PRACTICAL DV FILMMAKING

Practical DV FilmMaking

• Overview
• Inside video
• Films and how they work
• Pre-production
• Production tools
• Production aesthetics
• Post-production tools
• Post-production aesthetics
• Careers and distribution
• Mapping the industry
• Glossary of film and video terms

On the positive side, however, although they have a dispiriting ceiling to their budgets they have no floor, almost no absolute minimum amount of money needed to begin a movie. A film shot on DV and edited at home will have costs primarily in front of the camera, in the form of props, actors, locations and so on. The traditionally high cost of filmmaking has usually been based on behind-the-camera items such as film stock, expensive cameras and edit units. You can wipe away other parts of the stand­ard film budget if you write, direct and produce the film yourself, deferring your fee until, or if, some­one buys the film and you make a profit.

Low-budget means 'different'

For many people working in the micro- and low/no-budget sector, these categories represent more than a total on a budget sheet. They mark a film as being innovative, different and challenging to the system. Low-budget is like a tag that says 'I do things my way and since I am not in anyone's pocket I can try any­thing I want.' You are prepared to make a movie with a different sort of commitment to those people get­ting percentage points from a blockbuster. It means you are prepared to put in unpaid time, your own money, and rely on networking and dealing within the filmmaking community to get your film made.

Figure 1.2 Shooting with little or no budget is not impossible but does present challenges. Director David Casals consults crew members on set.

Interview

'I think that is the beauty of a lower budget and these kind of formats that you really can do something different and tell your own story in a different way. You can experiment where you can't on a bigger budget. In a way, I was doing that on Slackeryears ago, nar­ratively speaking. I think that's why that caught on, because it was sort of its own animal. It wasn't a genre film trying to get bought into Hollywood; it just sort of existed on its own terms. I think people admire that because it didn't seem like it was trying to be anything. It wasn't a calling card to Hollywood.'

Richard Linklater, director of Slacker (1991)

DV technology

In terms of technology, too, you are challenging the industry. Making a film on DV is as much a cul­tural statement as a technical choice. When Michael Mann shot Collateral in 2003, he used both film and DV, allowing him to make a choice later as to which he preferred. With no CGI (computer-generated