Renting Camera Equipment (Recommendations, Things You Should Know)

Renting equipment is fun.

But where am I going to get the most bang for my back for a rental? Should I pay extra for the insurance? Can I rent really expensive equipment? What equipment should I rent?

Those were the main questions I developed as I was on my search to rent equipment. And now I’m going to dive in to the answers. Keep in mind that I’m going to be very specific about what did and did not work for me. The needs of every production are going to be different depending on the film, the budget, the crew size, and your style of shooting. Alright, let’s do this!

RENTING STUFF WORTH OVER $5000-ish

The biggest thing I learned when renting equipment for my film is that there’s an invisible line that separates what you can and cannot easily rent through most companies. This line is determined by the value of the equipment and it varies from company to company but I’m going to mark this line somewhere in the $5000-ish range. At a local rental site in Portland that line has an exact number, $5500.

To be more specific, this thing of value that I wanted to rent for Arcadia Bay was the C100. The Canon C100 is a piece of equipment that is just crosses the line and becomes much harder to attain. In order to rent the C100 (or equipment of greater value) at most places you will need one of two things:

EITHER

A) PRODUCTION INSURANCE (EXPENSIVE)

B) TO PUT A DEPOSIT DOWN FOR THE VALUE OF THE CAMERA (EXPENSIVE)

DID I MENTION THESE OPTIONS ARE EXPENSIVE?!

I had neither of these things for Arcadia Bay. Now granted, having Production Insurance is a great idea for several reasons. In addition to being able to easily rent more expensive equipment, most locations will require you to have this in order to film. They want to know you are insured in case there is an accident on site. It makes sense. It just sucks for ultra low budget productions like us. If you can afford it, I recommend getting Production Insurance, otherwise you’ll have to have personal connections in order to shoot at most of your locations.

And putting a deposit down for the price of the camera? If I had that money lying around, I’d just buy the camera. But I understand why they have to do it.

So what is the solution? Thankfully in my search I found two companies that still offered a solution to rent the C100 without a huge deposit or production insurance. And here they are:

https://www.lensprotogo.com/

and

http://www.atsrentals.com/

LENS PRO TO GO

I will start off by saying that I did not actually rent through lensprotogo, but I am fairly confident that you can indeed rent without production insurance or any deposit. I actually had placed an order through LPTG but later discovered that there was an opening at the even more affordable place that I wanted to rent. Thankfully, the card is not charged until the order is shipped, so I was able to cancel my order with the click of a button. A 17 day rental of the C100 was going to cost me $963 through LPTG, including shipping and a Protection Plan. The Protection Plan covered damage, you would pay 10% of the replacement value if the equipment was damaged. It did not cover theft or loss of the camera. Also to note, the shortest amount of time you can rent through LPTG is 4 days. There are often discount codes gloating around online to lower the rental cost, if you take an extra minute to google them.

ATS RENTALS

ATS Rentals is not a household name (wait, are any rental companies household names?) so I was a little wary to rent from them at first. Their rental price for the C100 was just on that border of “is this too good to be true?”. I googled reviews of the company and there were not a ton of reviews to be found, but the ones I did find where positive. So I decided it was worth the risk. However, by the time the funds from Seed and Spark arrived, the C100 was unavailable for rental through them. It later opened back up though. One reason ATS is less well known, is that they offer fewer rental options compared to other rental sites such as BorrowLenses. ATS does a little a bit more than camera/video, they rent projectors, PA systems, microphones, not just camera and video equipment. I believe they have only two C100 cameras. So if you want to rent from ATS it is best to place an order early. I also wanted to rent the Tokina 11-16 through them, but it was unavailable at that time.

All this to say, the C100 rental cost me $674 total through ATS. This included shipping, and a Protection Plan. With this Protection Plan you only paid 5% of the replacement value of the equipment. It did not cover theft or loss of the camera. This might be the best deal you can find anywhere. Now, one thing to note is that ATS did require a refundable $1000 deposit in addition to the cost of the rental. This may be an issue for some of you, but it is a lot more doable than $5000+. What I did is charge this deposit to an Old Navy credit card I impulsively signed up for one time (I guess I really wanted the discount). Then the money was simply refunded to the card after the rental was returned. Pretty easy. The other great thing about ATS is they only charge you one day for a weekend (most local rental places have this deal, more about that below).

