Latest / Indie Film Podcast / Zero Budget Filmmaking: 3 Massive Fails and 1 Weird Win on Set

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Zero Budget Filmmaking: 3 Massive Fails and 1 Weird Win on Set · Indie Film Podcast

• 0:00
  That shows the actor actually wants to do something with their
• 0:02
  character and wants to play around with it.
• 0:04
  So that right there is already a good sign your actor is invested
• 0:07
  and excited. Sweet.
• 0:09
  As of 2 days ago, we have officially wrapped filming for
• 0:12
  our 10 minute zero budget indie short film and I have never
• 0:15
  questioned my life choices more than at this moment.
• 0:17
  But we did capture all the footage that we needed in one
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  weekend. That weekend consisting of about
• 0:21
  13 hours on Saturday and another 9 on Sunday.
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  In this episode, we're going to break down our experience on set
• 0:27
  and share what worked and what didn't.
• 0:29
  Welcome to any film podcast. I'm Vic.
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  And I am Chuck and Victoria, without further ado, do you want
• 0:34
  to share a success and a failure in the weekend of shooting?
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  I do because we had quite a few of both.
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  Yes, the failures. I expected the successes was a
• 0:43
  surprise. Yes, absolutely.
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  Well, we had a lot of talent to people that helped us out, so
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  they really shined. But do you just want to start
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  out with a success? Yeah, of course.
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  OK. So the number one success for me
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  is a little bit weird, but I was really excited about the slow
• 0:58
  cooker working really well for or lunch.
• 1:01
  Yes. And I realized that that's a
• 1:03
  little bit niche. There are some areas where you
• 1:05
  are not allowed to make the food that you serve to your actors.
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  So I know that's a little bit limited, but if you are in an
• 1:12
  area where you're allowed to do that, go for the slow cooker.
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  Absolutely go for the slow cooker.
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  It was perfect. I got to throw everything in
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  there super early in the morning, could have even done it
• 1:21
  the night before. Put the whole thing into the
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  fridge and then a few hours before we needed lunch served,
• 1:27
  throw it on, let it cook, and then it's hot and ready to go at
• 1:30
  exactly meal time. Or it'll just hopefully yours
• 1:33
  has like a keep warm setting or whatever and then it can keep it
• 1:36
  warm until you actually do get caught up to lunchtime.
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  But we were actually on schedule and broke for lunch when we were
• 1:42
  supposed. To And that's huge when you get
• 1:45
  everybody fed and you get to lunch on time and then people
• 1:48
  have energy coming into the latter half of the day.
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  Yeah, and it was like hot and ready.
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  And I feel like hot food kind of boosts morale a little bit.
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  Absolutely, absolutely. And failure.
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  There were several of those that was not ecstatic about.
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  I think the failure I'm looking back to the most is starting our
• 2:06
  day with the most complicated shot, which is good.
• 2:08
  You should do that. Just bust it out and get it out
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  and over with. But I forgot to ask anyone to
• 2:17
  turn on the fog machine beforehand.
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  We went through all the trouble of disassembling the smoke
• 2:24
  detectors. We were prepared for the fog
• 2:27
  machine and then I forgot to say turn it on.
• 2:30
  As did I. We both, we both dropped the
• 2:32
  ball there and it's kind of a bummer we don't have the same,
• 2:36
  you know, ambient lighting that we wanted to have then or,
• 2:40
  excuse me, we didn't have the fog that we wanted to have in
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  the shots. And after that first one, we
• 2:44
  didn't use it. It was kind of like the
• 2:46
  executive decision was, do we add it in now or do we just
• 2:49
  scrap it? And we were behind schedule
• 2:51
  after the first shoot, yes. Or excuse me, after the first
• 2:54
  shot. Yeah.
• 2:55
  But we did end on time. We did.
• 2:57
  We made-up the shots that we we cut some shots and we got
• 3:02
  everybody home a little bit before they were scheduled to be
• 3:05
  home. Yeah, basically, which is good.
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  Which is a huge win. So I mean that that's one
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  success, but another success that I wanted to share with
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  everybody was the rehearsal right before we began shooting
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  went exceptionally well. Yeah.
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  And we did not have a rehearsal for a musical.
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  The the the cast that came on board to shoot the short film
• 3:27
  were incredibly well prepared and we sent them temp tracks
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  that had changed. I believe it was on Wednesday,
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  it was Tuesday or Wednesday and they came in Saturday morning.
