Monday, February 06, 2006

Small Crew and Technical Stuff

Since we had a very limited budget to do this movie, I had to make some decisions about the camera, crew, etc. that would work within out budget and schedule. I wanted to keep the crew very small so we could move quickly without all the drama that sometimes comes with larger crews. I might have been a bit crazy, but I decided to do this movie with a crew of 3 people: I would produce, direct and shoot the movie, Brittany would be the writer, producer, makeup, wardrobe, and sound person, Steve would be the other writer, producer, and art person. We would all be stretched thin, but I like a challenge and from what I was planning out, I felt it would work. This would require a lot of planning up front to make sure that when we started shooting the movie, we would only have to worry about the acting, shooting it correctly, and making sure the sound was good. Once a few other people found out about this project they volunteered to help out, but I declined their kind help since I wanted to keep this project small and under the radar. One thing about the film industry is that there is a grape vine that travels extremely fast, and I wanted to be able to do this show without worrying about what the whole industry would think - so keeping the crew this tiny was ambitious, but it's what I felt comfortable with for the constraints of this show.

Since I was going to operate the camera, I had to have something that was simple enough for me to use while capturing a high enough quality for the film to meet the technical requirements of distributors. After doing some research, I decided to shoot the movie with Sony's HVR-Z1U camera since it was fairly small, had dual XLR inputs, and seemed to be simple enough for me to operate with my limited knowledge of cinematography. For sound, we got a shotgun mic and boom pole as well as a wireless mic that would plug into the camera to ensure we got decent sound. I had built a steadicam a couple years ago that fit this camera, and since it's suppose to be a fast paced adventure film, I felt the constant movement in shots would work well.