You may be wondering what the condition of the equipment was. From every rental place you’re going to receive equipment that has reasonable wear and tear, but is fully functional. Really I only had a few minor complaints. There was a piece of dust on the protective glass in front of the sensor of the C100. We were able to simply blow this out though, so that caused no issue for us. Also, we never really got the internal mic to work. We recorded separate audio so we we never really concerned ourselves with trying to resolve this. In the end, I’ll give ATS the benefit of the doubt and go with operator error on the internal mic, as we never invested the time in to solving this problem (although as I move into editing, I see how it would have been helpful for synching sound).

 

LESS EXPENSIVE RENTALS

Whew. Alright, moving on from the expensive stuff. What if you just want to rent less expensive stuff? What are your options? I’ll spell them out for you. In each of these examples I’m going to compare the shortest rental possible for a Tokina 11-16 Canon EF lens. This includes a protection plan and shipping. Keep in mind that how these places fare against one another may change depending on how long you are renting the equipment.

Borrow Lenses

Borrow Lenses is probably the most well-established photo/video rental site out there, as well as likely having the most variety of photo/video equipment available. Their prices are reasonable. If you want a decent price, and want to feel 100% safe about your order, go with these guys. You can rent for as little as 3 days with Borrow Lenses. Borrow Lenses also has an option to pick up the equipment at stores in most major cities, rather than ship it directly to you, but it some cases this will be just the same price as having it shipped directly to you.

Tokina 11-16: 3 Day Rental: $65

 

Adorama Rentals

I don’t recommend renting from Adorama Rentals and here’s why: It appears that every rental requires you to have insurance or put a deposit down for the replacement value of the equipment. In order to find out how much shipping and insurance was going to be, I had to register with them…and I didn’t feel like going through this process (sorry guys). A 3 day Tokina 11-16 rental was listed as $26, but again, unsure if that included insurance and certainly did not include shipping.

Tokina 11-16: 3 Day Rental: $26+ and deposit/insurance

 

Lens Pro to Go

Lens Pro to Go is worth checking out. They’re very reputable and depending on the product, you may get a better price through them. The Tokina 11-16 price was identical to Borrow Lenses price for one extra day of rental. There is a 4-Day minimum rental through Lens Pro to Go.

Tokina 11-16: 4 Day Rental $65

 

Lens Rentals

Lens Rentals is unique in that they have a damage protection plan or a damage/theft protection plan that you can add to your order for a little more. This can give you a little extra piece of mind. Again another site worth checking out before you make your decision. 4 Day Rental is required.

Tokina 11-16: 4 Day Rental $64 (with damage protection, $66 with both damage and theft protection)

 

ATS Rentals

And back to ATS, their price was the best out of the online rentals I found. The great thing about ATS is that they charge you 1 day for a weekend rental and their protection plan is included in the price of the item. Their price jump for each day you rent seemed to be a better deal than the competition as well. Again the disadvantages here are that there is less selection/availability and they are not as well established as the competition. But would I rent from them again? Yes.

Tokina 11-16: 3 Day Weekend Rental $52, 3 Day Rental that is not the Weekend $58

 

Local Rental

If you are shooting on a weekend your most affordable option is likely going to be a local rental company. Here in Portland I rented from Pro Photo Supply, which is a great company. The deal is that you can pick up the equipment on Thursday after 3 PM and return it by Monday before 10 AM and get the price of one day’s rental. It’s a fantastic deal if you need the equipment in that time period, but is pricey if you need it for multiple days outside of that time. The other great thing about local rental houses is they are more likely to include extra accessories that you will want or need with the rental. For example, I rented a boom mic locally and that rental also included an XLR cable, a windscreen, and a blimp. If you’re renting a camera they will often include extra batteries and memory cards. Many online rental places will make you rent these accessories separately which costs you more money. The other great advantage of renting locally is that you avoid shipping costs, which brings the price down significantly. The thing with my local rental house is that the total replacement value of the all the equipment rented can’t be higher than $5500 without having to give a deposit for the replacement value or insurance. This is the only disadvantage of having these extra accessories. They include the accessories in the replacement value which means that you are able to rent less items before you hit that $5500 mark. They also required an imprint of my credit card in case I ran off with the equipment, and the rental did not offer a protection plan. I rented quite a few items locally and was pretty happy.