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  We decided to do an hour of rehearsal before we began
• 3:43
  filming and everybody was off book.
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  Everybody knew the melodies and that helped move the chute along
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  incredibly smoothly because they could just focus on the blocking
• 3:53
  that we were giving them. Yeah, it was really, really
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  nice. They all, they all knocked it
• 3:57
  out of the park completely. And we did have the benefit of a
• 4:00
  couple of them. Most of them had previously
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  worked together on a musical, so that did help.
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  They all kind of knew how each other worked.
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  But yeah, it was just they were all they all came and knocked it
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  out of that first read through, sing through of the entire thing
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  was was kind of a magical moment.
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  And I would love to say that you could go to our social media
• 4:20
  profiles and check it out, but guess who was too busy?
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  We were busy. Stage directions to film it so.
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  And getting things, getting things set up because we Co
• 4:31
  directed this one while you were running through some of the
• 4:34
  blocking with everyone. I was helping the crew get the
• 4:37
  entire front porch blacked out so that we could shoot yeah, day
• 4:42
  for night. I didn't get to my failure yet.
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  I'm going to talk about that. So the popcorn and the Mountain
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  Dew that we had planned on having this this Dungeons and
• 4:52
  Dragons player on have on the table for the shoot.
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  We forgot to set that up, which meant that we didn't get to get
• 5:00
  those insert shots which we had scheduled to get which we didn't
• 5:04
  shoot this film in order. Obviously you don't usually
• 5:08
  shoot films in order because it's it's a lot trickier as far
• 5:12
  as setups are concerned. You want to minimize setups.
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  So we had the idea of getting all the insert shots at the end
• 5:19
  with the character that is is had a lot of solo scenes.
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  So Jesse had many solo scenes in this in this shoot.
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  And so we're like, well, we're going to wrap him last, so we'll
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  go back and get his shots first, which were the beginning shots
• 5:32
  in the movie. Unfortunately, we didn't stage
• 5:35
  the scene 100% perfectly. Which in hindsight, we'd hoped
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  to show like the classic tight shot on like a Mountain Dew
• 5:42
  bottle opening and then pouring, you know, soda into glasses or
• 5:45
  whatever. And we would have had to have
• 5:49
  shot that first 'cause we only zero budget film here.
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  We bought 1 two liter bottle of Mountain Dew and that was it.
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  So that was what was going to happen.
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  So we only had one chance to get that shot anyway.
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  So you know what? It's fine.
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  We goofed, but it's OK. We ended up getting different
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  shots and we did it all worked out.
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  So we actually, I kind of want to talk about some of the tools
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  that worked, which the shot list worked exceptionally well.
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  Yeah. And that was a modification on a
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  spreadsheet that you already have or we already have on our
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  our news sent out to our newsletter subscribers, correct?
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  So if you would like the exact same shot list that we used and
• 6:24
  actually found very helpful, you can subscribe to our newsletter
• 6:28
  and just get that spreadsheet. I did go through and add and
• 6:32
  tweak some things to a new scripty tab where it's got a
• 6:37
  couple different functions in it that allow the script supervisor
• 6:41
  to just mark exactly what's being worked on and what isn't.
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  So that way I knew we were going to need to track a lot of detail
• 6:46
  for continuity as well as who is going to be on deck to come on
• 6:51
  set because we were jumping around in this movie so much.
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  So I think it helped a lot. But you know, as with any
• 7:01
  spreadsheet, yeah, you find out some things that you want to fix
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  about it. Like I didn't have an option for
• 7:07
  cut this shot. Oh yeah.
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  So now I know I want to add that.
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  So then once that's added and it's completely, 100%
• 7:13
  functional, it was really helpful to have.
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  So we'll make sure that that's available for people too on our
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  website if people want it. Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:18
  Because we want to share these things that that work for us
• 7:20
  that make the shoot run smoother.
• 7:23
  Yes. So yeah, that was great.
• 7:26
  Some things that didn't work out.
• 7:27
  Well, the number one tool that did not work.
• 7:32
  DJI Ronan, you know, a lot of people use those.
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  The DJI Ronan RS3 Pro. Yes, it had struggled with
• 7:41
  cinema lenses. You were well under the weight
• 7:44
  capacity, yes, of that unit. However, I feel like it was
• 7:48
  struggling because the the lens was heavier.
