16 mm or HD?

[Richard Alvarez]

Yeah..."Ballsy" is right. Artistically it felt right to go with the Black and White noir look ... and I still think it's the right choice.

But as we make the push to shoot the full length feature, most of the distributors are telling us it will be easier to sell in color. So it's not a foregone conclussion that we will go forward in Black and White with the feature version.

[Marco Leavitt]

I certainly don't want to be seen as bashing digital video. I'm really excited that affordable HD is coming within reach. Now if they can just work on the size of those chips ...

[Ryan Marr]

It all comes down to the final product! It's too expensive to have film prints made and it's too expensive to have hd film scans done.

I'd much rather ahve a project done with an hd final cut than and sd final cut that was shot on film.

In terms of shooting costs s16 and hd are about the same right now.

[Pete Wilie]

Here's an interesting quote from Robert Rodriguez in his interview on AOL:

Question: Robert, what was the REAL cost of "El Mariachi?" Was it really 7k?

RobtRodrgz: Yes. Usually when they talk about a movie's budget for an independent film, they talk about the budget up to the point where it gets sold to a distributor. What they teach you in film school and what most filmmakers do is to make a 16mm film print and show that to distributors. A film print costs you anywhere from $20,000 on up. What I did was to edit on videotape and show the videotape to distributors. Columbia Pictures bought the film off of videotape. That's the first time a studio bought a film from videotape. So, you can save a lot of money by using today's technology and not following what everyone else does.

[Dean Bull]

I think its pretty common knowledge around these parts that the film 'El Mariachi" was not exactly a 7,000 dollar film. Props, but from my understanding Robert's tale from Austin underdog to Hollywood Mogul has some extremely glaring plot holes and some key data left out for dramatic effect.

Robert's great, but I give his agent, his publicist, and probably his wife (his producer) a lot of credit for grasping the way it all works, and then making it work for Roberts ultimate benefit.

With that said, Robert makes some really good points about using your money correctly -- however its very strange to see how HD has caused this incredible resurgence of super 16mm! With the new stocks, combined with high end video color correction super 16mm has been the benchmark.


At least this is according to Efilms in Hollywood. They have been doing lots of digital intermediates of super16mm recently.

So... to all you video cam makers - listen up!!! Bust out those dual exposure CCD's and lets get some latitude and lets get a super 16mm rez!

My input - is finished.

Dean

[Evan C. King]

I don't really think Rodriquez is lying. He said the version he sold was 7000. In his book he says that after it was sold they remastered the soundtrack, did a film blowup and a few other things I can't remember. So the theatrical version and the version we buy isn't a 7000 dollar movie. Just the one he sold to the studio was.

[Marco Leavitt]

I think the 7,000 figure is very believable. It's basically just the cost of the film stock and developing. That squares with current prices. He didn't spend a nickle on anything else. He got the telecine for free by befriending a local video company. He didn't even have a second copy. He was walking around Hollywood, talking to distributers with a single master!

[Richard Alvarez]

In doing a business plan and budget, one of the things you figure in is "Cost of goodwill" this is often a deffered cost. In other words, if my dad, or the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS allows me to cut the film on their equipment instead of paying the going rates, than I have added many thousands of dollars to the budget of production, even if it doesn't show up in the cash collumn. This is a real value, and the IRS expects it to be listed. So if people want to do exactly what Rodriguez did, all they need are the same resources and connections. Simple as that.

When you make a film for a small initial outlay... it would be a bit innacurate to state that the film "ONLY COST" x amount of dollars. OF course, it would make great initial publicity, but you would spend the rest of your life explaining everything you got without having to pay for it FIRST.

I made a great twenty minute short that won some awards a while back. "It only cost three hundred dollars" to make. That's what I paid for the tape stock, pizza and beer. It was a period film, set in the 17th century. I had dozens of people in costumes and armor, that I already owned from my days of producing jousting/stunt shows at rennaissance festivals. The cost of the costumes was in excess of five thousand dollars. I called in favors from some friends, and got the use of their horses... would have been a couple of hundred for that. The use of the incredible 17th century pub, would have been many hundreds as well, but I had access to it because I was producing a show in it. The actors all agreed to defer their pay. Not only did I write, produce and act in it, I also did the fight choreography and some of the stunts. So those costs were 'defferred' as well. The gear for shooting and editing, was another favor called in. Would have rented for at least a grand.

