03
  you and your brother. Yeah, exactly.
• 28:04
  I'm kidding. Exactly.
• 28:06
  Just for two pretentious people make you.
• 28:08
  Absolutely not. You two or two of the least
• 28:11
  pretentious people I know. I don't know about that, but I
• 28:13
  mean I I literally have a podcast where I espouse advice
• 28:17
  to people so. And it's not even your first
• 28:21
  one. You.
• 28:21
  Can't. Yeah, you can't.
• 28:22
  Call me the least pretentious, but but working within that, we
• 28:27
  we realized that we wanted to make a film.
• 28:29
  This was our first foray into doing anything really.
• 28:33
  And we thought, well, OK, if it's going to looks bad and it's
• 28:36
  going to sound bad, how do we cover that all?
• 28:38
  You know, almost like Blair Witch Project.
• 28:41
  Yeah, they leaned into it. Yeah, or Paranormal Activity one
• 28:44
  through 57. You know, 'cause they make a new
• 28:47
  one every month, I think because all they need to do is just make
• 28:50
  a movie from somebody's ring Cam, you know?
• 28:52
  That's it. And now you can't.
• 28:53
  And now I hear that Ring is going to start sponsoring the
• 28:55
  movies. Oh no, I'm kidding.
• 28:57
  That is a complete Actually. It would be really funny if they
• 28:59
  did, but I'm pretty sure that's a lie I just made-up.
• 29:01
  Catch your ghosts. But but along those lines, same
• 29:04
  thing for the man who would not shake hands.
• 29:06
  Yeah. We had a scene where somebody
• 29:07
  was supposed to kind of throw them like hang.
• 29:09
  He was supposed to hang himself. OK.
• 29:10
  And so he was supposed to throw himself over this railing at the
• 29:14
  edge of. It was sort of a loft in an
• 29:16
  apartment, OK. And in the bedroom was in the
• 29:18
  often so he's going to stand up and throw himself over the edge.
• 29:21
  And we were very unprepared on just how high off the ground
• 29:26
  this was OK. And we realized there is no
• 29:30
  physical way that we can do this.
• 29:32
  And the padding that we have is not going to be enough to keep
• 29:34
  this person safe if when he falls.
• 29:37
  And you know what? So we had a great sound location
• 29:42
  recordist and postmixer Nick Fry, and he, we sat down and
• 29:47
  talked with him about some creative ways to brainstorm
• 29:49
  around this and we decided to just lean into the sound for it.
• 29:53
  So what we would do is cut to black, but you would hear him
• 29:56
  hanging and that's when we would bring up the title card anyway,
• 29:58
  because it was all part of the opening sequence.
• 30:00
  And I'm like, perfect, that's what we can do.
• 30:01
  And we can edit it that way and it'll look very neat and clean,
• 30:04
  beautiful. And it doesn't require throwing
• 30:06
  somebody over what is essentially a story and 1/2
• 30:10
  level of a fall because it was very, it was a taller loft than
• 30:13
  we realized. It was very tall.
• 30:15
  Nice. So I'm glad that everyone
• 30:17
  survived that shoot. It was important, but.
• 30:19
  That is important. You don't.
• 30:21
  Want it? Yeah.
• 30:21
  But nobody was so stuck on. Well, we have to do it this way.
• 30:25
  We have to find a way. Yeah, It didn't come down to
• 30:27
  that. It came down.
• 30:28
  To it's like this is the story beat.
• 30:30
  Yes. How can we execute this with
• 30:33
  within our budget and within our skill set?
• 30:36
  Yes and the skill set thing is one of the most important
• 30:39
  things. If you're you're just getting
• 30:41
  started or you're transitioning from working with a giant crew,
• 30:46
  maybe on commercial projects to film in your own things and you
• 30:49
  can only afford to have a couple people on.
• 30:51
  It's like, well, can't afford a stunt coordinator here.
• 30:54
  So what are you going to do? You can do a lot of stuff with
• 30:57
  sound effects. You can do so much with sound
• 30:59
  design, and I stand firmly by. That's one of my favorite things
• 31:02
  to play with, especially now. And I wonder if it started on
• 31:04
  that movie and now that I'm thinking about it more, maybe it
• 31:06
  did. But I just love it because your
• 31:08
  imagination and your mind is so much more creative than anything
• 31:13
  you could ever show on film. And it's so personal to you as a
• 31:17
  viewer that you can do so much wild stuff with just sound
• 31:21
  design. It's.