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  It didn't. It didn't do a good job of
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  keeping it centered. And so unfortunately we had a
• 7:56
  bunch of shots where the lens was supposed to be facing
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  downward. And even though the Ronin was
• 8:02
  balanced, it just kind of fell down.
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  As soon as you you tried to point the lens too far down, the
• 8:08
  entire rig just flipped. Spun up on itself and locked up.
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  So I don't and there I'm not going to rule out the odds that
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  it was something I did wrong. I will not rule that out.
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  I'm used to using my it's the oh, I wrote it down the DJ Ronan
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  SC. That's what I've been using for
• 8:30
  years and I love and works really well and I know that
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  thing like the back of my hand. The Ronan RS3 Pro has a much
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  higher weight capacity. I bought it a few years ago.
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  I left it in the box and didn't want to touch it because change
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  is scary and change is hard and I didn't want to learn a new
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  item. So I decided to Start learning
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  said new item at what, 8-9 PM the night before the shoot?
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  Which is always a good plan for your DP to go in and test out a
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  brand new piece of gear. 12 hour, not even 12 hours, like 8
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  hours before you shoot. That's always a good idea.
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  Well, we got it figured out though.
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  We got it balanced, Yes, I think.
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  And if DJI is listening to this podcast, I I think that we watch
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  the tutorials like DJ is tutorials on how to get it all
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  weighted and balanced correctly. However, it seems like most of
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  the people that use those or most of the use cases are people
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  that are running with like a mirror, a mirrorless rig, and
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  not a sin lens and not necessarily a black magic pocket
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  6K Pro is what you were shooting on.
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  Yeah. And so with that, with a cage,
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  it got heavy. It was underneath the weight
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  though. It was under the weight limit.
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  By probably 2 or 3 lbs yeah, I wanna say cuz it goes up to 9.9
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  lbs yeah. And with the battery, we had it
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  weighted at 8 lbs but we took the battery off yeah, with the
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  external battery. So, you know, that's that's
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  something to consider when you're when you're running and
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  gunning like the Cinema rig is going to be a little bit more
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  difficult on one of those units than just somebody running
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  around with like Sony mirrorless camera like a, you know, I'm not
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  not the. Or even like a Canon mirrorless
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  or anything. Yeah, Canon mirrorless.
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  Yeah, those those types of like cinema lenses that are a little
• 10:20
  bit more, you know, they take pictures too.
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  Yeah, they're just a little bit lighter.
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  But you have an actual cinema lens on there and the black
• 10:27
  magic rig with a with a cage on it.
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  So it was. It was bulky.
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  It was, and it was a great arm workout for somebody who's used
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  to carting around the Ronin SC with a Canon 5D Mark four and a
• 10:44
  tiny little Canon lens. Yeah.
• 10:46
  So you were lifting around like probably 15 lbs all day I would
• 10:50
  imagine. Yeah, yeah, it definitely went
• 10:53
  from my usual like 5-6 pounds to 10 plus.
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  Yeah, yeah, for sure. But that's OK.
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  In hindsight, it probably would have been better to just use a
• 11:03
  Dolly system on some of this stuff.
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  Which we did consider, yeah. And then opted out of because we
• 11:07
  knew we had the Ronin, Yeah. Whoops.
• 11:10
  Well, hey, now we know. Now we know stick to the Dolly.
• 11:14
  That's a lot easier on cinematic type shots.
• 11:17
  It is. Or get a really huge expensive
• 11:19
  steady Cam ring rig. Yeah, or just own it and you get
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  one of those like counterbalance ones with the two hand things
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  and then you can go for it and, you know, get somebody to pull
• 11:28
  focus. So I'm not sitting there trying
• 11:29
  to use the focus puller motor for the first time ever in my
• 11:32
  life on the shoot. Either it's, it was, it was a
• 11:35
  lot, it was a lot to do. But The thing is, is this is
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  something that we knew was going to be experimental.
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  So we're going to not hold back. No, that was our decision there.
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  So Speaking of not holding back, we had a pretty aggressive
• 11:47
  schedule, but we did get through it.
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  We did. We got ahead of schedule for a
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  little while there. It looks like we were going to
• 11:54
  cut everybody about two, 2 1/2 hours early.
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  I was really excited and then the issue with the Ronan came
• 11:59
  up. So that did slow us down.
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  The Ronan slowed us down massively, but we had 29 shots
• 12:05
  that we wanted to get in a day, which isn't too bad.
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  You figure you can normally get about three shots an hour.
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  Our very first shot we didn't. We started a little bit behind
• 12:15
  yes time on that one and that took probably an hour.