When people see it, they are amazed at how good it looks. They remark on 'the production values' and estimate, quite rightly, that the twenty minute short would have cost ten to fifteen grand to produce.

Bottom line, a film 'costs' more than the price of the film stock and pizza and beer. Somewhere, someone has underwritten the costs that did not come out of your pocket. Maybe they were assets you spent money on earlier, maybe they were favors called in for 'sweat equity' you paid out earlier, maybe you wrote IOU'S that will be called for later... The point being, if you ignore the unwritten costs, it WILL come back to bight you later.

This is the fundamental workflow for ALL low budget indy productions... maximizing your production values, so every dime shows up on the screen. If you've ever filled out an application for matching funds in a film grant, they want to know what goods and services are being donated 'in kind'. These things have REAL VALUE. Nothing new in that. One of the things you DON'T do when you are negotiating to sell a project, is tell the people how LITTLE you spent on it.

I'm not knocking Rodriguez, hell I'm a local Houstonian who hopes to make good eventually. I just hate to see people think they can shoot a movie by maxing out their credit cards, without doing the legwork to cover ALL the other 'unlisted' costs that goes into shooting a 'low budget' indy.

[Marco Leavitt]

I do agree that the statistic is widely abused. For one thing, if "El Mariachi" were released today, I doubt it would even get into Sundance. I don't mean to slag the movie, but even Rodriguez wasn't under the delusion that he'd produced some masterpiece or anything. He just wanted to make a quick buck so he could finance another, better movie. The phenomenon that the movie became was largely the result of timing, luck, balls, and hard work.

[Pete Wilie]

Well, I didn't intend to start a debate about the real cost of shooting "El Mariachi". :-) However, I don't think I'd call the man a liar without some very substantial proof.

Here's the main point I got out of the quote:

So, you can save a lot of money by using today's technology and not following what everyone else does.

Rodriguez's comments are directed at independent filmmakers just starting out, who don't have the budget for any kind of film. I think his point is if you have a good story, good script, good actors, and you make a decent shoot, you can promote your movie just using video. Then if you get a deal, you can print to film, reshoot, or whatever.

Translating this to today's technology, it seems to make a lot of sense to shoot your first few movies on HD with something like the HVX200. Whether or not this will be as good as S16 or 35 is not the point. It will still be great footage provided you have the content, and many would say, that you properly light it. IAC, it will be much better than miniDV SD.

So by shooting in HD, you can very inexpensively produce a movie that can be shown to distributors. It can also be sold to cable/satellite HD channels, perhaps just as it is.

[Richard Alvarez]

No doubt digital has lowered the cost of getting ninety minutes onto 'film'. Even if it's tape.

My point about the Mariachi legend, and it's often missed - Is that it's not how much you SPEND, it's how much you LEVERAGE that matters. That's what is often overlooked. What is a great story worth? What are the volunteer or deffered costs of great actors worth? What great assests do you have access to? I think what Rodriguez, is saying is that low cost/deferred cost options to high costs are more readily available nowadays. But I think it might be benneficial, if he were to actually come out and say... "Look, I got XXX thousand dollars worth of free stuff and services too, and when I sold the movie, I went back and paid the deferred costs that ammounted to xxx dollars as well... so IF I had paid for everything up front, it would have cost me xxx dollars.

Too many people count on never paying deferrments, which makes for two problems... ONE) You are betting against yourself TWO) You leave a bitter taste in cast and crew's mouths, which makes it much harder for someone else to shoot.

I think a disservice is being done, by perpetuating the myth "All you need is a credit card and a mini dv"...

[Pete Wilie]

Originally Posted by Richard Alvarez

I think a disservice is being done, by perpetuating the myth "All you need is a credit card and a mini dv"...