• 31:21
  Cool. Yeah, you actually just reminded
• 31:23
  me of the famous Spanish film. See, inside Mara Dentro Javier
• 31:29
  Boredom is the star of that one. Oh, I haven't seen that one.
• 31:31
  Yeah, it's it's true story about a Spaniard that was trying to
• 31:36
  get the OK from the government to kill himself because he was
• 31:40
  he was crippled from the neck down.
• 31:43
  But there's a scene in there where he has flashbacks to how
• 31:45
  he broke his neck when he dove into like a pool that didn't
• 31:48
  have enough. Not a pool, but like a he was.
• 31:50
  He was on the coast. He dope into the ocean.
• 31:52
  But what they did was they just showed Javier Bourdain diving
• 31:55
  and then they cut into a very close up of him, like moving
• 31:59
  into like the the bottom of the ocean.
• 32:02
  And you could see his. Head move, but it wasn't that
• 32:04
  fast. They probably just speed up the
• 32:05
  tape and then had like really gnarly sound effects of like a
• 32:08
  crunching noise. And then that was the history of
• 32:10
  him having broken his neck. Oh goodness.
• 32:13
  Great, great film, really. Into a great way to lean into
• 32:15
  sound design for something like that, that you obviously don't
• 32:18
  want to actually have somebody break their neck, no.
• 32:21
  Definitely, you know, it's not. This is not, this is not
• 32:23
  Deliverance. If you don't know what we're
• 32:25
  talking about, listen to last week's episode.
• 32:27
  Not last week. That was two weeks ago, yeah.
• 32:29
  Yeah, Deliverance that. Kind of has no meaning anymore.
• 32:32
  Yeah, that was a very. Exciting.
• 32:33
  Crazy set to be on, I guess. No, no, not that we know.
• 32:36
  Should we? Should we go ahead and move on
• 32:37
  to our Filmmaker of the week? This.
• 32:39
  Week I'm. Excited about this?
• 32:41
  So this week's Go Maker of the Week is Frank Merrill, but he
• 32:45
  actually just recorded an audio message.
• 32:47
  Which is something you can do too, if you would like to be a
• 32:49
  feature filmmaker of the week. And maybe you don't want us to
• 32:51
  do an impersonation of you. Yeah, and inevitably, a very
• 32:55
  poor impersonation of you anyway.
• 32:57
  We'll just let you do it yourself.
• 32:58
  Here's Frank. None.
• 33:47
  That's awesome. Yeah, so we actually watched
• 33:49
  that film. Yeah, it's streaming on Amazon
• 33:52
  Prime. Yeah, Jamie Kennedy's in it.
• 33:54
  Which is wild. It's also got David Howard
• 33:56
  Thornton, who if you know the Terra Fire series, he plays Art
• 34:00
  the Clown in the Terra Fire series.
• 34:02
  Yeah, and don't worry, he plays a creeper and Namaka as well.
• 34:05
  Yeah, definitely check it out if you're interested in a a
• 34:09
  combination of Jamie Kennedy and vacation footage.
• 34:13
  Miss Frank was able to weave vacation footage of Hawaii.
• 34:16
  Yeah, it's sort of it's a very new take on the found footage
• 34:21
  style. Yeah, but they if you watch it,
• 34:24
  you'll see it. They bring it all into the plot.
• 34:26
  It's it's it's a really cool, interesting thing.
• 34:29
  And Frank, thanks for the lesson in tenacity, because.
• 34:33
  Don't give up on your script. Yeah, not everything works out
• 34:36
  exactly the way you expect it to, but that doesn't mean it
• 34:38
  doesn't work out. That's adaptability, right?
• 34:40
  There that is adaptability, don't just.
• 34:42
  Push forward. If something doesn't feel right,
• 34:44
  you can always shelve your script.
• 34:46
  You can work on something else in the meantime.
• 34:48
  Yeah, but you? Can also repurpose story beats
• 34:51
  and things. And grab it and put it into your
• 34:54
  next film. Exactly.
• 34:55
  And if you want to be a Featured Filmmaker of the Week, just go
• 34:58
  to indiefilmpodcast.com, Submit, and you can take a look and fill
• 35:04
  out our little form there and upload some assets, record a
• 35:07
  voice memo. That would be great.
• 35:08
  Yeah. You might get picked to be
• 35:10
  featured on our podcast. Which would be really fun
• 35:12
  because we're excited to get to talk more about all the people
• 35:15
  that also make indie films, because you've heard us talk a
• 35:17
  lot about all the indie films we've made.
• 35:19
  For sure. All right.
• 35:20
  Well, on that note, shall we succinctly say farewell?
• 35:23
  I think that sounds wonderful.