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  By the time we wrapped the second kind of tracking, I guess
• 12:24
  it was more of like a leading shot.
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  But with the Ronin, by the time we got that second one done, we
• 12:30
  were back maybe 5 minutes behind schedule.
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  And then we cut a couple of shots and then kept going and we
• 12:36
  ended up a little bit ahead of schedule.
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  So we got a little bit of extra rehearsal time for one of the
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  really difficult shots right before lunch, and then as soon
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  as we got back from lunch, we were just off to the races, just
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  crushing it. The cast was killer.
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  The entire crew was just so on top of everything like the the
• 12:52
  there is no amount of gratitude great enough because again, that
• 12:56
  lunch was their only payment. Yeah.
• 12:58
  And Speaking of lunch, we actually have a cheap trick for
• 13:00
  everybody out there this week. Do you want to share the cheap
• 13:04
  trick that you used for our quote UN Quote catering Vic?
• 13:09
  Because I won't throw this out there.
• 13:10
  If you're going to use a slow cooker, I'm no, I'm just going
• 13:13
  to assume everybody's now going to use a slow cooker because it
• 13:16
  was delightful. If you do, they make liners for
• 13:21
  slow cookers now. I don't know if anybody knew
• 13:23
  that, but that was a game changer for me, man.
• 13:26
  It was so easy to clean that up, which was great because maybe
• 13:29
  three shots after lunch, we were supposed to be going to this
• 13:32
  giant wide where you could see the entire kitchen counter that
• 13:35
  of course lunch was served on. So we had to clear everything
• 13:38
  real quick and it worked. It was amazing.
• 13:42
  I know it's not great to add more plastics onto things and
• 13:44
  I'm sure there are some people that are concerned about having
• 13:46
  like a plastic liner with the food, but if it's food safe
• 13:50
  plastic, I've I've worked in enough kitchens that I don't
• 13:52
  worry too much about food safe plastic.
• 13:55
  It's like a plastic cutting board.
• 13:56
  But if you're one of the people that's really against it, that's
• 13:58
  totally fair. That is up to you.
• 14:00
  You may clean your slow cooker. Enjoy.
• 14:03
  But we, we're shooting and eating in the same location.
• 14:06
  We, we filmed inside this house. We filmed in the studio that
• 14:11
  you're you're watching this podcast happening right now for
• 14:14
  our special effects shots, but then just in the living room,
• 14:18
  out in the living room for the quote UN quote in the real world
• 14:22
  scenes for this short film. And we had to maximize space.
• 14:27
  And so it was like we're we're you only shot One Direction in
• 14:30
  the living room essentially, and we all ate in there.
• 14:34
  And then once we got to the wide shot, we had to clean up very
• 14:38
  quickly and we got it. We got it done though, and we
• 14:42
  spread out our complicated shots.
• 14:44
  So it was first thing in the morning and then right after
• 14:46
  lunch, which if you, you've read any psychology books or read any
• 14:51
  psychological studies people do well after eating, there's like
• 14:55
  a whole, they, they looked at data on judges and, and
• 15:00
  sentencing and judges sentenced more severely right before lunch
• 15:05
  and right at the end of the day because they're hungry.
• 15:08
  They're hungry and they're exhausted and they haven't had
• 15:10
  like a break. You need you need some time to
• 15:12
  refresh and get away from things.
• 15:13
  So that worked well for us as to first thing in the morning, get
• 15:16
  the most complicated shot done and then second most complicated
• 15:20
  shot right after lunch. Yes, and also if you find
• 15:23
  yourself in trouble for a non permitted shoot, aim for being
• 15:28
  right after lunch on the judge's docket.
• 15:30
  There we go, going to court to plead this case.
• 15:32
  Good tip. If you can, if you can adjust
• 15:34
  the schedule, do it. So we, we had some things that
• 15:39
  popped up during the recording process that we did have to
• 15:43
  change and we anticipated this. You never know what you're going
• 15:47
  to have to do differently when you're on the shoot day, but
• 15:51
  when it does arrive, you just have to adjust accordingly and
• 15:55
  initially we were going to have people come in on Friday and
• 15:58
  record their vocals. We actually spoke extensively
• 16:01
  about that last week, but that was the plan so that everyone
• 16:04
  would have their voices to sing along to.