Tokina 11-16: 3.5ish Day Weekend (Thursday after 3pm-Monday 10 AM) Rental $25, 3 Day Rental that is not the Weekend $75

 

Overall the general rule is that if you are renting less than 3 days or on the weekend, local will be cheaper. If it’s longer than that, look online.

 

Protection Plan?

Should you get one? I’d say yes. It’s just nice piece of mind, especially if you aren’t operating the equipment. If you’re nervous handling expensive equipment, imagine how nervous you’ll feel when that equipment is in someone else’s hands. Stuff happens. If you’re just getting C-stands or durable, less expensive equipment, you’re probably okay. To protect against theft, our rule was that we always carried the C100 and lenses with us, we never left it in the car.

 

Equipment I Didn’t Use

Surprisingly, there was equipment I rented that was never used. I wish I could have the money back, but it’s also hard to say I regret renting it. I’d rather be over-prepared than under-prepared. What equipment didn’t I end up using?

C-Stands & Scrim Jim

C-Stands are a staple of film production, so I was sort of surprised that we never used them. I think the reason this is true is due to our shooting style. So much of our production was outdoors and we needed to move fast to keep up with the light. I also rented a 6×6 Westcott Scrim Jim, but we always ended up using a little fold-up scrim/reflector that my Cinematographer owned. The fold-up one was so much more portable There are times after the rental period was up that we could have used the 6×6 for some wider shots, but most of the time the smaller handheld scrim did the trick. If you are shooting outdoors I cannot emphasize enough how helpful it is to have some sort of scrim. It will make your shots go from ugly to beautful almost instantly.

Tripod Head

I rented this nice fluid tripod head from Borrow Lenses, because we were using a higher end consumer tripod. What I didn’t consider was that the tripod head might not mount to our tripod. And that’s exactly what happened. We did come up with an in-between solution, where we could still sort of use it, but it was goofy. I would have been better off to just rent a tripod than a tripod head.

BONUS: Superclamps are awesome with a boom pole and the H4N. I’d just buy one instead of renting. This is what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGUIy6awA1w

 

That’s what I have for you today! Let us know you’re good/bad experiences with renting camera equipment!

Happy filmmaking!

 

Take Care. Preparing for the Madness of Crowdfunding

I’ve struggled with coming up with blog posts lately, because most of what I have been doing has involved preparing for our upcoming crowdfunding campaign on Seed&Spark (we’re launching this Wednesday the 25th!). I am opposed to writing posts with crowdfunding advice at this time, since this is my first campaign and I can’t say for certain what the results will be (although we are very optimistic!).

However, I have thought of one brief post I am comfortable with as we prepare for the month of madness ahead. And that is TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. As the brilliant Lynnaire MacDonald of Indie Film Sprites recently told me:

There’s no point working yourself to the point of exhaustion during campaign time and getting the funds only to suddenly come down with something exceptionally nasty that knocks you off your feet and delays production further.

As I’ve been preparing for this campaign I’ve already been slipping. Skipping meal, staying up too late, sitting all day, it’s no good. So here’s my plan:

GET ON A SCHEDULE. I’m going to find a bed time and a wake up time. This help me get enough sleep and prevent me from burning out! This is a marathon, not a sprint!

EAT ENOUGH AND EAT RIGHT. It’s really easy to just get fast food, believe me I know. But that crap quickly takes it’s toll. You’re metabolism is going to get all screwed up. Opt for coffee or tea over energy drinks.
EXERCISE. This is not only a great way to boost energy, but a way to relieve all the built up stress from the campaign.

STAND IF YOU CAN. I haven’t made the plunge yet, but I would really like to get a stand desk in the future. Not only is it better for your back, it increases productivity and energy.

And that’s my plan for a productive, energy-filled, and successful crowdfunding campaign. Wish us luck!

Lock That Shot Down! Quick Tips To Make Your Post-Production Life Easier

“I’ll worry about it in post.”