I don't think anyone is saying this.

Your point of leveraging, and then repaying, the non-cash resources available to you is well-taken. But your message seems to be so negative... :-)

In fact almost everyone who starts up a new business on a shoe string leverages all the resources available to them, if they are smart. If you read Rodriguez's interviews you will see that he relies a lot on family and friends.

The point Rodriguez is trying to get out is to not let the establishment/system keep you down. If you have a great story, find a way to shoot it now cheaply, rather than waiting till later when you can afford a big budget.

This thread is about 16 mm vs HD. The point is to that shooting HD is a great way to realitively inexpensively shoot a high quality movie. Don't let not being able to afford 16mm hold you up.

[Joshua Starnes]

That's exactly the problem with the Mariachi myth - and it has spurred me on to make my own stuff, but it has given a lot of people the impression that with just enough money to buy film you can make a film. The fact is that movie cost a lot more than $7,000 before he sold it to distributors.

He borrowed an Arri, didn't rent it. The squibs were given to him. The actors mostly worked for free. The bus belonged to a friend of a friend. The rig for sliding down the wire was made by a blacksmith friend for just the cost of the material His friend Carlos, who played the Mariachi, is the son of the wealthiest man in town and the family apparently owns half the buildings in town, including the hotel, the villains ranch (the interior of which doubles as Domino's house) and one of the bars they went to. And many of the actors, extras, and occasional 'crew' worked for Carlos' family, or were friends who thought making a movie would be cool (as you can tell from the performances). Even the bath tube was given to him by the makers of Like Water For Chocolate because they liked him and he talked a good game. He had a stuntman friend who provided all the blanks and squibs for him for free and at one point was going to blow up a car (provided by Carlos) for him for free, but they never got that far becuase he had to return the camera.

And he did all of his post work at school on equipment he wasn't paying for, well in advance of selling it to a distributor.

He really made a $50,000 or $60,000 movie, he just didn't spend that much cash on it. And he knew that's what he was going to do. He wrote the movie specifically to use that which he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he could get his hands on.

Case in point, a friend of mine is making an HD feature right now for nothing. He's friends with a DP who owns his own CineAlte rig and HD editing suite, they came up with the story together using locations they knew they could film and just about all he's actually spending money on are the tapes and food. So for about $3K - bam, HD movie.

And if you can get all those ducks to line up in a row for you, you can make a film with far more production value than you are actually spending money on as well - but it's not a foregone conclusion.

[Michael Struthers]

This is a great thread.

RR is devoted to HD, that's his path. El Mariachi isn't great, but it's got a kinetic energy and shouts out "I have talent!" What the guy really needs is a good script.

The 7k myth is used by studios to pump up movies by young filmmakers..."Novermber" shot for 150k, but they don't mention the sound mix from Skywalker Ranch and the blowup must have cost 3x times that.

Anyway, I submit that super16mm not only looks better, but is now cheaper to shoot and edit. But that's only because HD has forced kodak, telecine etc into competitive pricing. A dp with his own super16mm? 500 a day. Just to rent the damn HD equipment is 1500 a day....

Anyway, whatever path you choose, the point is to get there. But as has been pointed out by posters, the "digital" is the only way is rubbish, and in fact I think a lot of momentum has swung to super16mm.

[Richard Alvarez]

One of the things that Mariachii and the DV revolution has done, is allow film to be shown, simply as VIDEO. The digital revolution in post production and the increasing willingness to look at a digital film as a 'work print' is a huge plus for indy filmmakers. This saves enourmous ammounts of money on prints. Heck, shoot on super 16, telecine, transfer to DVD and you're in the festival circuit. Save on work prints, conforming, film out...

My point being do the numbers. Work up your shooting schedule, then plug in the cost of renting HD (Don't forget HD monitors/decks etc.) vs renting Film gear, filmstock and telecine costs. See how much money is saved, vs. what you have at the end. A negative to blow up to 35?

A lot of people don't take the time, to do the numbers. And, frankly, I think some new filmmakers are intimidated by the discipline of film.