• 16:06
  Yeah, but in the interest of saving time and allowing for
• 16:10
  some modifications in performances, we just had the
• 16:14
  actors sing along with the temp tracks that we had already made,
• 16:19
  which gave them the opportunity to play with the character a
• 16:21
  little bit. And then the next day they came
• 16:23
  in and tracked the recordings closer to how they performed it
• 16:28
  in the room. Yeah, which was actually an ask
• 16:31
  from one of the actors. Yes.
• 16:32
  Which was, hey, since this is all sung, there's no spoken
• 16:37
  dialogue in this whole thing. I'm a little bit nervous about
• 16:41
  being locked into my character choice while I'm singing before
• 16:45
  I have the chance to actually work with any of these other
• 16:47
  actors and and be on set and in the moment and really build my
• 16:50
  character. And I think that was a really
• 16:54
  good call out. I mean, one that shows the actor
• 16:59
  actually wants to do something with their character and wants
• 17:01
  to play around with it. So that right there is already a
• 17:03
  good sign your actors invested and excited.
• 17:06
  Sweet. And two, that really does make
• 17:10
  sense. Yeah, I understand why for like
• 17:13
  alignment purposes and making it look really sharp and tight, why
• 17:16
  you would want to do it the other way around.
• 17:19
  But in the case where we had no rehearsals before the actual
• 17:22
  shoot day, I think it was the better choice to let everybody
• 17:26
  play with their character a little bit more.
• 17:27
  Because this is what the this was the first time that they all
• 17:30
  got to perform together. Yeah.
• 17:32
  And so it was that it seems to be working.
• 17:35
  You've done a rough cut of the first few minutes and
• 17:38
  everybody's vocals are lining up.
• 17:39
  Yeah, which is which is important.
• 17:41
  I mean, you can tell it's not exact in some places, but I mean
• 17:46
  it is a 10 minute zero budget film that we are making in four
• 17:49
  weeks. I think if that is the worst
• 17:51
  thing that happens, yeah, we're doing OK Well.
• 17:53
  It'll be it'll be all right. So we that changed.
• 17:57
  Is there anything else that we got thrown for a loop it four
• 18:00
  that you want to mention? Obviously, we forgot our
• 18:02
  Mountain Dew like we forgot our. Initial shots and how to recut
• 18:05
  that. The opening edit, we actually
• 18:08
  kind of changed completely. It was supposed to be a bunch of
• 18:12
  long, slow shots. And because we had that opener
• 18:17
  cut, because of course, the right decision after a really
• 18:22
  long day, before another really long day is to not sleep and
• 18:26
  stay up and edit instead. That's always the right choice.
• 18:29
  Good call. But because we had it, we were
• 18:32
  able to kind of show that to some of the people.
• 18:34
  And by watching the varied reactions to it, it got a lot of
• 18:38
  really immediate and powerful feedback that Oh no, slow
• 18:43
  sweeping shots of this like D&D game board set up is not going
• 18:48
  to be appealing at all to most people.
• 18:50
  We need to cut this a lot faster and show more of the excitement
• 18:55
  and the anticipation of the build.
• 18:57
  So the edit has actually changed quite substantially for the
• 19:00
  first song already, thanks to just watching people respond to
• 19:04
  it. Because one thing I've realized
• 19:07
  is at this Film Festival where it will be screening it, unlike
• 19:11
  an online video where you could click away right now, you could
• 19:13
  just leave. You're allowed to just go at any
• 19:15
  point. At a Film Festival, you can't.
• 19:17
  So you're kind of a hostage. So that's not the best way to
• 19:20
  get feedback on your film. True, because they're all going
• 19:23
  to stay and watch it. But this one, it was like, oh,
• 19:25
  no, I can see where some people are starting to kind of lose
• 19:27
  interest or whatever. It's like.
• 19:30
  Get feedback early and often. I think it's, it's super
• 19:33
  important and that's what we did and that's what you were able to
• 19:36
  do is you, you got that first couple minutes cut, real rough
• 19:40
  cut, obviously raw footage, log footage or whatever.
• 19:44
  But being able to show that to people and be like, oh, OK, this
• 19:46
  does feel a little slow. And there's nothing like
• 19:49
  watching a cut of your film with another person there to make you
• 19:53
  even more aware of things that you did wrong or things that
• 19:58
  could be improved. So that was really nice.
• 20:01
  Let's talk a little bit about how we want to execute this
• 20:04
  film. And we decided to watch Scott
• 20:07
  Pilgrim Versus the World to give us some ideas on how to process
• 20:12
  this movie in post. Which, much to my brother's
• 20:14
  chagrin, I had not seen until we watched it.