I think most of us have been guilty of saying this, or at the very least, thinking it. I know I have. It’s a bad mindset. But here’s the thing, there’s a strong possibility that there WILL be something you will have to try to salvage in Post. Sometimes stuff just happens. But if your Pre-Production or Production self spends just a little bit more time preparing, your future Post-Production self will hate you a little bit less. And one of the easiest ways to do that is by simply locking down your shot.

I’m primarily focusing on visual effects here. Not anything too CGI-ish and fancy, just simple After Effects compositing. Here’s a quick example of a simple composite I did for a scene in our Seed & Spark pitch video.

Great, now you know that this location is not actually next to the ocean and you’re going to look for that in the film😉

In situations where you know you are going to be doing a composite, you always want to put forethought into how you are going to pull the effect off. Doing previsualization shots is a great idea. That way you know if you can pull it off and you know what to look for when you shoot the scene.  Locking down the shot makes pulling off these effects much easier, as you won’t have to track footage (or if there is something to track in the shot, your program will have a more accurate track). Is keeping the camera still too boring for you? You can always add camera shake. You can use expressions in After Effects (which works alright) OR you can use the more natural-looking method of using information from actual footage. All you need to do is take some hand-held footage, track it, then apply that tracking data to your still shot, and boom, natural-looking camera shake.

Locking down the shot is also a smart idea when you’re in situations where you have to move fast (not as much time to think), or if there are things in the frame that are out of your control. Or when you’re just plain ignorant. Case and point:

I made an amateur mistake when shooting this scene for our pitch video (which you can see in the frame on the left). I was taking things a little too easy and somehow missed all of the extra equipment hanging out in the background of the shot. This shot was VITAL. I would have had to scale the video way up to get that equipment out of the shot. Thankfully this was a planned visual effects shot, so we shot it locked down. I was able to use After Effect’s Clone Stamp tool to paint out the equipment and save the shot.

This mistake should have never happened because we had plenty of time to shoot this scene, so just imagine all the things that could slip into the frame when you are short on time! Trademarked logos, boom mics, or distracting people in the background if you’re out in public. If you lock down the shot and roll the camera roll a little longer with your actor out of frame you’ve just give yourself a much better shot of being able to paint out something unwanted. You can also plan for simple visual effects shot this way. Need your actor to be walking alone down a road that’s actually really busy? Let the camera roll for a few minutes after you’ve shot your actor, and you should be able to piece together all the various moments of emptiness throughout the frame to make it seem as if your character is all alone!

So to quickly sum up this post:

When in doubt, lock it down!

How to Find Locations For Your Film

In our last post we hashed out why locations are important and why it’s important to think about them early on. Today, let’s talk about how you can find some cool locations near you!

Before we go any further, I will note that Arcadia Bay takes places mostly outdoors, so I may have a little more info on outdoor locations than indoor. Alright, let’s jump into it!

ONLINE RESOURCES

With the rise of so many photo sharing service you have an opportunity like never before to find locations near you. Here’s a few ideas:

• FLICKR https://www.flickr.com/map You can either search Flickr for your state or city, or you can use the map tool to find photos taken right in your  town!
• INSTAGRAM You can start again by searching by your state or what you’re looking for (forest, coast, cabin, church, etc.), but also learn what hashtags are popular in your area. For example, out here in the Pacific Northwest #pnw and #northwestisbest are pretty popular for nature photos.
• GOOGLE This sounds obvious, but if you are looking for a specific thing, let’s say a barn, then there might actually be a website dedicated to the thing you are looking for! (hey look! an Oregon Barn website!). In my case, this site was very, very helpful in helping me explore the Oregon coast virtually! http://www.beachconnection.net/
• YOUR STATE’S FILM OFFICE WEBSITE Pssst, Oregonians. Look. Not only do most of these websites have a gallery or database with locations, many of them point out major motion pictures that were filmed in your state. If these locations were good enough for Hollywood, they’re probably good enough for you! One of the locations that will be in our film was featured in the film “The Road”. That little speck in the middle of the first screencap is the Peter Iredale shipwreck.
  

Same location, MUCH different feeling!

