Oh because I asked for a specific instruments before.

Ding ding ding

Thud thud thud. That is my head hitting the wall. For many years I have followed the British Army maxim - the 6 P's. Proper planning prevents pi55 poor performance. It has always worked well for me. Maybe it should be Pi55 poor planning promotes poor performance, when carried out in Saskatoon.

There really seems so little point planning in micro depth, but getting the basics totally skewed. We know Ryan has terrible actors he wishes to use. We know he is having real trouble getting locations the right colour. The know the soundtrack has been planned before any pictures have been shot, and we know the sound is going to be terrible. The script at last discussion was in a terrible state too. We are now talking about capturing audio properly by limiting the camera departments ability too frame a shot - we're talking about extreme wide frame formats because that's the way to get closer audio perspective, and we still have that damn bass flute to cope with.

And yet, some part of you, that grows larger each day, desperately wants to see the finished product, AMIRITE?

Well at the end of the day I'm just trying to do the best I can with what I have. Is that so bad? I still feel like I have to try my best, rather than not try at all.

It means thinking of outside the box solutions and asking if it'll work but I'm not sure what else to do since I don't have everything that a bigger budget project would have to solve problems.

The lesson everyone here is trying to get you to learn is that you either need more money/resources or to scale back your ambition, and you won't do either.

You have the budget to make a movie where three people argue in a house for 90 minutes, not an action/police/horror blockbuster.

Not a Santa Claus movie.

Not a submarine movie.

Most filmmakers would look around and say "I have $50k and x x and x locations that I can use", what could I do with that? And write a script around it, make that as well as they could, and THEN (in a perfect ideal world) use that to attract money to make the blockbuster. You want to skip right to the blockbuster.

oh okay, it's not that I don't mean to scale back my ambitions it's just that if the average building has noise problems how am I supposed to scale back my ambitions more further back than the average building. It seems to me I need to move the ambitions further maybe and more money for better locations to shoot in perhaps or better actors since I was told I need better actors or better crews since I was told I need better crew? Scaling back seems to have cheaper results, unless I am wrong?

Most locations have sound issues of some sort, it's a matter of if they can be solved or do you find another location. In the end, even the noisiest location can be used, if required, because there are solutions available today that weren't possible without a lot of work in the past.

You're not making a film with a noisy 16mm Bolex camera, with the kit you've currently got it's relatively easy to shoot reasonable quality dialogue scenes at a low cost.

I do not know where you get these crazy statements from. The average building doesn't have noise problems. My office and studio is next to a railway line. I have a computer in the office that shows me rail traffic, and I have a continuous window between trains of maybe 40-50 minutes. I can find silence at those times. However, for some things I can record when a train goes by - it's distant enough to not intrude. I did a shoot at a stately home, because the production company loved the Hogwarts style wood panelling. The neighbour unfortunately had a Spitfire which took off and landed a few times during the day. We sorted that one too. If you are really a one man band production company - you can make super products, but they need managing properly.

You get forced to use poor actors, poor crew and poor locations? You choose them - if they are poor find better ones. If you cannot find better ones, write a movie that doesn't require things you can't get.

There's a great clip on YouTube of a James Bond movie where they needed James Bond in a shot, but he'd been released and wasn't there they used a still photograph of Roger Moore, and nobody noticed. If you have problems, cleverness and cunning can save them.

Your problem seems to be that you and your people are not good at problem solving.

If it was my money Ryan, there is no way I'd waste it on a poor production. Most people start small and do it really well, then get bigger and more complex as their skills grow. Looking at the movie we've used as examples - the wrath thing - clearly it was too much. Everything conspired against you.

Have you sorted out the camera operation - the wobblicam was in need of sorting.
The sound problem. Can you manage this for the next one.
Some of your actors were actually fine. Others were miscast and some very bad - do you have enough decent ones?
Locations - do you have what you need?

Oh okay thanks. As for starting out small I thought I was starting out the smallest, and getting a small group of actors for a real locations short film. I didn't think I could start out any smaller than that. I feel that a couple of the actors were decent and will try to find more, and try to find more locations for nex time. I was too impulsive and just wanted to get a project in the can perhaps, but I can try to have more patients and keeping looking for more first, if that's best.

As for the wobble cam, yes I could just find a better gimbal operator for next time, if that's best. The sound problem can hopefully be solved with better locations if that's best. Did the sound have any other noise problems, other than the one location?

Not a Santa Claus movie.

Not a submarine movie.

I kinda like the idea of Santa Claus *IN* a submarine. Call it "Das Snow Boots."

A sequel to the movie where Mrs. Claus files for a divorce, the elves all go on strike, and then the little angel walks in and asks, "Santa, where should I put this tree?"

oh okay, it's not that I don't mean to scale back my ambitions it's just that if the average building has noise problems how am I supposed to scale back my ambitions more further back than the average building.

C'mon Ryan, think before you speak! You don't really want to solve the problem. You don't even want to understand the problem logically. You just want to argue with us.

The average public school building, or college classroom building, or probably office building, is mostly vacant and mostly quiet at night. Here where I live, in a college town, over winter break most houses that are rented by students are vacant, when the students go home to visit their families. Of course there will be exceptions (cleaning crew, etc.) and if you are any good at planning you will anticipate, ask, and avoid those particular situations.

Nowhere is totally silent (except outer space which is a vacuum) because sound is the oscillatory movement of molecules including air molecules. But through intelligent planning you find a building that's *pretty* quiet, hire a sound man who knows how to treat spaces and how to choose & place mics to *minimize* noise in the track (you cannot entirely eliminate it) and then hire a mixer who can further reduce it if necessary. Done. The end.

Sure I can do that. I will look for buildings that are not being used at night. For this particular script, if the scene is set at the day time, I guess the DP can still make it look like daytime though of course.

I don't have to make the submarine movie, it's just others told me it was the best script treatment and ideas I had, and that they wanted to help make it more than other scripts. But I don't have to do that one. I think it will be too challenging, so I put it on hold for now.