• 20:16
  Yeah, and that was something that slipped the slipped my
• 20:19
  radar forever too. It's a 15 year old movie, yeah.
• 20:23
  But it's, it's takes, it has like a video game vibe to it.
• 20:26
  The it's a lot of action fight scenes.
• 20:29
  And that's kind of what we're trying to go for with our short
• 20:31
  film. However, I will say that like
• 20:33
  Scott Pilgrim Versus the World is kind of like a Ferrari of
• 20:37
  action movies and special effects.
• 20:39
  And if they're a Ferrari, then ours will be more like a Hot
• 20:43
  Wheels racer. Yeah of of special effects cuz.
• 20:45
  We go like maybe Boy Scout, one of those, the boxcar Derby.
• 20:50
  Boxcar Derby? Yeah, maybe that.
• 20:52
  One of the wheels is gonna be a button.
• 20:54
  It'll be is how it's is how it's come together so far, but we're
• 20:58
  hoping to lean into that. Yes, it's campy and we know it,
• 21:03
  and a lot of the blocking is campy.
• 21:05
  We lean into a surprising number of practical effects, Yeah, and
• 21:10
  really leaned into the the idea of a musical on stage and being
• 21:16
  theatrical and campy and over the top and that being a more
• 21:19
  enjoyable experience for people. We hope that'll play well on a
• 21:22
  movie, too. But you know what?
• 21:24
  It'll be fun. It'll be fun either.
• 21:26
  Way, yeah. And it was cool to watch Scott
• 21:28
  Pilgrim. If you haven't seen it,
• 21:29
  definitely it's it. I would recommend it to people
• 21:33
  that like action movies that like visual effects.
• 21:36
  It's also kind of a musical a little bit.
• 21:38
  There's a lot of music in it for a film that's not really built,
• 21:41
  or at least to my knowledge. I didn't know it was that music
• 21:44
  based. I didn't realize.
• 21:45
  Yeah, as far as like the I didn't read the comic either, so
• 21:50
  I don't. Yeah, we didn't take time to
• 21:51
  read the comic 1st and then watch the movie, but the visual
• 21:54
  effects are really solid. Really cool.
• 21:56
  And you can tell that they took their time.
• 21:59
  This is a 16 year old movie at this juncture and it definitely
• 22:03
  looks better than a lot of the Marvel movies that I always make
• 22:07
  fun of. The DC movies where the the CGI
• 22:12
  is super smooth and looks very natural.
• 22:16
  I mean, obviously it looks surreal, but everything it
• 22:20
  doesn't look cheap. No.
• 22:21
  And they, there's a YouTube video with the Fraser Churchill,
• 22:25
  the the special effects supervisor.
• 22:28
  Yeah, right. And he goes through just a
• 22:31
  breakdown of some of the different effects that they do
• 22:33
  and it's quick and it he doesn't go too far in depth, but there
• 22:36
  are some moments where they did really combine a lot of
• 22:38
  practical things. There's one scene where a guy's
• 22:40
  punching into the character, but the camera angle they have, he's
• 22:44
  actually punching a light trigger, which I thought was so
• 22:48
  cool because I'm like, oh, that's how they did it.
• 22:50
  Because for so much of this, I'm like, how long did it take them
• 22:53
  to map all the light from all the special effects?
• 22:56
  Because you see these shadows and everything.
• 22:58
  Like as soon as he punches him, you see the visual blowback of
• 23:01
  it, the light hitting him. And now I'm like, oh, because it
• 23:05
  literally was the light hitting him.
• 23:06
  They had him punch a little trigger thing on him and it
• 23:10
  turned on a light and it hit him in the face, Yeah.
• 23:12
  They they used a lot of stunt people and they used the stunt
• 23:16
  people in front of the blue screens to Chroma Key out the
• 23:21
  background. And I feel like that was a
• 23:23
  really good decision versus something like, well, I know,
• 23:27
  you know, if you look at a Marvel movie, seeing the
• 23:31
  incredible Hulk, that's clearly a cartoon.
• 23:34
  I know that would be harder to, you know, make a superhero like
• 23:37
  that. But a lot of times, you know,
• 23:38
  Spider Man was famous for that one where Tobey Maguire just
• 23:42
  looks like a cartoon flying through the screen because
• 23:45
  because it is just a cartoon. But I thought it was really cool
• 23:48
  how they used actual stunt people.