• GOOGLE MAPS Now this one mostly just helps you out with things outside near roads, but it can still be very helpful. Save the gas money and go for a virtual drive! For one of the crucial locations in my film I needed to find a dead end road. So I hopped on Google maps and low and behold there it was…literally across the street from my house, but in an area I never would have thought to check out.
• APPS There are also a few apps out there that are meant to help you discover things in your area (although this includes everything, like food). They didn’t help me for this project, but that doesn’t mean they won’t help you! Check out the Foursquare & Circle apps.

OFFLINE

• GO FOR A WALK How well do you know your neighborhood? Sometimes there’s cool stuff right in your backyard, but you may only discover it on foot. Last night I decided to go for a walk and found an awesome little nature park just a few blocks away!

PEOPLE

So far this has been geared mostly towards finding outdoor type locations (by the way, don’t trespass). But what about houses & other indoor type locations. Time to make some connections.

• YOUR CURRENT CONNECTIONS What do you already have available to you? Good friends and family will probably be willing to let you film at their place! Do your friends or family have a connection to someone that could help you (time to send some Facebook messages).
• YOUR TEAM’S CONNECTIONS This is where I encourage you not to be a one man show.  Bring people on board to help you with pre-production. For my last film, I basically did all the pre-production myself and it sucked. I recently asked our now Producer/Assistant Director Abby, to come on board, and you have no idea how much more stuff is getting done already. She’s had great ideas I never would have thought of. But to end this rant and tie it back into locations, think about how many more connections you gain by bringing other people on board!
• ASKING PLACES I’m an introvert. I’m awful at making small talk with strangers and asking them for things. For my last film I needed to film a robbery scene at a gas station. I dreaded asking the gas stations. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and ask (or appoint a team member who likes to talk). I had to ask a few stations, but eventually I found one. . The worst that can happen is they turn you down. When you ask, be sure that you are at least offering something to them as well. Tell them you will give their business a special thanks in the credits and you will get them a copy of the film. My advice is, the more local the place, the better. The chances of you getting to shoot at a Starbucks is way, way, way lower than the chances of getting to shoot at a locally owned coffee shop (and it probably has a lot more character!). Local places are less likely to be so concerned about insurance and they might think what you are doing is actually pretty cool (because it is!). You will probably have a better chance of success in smaller towns where filming doesn’t occur as often and isn’t seen as a common nuisance to the locals.
• VACATION RENTALS This one may seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, but I’m actually using a vacation rental for a few scenes in my film. I really wanted to shoot at a scenic ocean or bay front type house. We have a connection to a condo that’s pretty close to the ocean, but I was really hoping for a house. Now, we could have made the condo work, but I had another idea. We needed to find a place to rent out for the cast & crew to stay for our coastal shoot days anyways, so what if we could shoot at the place we stayed at? I searched vacation rental sites, looked for affordable rentals, and messaged owners. It took me a little while to make a hit, but I found someone who gave us permission to shoot at their house and the location was awesome! The site I was successful with and recommend is VRBO. I recommend this site because it is by owner, so there’s a much better chance of you getting permission to shoot. Now obviously this method is going to cost you money, but if you’re going to have to pay for lodging anyways, why not make your money go further?!

WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN CHOOSING LOCATIONS

I want to finish with a few practical things to keep in mind when you are choosing locations.

• LIGHTING If you need external power for your shoot, do you have outlets available? If you are hoping to make an indoor scene look natural, do you have windows you can shoot light through? If you are shooting outside, do you know where the sun will be at that time? Will you be shooting in the shade or direct sunlight? If direct sunlight, consider what time of day you are shooting, what direction your actors need to face in the scene, and what equipment you have available to control the sunlight. Shooting at noon outdoors with sun directly overhead looks pretty ugly unless you’ve got some equipment to help you out.
• SPACE How much space do you have to work with? With DSLRs we’ve thankfully got a little bit smaller setup, but you will still need a little room. Where can you put lights and still keep them out of the shoot? Are their available light sources in the scene you can use instead? Where can the sound guy hold the boom? Do you have a wide angle lens to shoot in this small space?
• SOUND Even if a location is absolutely stunning it can have some of the ugliest sound due to traffic or other sources. For our film I already know we will have a bit of a situation with this as we have several scenes that take place right next to the ocean (wooosh). Let your actors know ahead of time if there is going to be some ADR needed for the film. Now, I do have an idea that we may try out, just to see if we can get around ADR. I’ve never tried it, but just recently heard of something called “wild takes.” Basically you have the actors move to a nearby, but better sounding location right after you finish filming the scene, and then have them go through the scene again, this time just recording audio. The idea is that they will still have the momentum to do a similar performance from the scene and it will sound good. This may work out better than having them try to recreate their performance weeks or months later when you do ADR. Who knows if we will get audio that will actually line up with our video, but for an extra 10-15 minutes of time, it’s worth a shot to me.