• 23:51
  They were performing the stunts in front of the blue screen and
• 23:54
  then they added more motion and then some.
• 23:57
  Some flair in post rather than recreating an entire person.
• 24:01
  Yeah. And for some of it where they
• 24:04
  have like people held up in the air, they actually just had them
• 24:07
  rigged up with like something holding them at the waist.
• 24:10
  So that way their body movements of being floating in the air
• 24:13
  actually looked like they were really air floating, which is
• 24:17
  awesome and possibly something that we could have considered a
• 24:20
  little bit more. And not that I think we have the
• 24:21
  budget nor necessarily the capability to do any of that,
• 24:26
  but we filmed all of the game world, video game world stuff in
• 24:32
  front of this studio wall here. Yeah, which is just pitch black.
• 24:35
  Yeah, if you're watching on, if you're not watching, if you're
• 24:38
  just listening. Except for the one individual
• 24:41
  who has really, really dark hair for him, we hung up a white
• 24:44
  sheet so that he would stand out a little bit better than it
• 24:46
  wouldn't pull his hair back into the into the wall.
• 24:48
  But I think that that if we had watched this movie, if we'd
• 24:56
  watched Scott Pilgrim before we actually filmed, I probably
• 25:00
  would have changed up the shot list a little bit.
• 25:03
  Because they did have a bunch of reaction shots and things that
• 25:07
  they cut in and really fun and interesting comic book style
• 25:10
  ways where, you know, it's maybe like 1/2 moon shape or Crescent
• 25:14
  moon shape or whatever. And then people fill in and
• 25:16
  build the shape out with their reactions and their startled
• 25:19
  faces. And doing things like that would
• 25:21
  have leaned really well into this film.
• 25:23
  I didn't realize how much of A a Scott Pilgrim ask film we were
• 25:27
  making. So I guess I wish we I wish we
• 25:30
  would have made the shot list after watching that film or
• 25:33
  before watch. No, after watching that film
• 25:35
  instead of before like we did. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:37
  Well, it's got it. Got some good lessons for us in
• 25:40
  post. And obviously you never get
• 25:41
  everything that you want to get. And I feel like no matter how
• 25:45
  many times you go on set, there's always going to be those
• 25:48
  shots that you missed. Yeah.
• 25:50
  And that's OK. That's why you got to learn how
• 25:53
  to edit well. And that's why you have to be
• 25:55
  creative in your your video editing suite because the
• 25:59
  creativity does not end when you're done shooting.
• 26:03
  Nope, it just goes. It just.
• 26:05
  Goes So do you have anything else you want to add to that or
• 26:08
  should we talk about our Featured Film Maker of the Week?
• 26:11
  I think we'd go into our film maker of the week.
• 26:13
  Awesome, let's do it. So our Film Maker of the Week
• 26:17
  this week is Tom Byrne, who's worked his way up in the film
• 26:20
  industry for the past 15 years and is currently writing,
• 26:24
  directing, producing his own feature film, My Son The Mummy.
• 26:28
  He has some great advice and he calls these his three
• 26:33
  producerial producer Oriel Tenants.
• 26:37
  I think we're going to pronounce it that way, and Tom correct us
• 26:39
  if we're wrong. Yes, thanks Tom.
• 26:41
  So I like these. One, never point fingers or play
• 26:44
  some ridiculous blame game when things go wrong.
• 26:47
  If it is on your watch, it's your problem. 2 if you don't ask
• 26:51
  for it, you'll never get it. And three, if you work for a
• 26:54
  producer for $0.00, you will never get paid by that producer.
• 26:59
  So I just want to say. Solid.
• 27:02
  That's not always 100% true because I've been on productions
• 27:06
  where I volunteered and then it ended up getting turned into a
• 27:09
  paid gig later on. But that's this is indie film
• 27:12
  we're talking. So if you're if you're on a big
• 27:15
  budget set, yeah, I don't I wouldn't do it for IMDb credits.
• 27:18
  No, no, don't do that. If they have a budget and
• 27:22
  they're paying other actors, they can pay you too.
• 27:25
  Yeah. And then number one, his number
• 27:27
  one piece of advice, I I really like it.
• 27:29
  You know, if it's if it's on your watch, it is your problem.
• 27:33
  Yeah. And that goes for directors.
• 27:35
  I feel like it goes for producers.