You’ve got the resources and you know what to look for. Get out there (physically or virtually) and find your locations!

HAPPY LOCATING!

Why I Had Locations in Mind When I Wrote My Script

I don’t know if my last two films have had heavy outdoor and natural type settings because I love nature, or because I can find free, awesome looking locations. Probably both. Either way it works.

Today we’re going to look at why  it may be a good idea to have some of your locations in mind before you write them.

Now you might be thinking, “Isn’t it kind of limiting my creativity to write locations that you already know?”  Yes, in some cases it could be. I’m not saying you have to wait until you know all of your locations before you can write scenes. That would definitely kill some of your creativity, and may take you forever to get started!  But there are several advantages to already having locations in mind, before you do too many revisions of the script.

Places Can Inspire Your Script

I was falling in love with the Oregon coast at the same time as I was forming this story, so location scouting (via the internet) & writing very much went hand-in-hand. I based most of my outdoor scenes around locations that I was discovering and so it worked out very well for me to know exactly the places I was writing.

Places I visit (or plan to visit) often inspire scenes or stories for me. The place below absolutely inspired a scene for my film.

There was another scene that I actually added into my script after a few revisions because I found it when I finally visited the location above for the first time. I loved it and  really wanted to shoot there. That may seem like a lame reason to add a scene in to the script, like I am putting the location above the story. But I look at the script now and I think that scene adds an important moment of character development and a nice respite before the story hits a big turning point. It’s something I probably would have never have thought to add  if I hadn’t discovered that place. Keep your eyes open for these sort of things.

Story-Integrated Settings

If most of your scenes take place in bedrooms, the local park, front yards, inside cars, just sort of general places, then yeah, I probably wouldn’t worry  about figuring out most locations ahead of time.

But if you’re writing scenes that take place at say, a mansion, then it’s probably pretty important for you to find a mansion you can shoot at before you start writing scenes where your characters are out playing polo on the lawn.

Think about how specific of a location you are writing and whether your characters need to interact with the environment of the scene. Don’t set yourself up for failure by writing a place that is both very important to the plot and impossible to find locally. If you’re going the route where you are digitally creating the environment via matte paintings and/or green screening, consider doing previsualization tests to make sure you can pull it off the look.

The title of my film is the setting of my film, Arcadia Bay. It’s a quaint coastal town, and that’s where the story takes place. So in my  it’s pretty important for the story to be integrated with the setting.

Think of the Setting as a Character

There are many factors that give a film a great “cinematic look”. There’s more to it than using a nice camera and having good color grading skills. Imagine if the Lord of the Rings was shot entirely in Nebraska! (I’m a native Nebraskan, I can poke fun at it). The film wouldn’t be the at all would it (except maybe the scene Farmer Maggots corn field)! Now that was a big budget example, so let’s get more practically. Let’s say you’re making a quirky, little film. Wouldn’t it be more awesome if your main character lived in a cute and quirky sort of place, rather than a cookie cutter house in suburbia? Couldn’t that add a sort of life to the story?

When you create a story, you create a story world. No matter how much a film looks and sounds like our world, it’s not our world, it’s the world of the film. So make it unique! Treat the world a bit like one of your characters. What does this character “wear”? What consistencies can be found in the locations of the film that will make it seem unified? Or on the other hand, you can purposely create contrast to show two different sort of worlds that these characters live in.

Don’t Forget Your Director’s Cap

If you are writing a blockbuster film that’s going to get a bajillion dollar budget thrown at it, then you can probably ignore this one (also, why are you reading this blog?). But if you are actually planning on turning the script that you just wrote into a film, then don’t forget to wear your director’s cap on top of your writer’s cap (even though it looks lame wearing two hats at once). Don’t write something you know is going to just be unfilmable. As amazing as that film script you just wrote might be, don’t forget that it is a FILM script. People are going to judge the film, not your script. You know how people tend to be disappointed in film adaptations of books? That’s partly because they already visualized the whole story in their head, and what they are seeing is someone else’s vision. Don’t set yourself up to be disappointed in your film adaptation of your own script!