• 27:37
  It's just, yeah, it's it's. It goes for everybody in
• 27:39
  everyone's department, and that's kind of like when you get
• 27:43
  on one of those sets where people have that mentality,
• 27:46
  things work so much more smoothly.
• 27:49
  I think that's probably one of the reasons why our set ran
• 27:52
  really smoothly. Everyone felt comfortable
• 27:54
  voicing suggestions and ideas. I mean, even our our gaffer Lee
• 27:58
  was saying, you know, I know you guys really want this to be
• 28:02
  daytime, but I think we're going to have an easier time if we
• 28:05
  just hang a bunch of tarp and black out the windows and make
• 28:08
  it look like night. We're going to get just a lot
• 28:10
  more control over things. Yeah.
• 28:11
  And it worked out wonderfully. It was good.
• 28:14
  And then obviously, one of the actors, Jesse, suggesting that
• 28:17
  he wanted to do vocals and things afterward because he
• 28:20
  wanted to work on his character with these other people.
• 28:23
  Yeah. Having a collaborative set where
• 28:24
  you listen to other people and you don't just say no, it's your
• 28:27
  fault if you don't do it right. Yeah.
• 28:30
  It's easy when you're directing something and you get into a
• 28:32
  rush to try to push everybody through things.
• 28:35
  But at the same time, if people are taking creative control and
• 28:39
  a creative accountability for whatever it is they're doing on
• 28:42
  set, it's going to make things run more smoothly.
• 28:47
  And it might not, you might not get exactly the footage that you
• 28:50
  were imagining in your head, but whatever you're imagining, I
• 28:53
  would always throw that out in favor of suggestions that other
• 28:57
  people have if it allows creative control or if there's
• 29:00
  some sort of compromise you can come to.
• 29:02
  Because you're going to get a better performance from anyone
• 29:06
  cast crew if they're making these creative decisions.
• 29:09
  And we were really fortunate where everybody was doing that.
• 29:13
  Everybody was taking initiative. And really excited about it.
• 29:16
  And we even had an an entirely new person, really young kid
• 29:19
  graduating high school on as like our intern or whatever
• 29:22
  running slate for us for the entire day.
• 29:25
  And I mean, and even even his insight to D&D was really nice
• 29:31
  'cause I could be like, hey, I didn't fill out these character
• 29:34
  sheets beforehand, can you? Yeah, he ended up helping us
• 29:37
  create props. Yeah, it was great.
• 29:39
  Everybody was kind of scrambling to get everything set up right
• 29:42
  before that first to get that first shot.
• 29:45
  And then we'd ended up tarping in the, the, the front porch a
• 29:50
  little bit late in the game, but the idea came to us later.
• 29:54
  It was like, OK, after we've been here setting up lights for
• 29:57
  an hour. Wait, what if we just do this
• 29:59
  instead? Yes.
• 30:00
  Are we going to have to pause everything for 45 minutes to to
• 30:03
  get it done? Yes.
• 30:04
  But is it going to make things run more smoothly?
• 30:07
  And is the gaffer going to be happier and and understand or
• 30:14
  have a plan based on his initial idea?
• 30:16
  Yeah, yes. So.
• 30:18
  And it will save you a lot of time in the long run.
• 30:20
  Not to mention the fact that it solved our problem of needing to
• 30:22
  get every single shot that faced the window out before the
• 30:25
  sunset, which would have put us at about 5:30 PM.
• 30:28
  Yeah, yeah. So it was less of a rush.
• 30:30
  But anyway, if you want to submit to be Film Maker of the
• 30:34
  Week, go to indiefilmpodcast.com/submit.
• 30:38
  Be sure to like this episode and or follow it or whatever you do,
• 30:43
  whatever platform. Whatever platform you're on,
• 30:45
  follow, subscribe, whatever. Yeah, all those fun things that
• 30:48
  we never remember to tell people to do.
• 30:49
  Yeah, and if you have a thought, please leave it in the comments
• 30:52
  or you can go to indyphonepodcast.com and click
• 30:55
  into the Contact Us page. We'll get an e-mail from you.
• 30:58
  Yeah. Other than that, do you have
• 30:59
  anything else that you'd like to add, Vic?
• 31:02
  Thanks for listening, thanks for following along and we're really
• 31:04
  excited to share all the post production and music recording
• 31:07
  details next week. Yes, we shall do that all right.
• 31:10
  Shall we succinctly say farewell?
• 31:12
  Only if we can. Excellent.
• 31:14
  Bye bye.