Having important locations already in mind will help insure that the vision that you have for the film inside your head matches the actual finished film. And it’s much easier to write good details when you have the details of a real place in your mind.

Give thought to your locations and it will show. And think about your budget! If you can find a location that look awesome, it can be a lot more affordable and more time efficient than having to build a set or do visual effects work. Don’t forget that locations make you feel, which is why they can be so inspirational! Even if you know you can find locations ahead of time, start looking for these spots early so that won’t just “work”, but that will look great!

Now, I’ll admit I didn’t find all my locations for the film before I wrote it. But I did find the ones I knew I would need to. I currently have one location left to find, and I don’t think it should be too hard to locate.

In an upcoming post, I’ll have some practical tips and resources that will hopefully help you find some great locations near you!

Happy Locating!

Casting With Craigslist & Finding Your Audition Space

Casting is 65 percent of directing.
– John Frankenheimer

Casting with Craigslist sure sounds sketchy, but if you do it right there’s a lot of talent to be found in there (at least out here in the Portland area)!
I’ll give you one lesson I learned now: If they don’t have any acting experience, don’t and invite them to auditions, not on Craigslist. I rolled the dice thinking this would be one of those situations where I would discover the next big name. It ended up being the opposite of that situation. It just wastes everyone’s time and makes for awkwardness.

In today’s video I discuss how I went about gathering interested actors for auditions, how I found an audition space, and how I held auditions.

Happy Casting!

Learning How You Write Best

I steal from every movie ever made.

– Quentin Tarantino

In this video today we’ll discuss:

• COMING UP WITH IDEAS!

• FINDING YOUR PRODUCTIVE PLACE!

• WRITING YOUR FIRST DRAFT!

• RE-WRITING!

• RE-WRITING!

• RE-WRITING!

---

 

Here’s the great “Everything is a Remix” series I mention in the video:

 http://everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/

 

And here are my friends over at Filmpunch, a great community of young, friendly filmmakers:

http://filmpunch.org/

 

HAPPY WRITING!

How to Storyboard When You Suck at Drawing

Storyboards. They say it’s the cheapest way to visualize your film. And yet, I don’t envision my film looking much like this:

I sure hope it doesn’t look like that!

Now for some of you, these little stick-men storyboards may work for you. Storyboards from my first film Make Your Paths Straight basically looked like this.

But if you really need to collaborate with your DP these probably won’t help him or her catch your vision fort the film. Plus, if the people you need to show these to aren’t your close friends, it just ends up being kind of embarrassing.

So we’ve established that I suck at drawing, but we haven’t come up with the solution.

I’ll sum it up in one word: “Tracing.”

 

I use a combination of Photoshop, DAZ Studio (Free 3D Character Model Program), and real photos. First we get our background/environment photo and bring it into Photoshop, then we use DAZ Studio to pose a character into the position we want, then we rotate in 3D space so that he’s at the right perspective in the scene (because drawing perspective is my biggest issue!), and then we trace those things!  It might sound complicated, but it’s pretty easy.

I first ran across the technique in this helpful video on Vimeo:

The video is great, but it’s about 45 minutes long and still requires you to be able to imagine & draw the backgrounds yourself (which I still don’t have enough drawing ability to do).

So instead I’ve made my own short tutorial (under 6 minutes) that will get you started storyboarding! Now like I said the catch is that you will need real photos if you can’t draw backgrounds, which is fine if you know where you’re shooting and have photos (or can search for them or use Google Maps). If you haven’t found your locations yet, you can always Google images of what you’re looking for and then just trace those images.

Also, if you don’t have Photoshop, you should totally still be able to accomplish this! I do use a variety of tools in Photoshop to make the process a little faster, but all you really need is the paint brush and paint bucket. Pretty sure you could pull easily pull this off in Microsoft Paint or another free program like Gimp!

So without further ado, here is the tutorial!

Happy Storyboarding!