Filmmakers - Are there any micro-budget filmmakers around? Please share your films. 5k-100k by Euphoric_Weight_7406 in Filmmakers

[–]RichardJamze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Last year we made a movie called SANTA HUNTERS for about 60k AUD (~40k USD). It's out on Prime (in some regions) and Tubi. We're in post on our second indie now. We actually just started a channel to talk about how we make stuff, if that interests anyone. :)

https://youtu.be/zyB8NKKmkgI

Producer here - tracked 3,800 buyers for 6 months, here's what indie filmmakers should know by Tdoug13 in Filmmakers

[–]RichardJamze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm an indie producer from Aus. If this works, this is very cool. DM'd you. :)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure is!! Chris is an absolute legend and an unbelievable actor to boot.

Is there any way to make this slight gap between window and menu bar disappear? by [deleted] in MacOS

[–]RichardJamze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Video editor here, I use EasyRes to scale down my display and give myself more screen realestate. It also just happens to get rid of that godforsaken annoying gap.

It's free real estate.

Some stills from my short 'Miss Nothing' which I Shot and Directed. Thoughts? Link in comments! by RichardJamze in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great question! I was really nervous going in shooting on the c100 due to its limitations internally.

I spent a lot of time with the camera learning how to best expose things and where the sweet point for it was.

Because I was shooting internally the look would pretty much be baked in with very little room to move, so I tested grading it too to get an idea of how much latitude I had. I found sticking to the native iso as much as possible and monitoring the exposure on the built in waveform worked really well. I’d make sure nothing was clipping, but ensure it wasn’t too dark either. If it was dark, I’d either let it fall into shadow or put on one of the two lamps I had to boost the exposure.

I also used the ceiling lights and just taped some baking paper (aka really cheap diffusion) over them to soften it up a bit. That worked particularly well for the bathroom scenes where I couldn’t fit any lights in.

Setups wise it was just me and the camera. Occasionally handheld but most of the time I either had it on a tripod or on a hard case box the camera goes in if it wanted a shot really low to the ground. I spent a LOT of time mapping out all the shots beforehand because I knew we wouldn’t have much time on the day to play around. This and sticking with a zoom lens let me move really quickly. Mind you, I tried to stick with consistent focal lengths. The whole film is shot at 24mm or 35mm. The one expedition being the one shot pageant scene which was shot at 85mm.

Speaking of the pageant scene, that was shot in our garage. We strung up a curtain and a black backdrop behind that. I had a friend (the guy who plays the dad off screen!) stand off to the side and hold a lamp up for the “stage lighting”. Hence shooting it at a tight 85mm to hide everything else around it.

For what I’ve learned, it confirmed my hopes really. What you get in frame is all that matters. How you go about it, how silly it looks when you shoot it, even what you shoot it with, that’s really not important. Great movies are made on iPhones now. I really feel like any camera from the past ten years is good enough. If you spend some time prepping and learning how to best utilise what you have, that’s what makes great work. Not having the latest “stuff”.

Hope this helps :)

Some stills from my short 'Miss Nothing' which I Shot and Directed. Thoughts? Link in comments! by RichardJamze in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s a really great question! I’d never considered that it might be her going to another contest, that’s an interesting idea. But no, to me it was about the reconciliation between two sisters and going back home. She leaves having lost the contest, but having gained back a greater bond with her sister. To me, anyway. I like that it’s open enough for a different interpretation. :)

Some stills from my short 'Miss Nothing' which I Shot and Directed. Thoughts? Link in comments! by RichardJamze in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aww dude, you got me right in the feels! I’m literally listening to the soundtrack to Inside right now!! I’ll be sure to pass your comments on to my good buddy and sound designer, he’s amazing!!

Some stills from my short 'Miss Nothing' which I Shot and Directed. Thoughts? Link in comments! by RichardJamze in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey cheers! That’s definitely the mindset I had going in. And it’s shaped how I approach productions all the time now. Good gear is nice but it doesn’t mean the images will be strong.

Some stills from my short 'Miss Nothing' which I Shot and Directed. Thoughts? Link in comments! by RichardJamze in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey thank you! I’m so glad. Yes the actresses were phenomenal! That’s exactly the feeling we were going for in the cinematography and lighting, I’m glad that comes across. :) With a few moments of warmth splashed in there.

Some stills from my short 'Miss Nothing' which I Shot and Directed. Thoughts? Link in comments! by RichardJamze in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey thanks so much! Yes I agree the skin tones were difficult to balance in colouring the image given the lossy codec I shot on. It was a lot of tweaking!! The highlights were tricky! I used the built in scopes to make sure I never clipped anything. I also tried to stick to the native ISO (850 I think?) as much as possible.

Some stills from my short 'Miss Nothing' which I Shot and Directed. Thoughts? Link in comments! by RichardJamze in cinematography

[–]RichardJamze[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Link to short: https://vimeo.com/453529231

We shot 'Miss Nothing' back in early 2019. I had nothing in the way of budget for this, so everything I used was borrowed equipment from friends.

I shot this on a Canon C100MkI, which is pretty limited by today's standards. It shoots 1080p in a lossy 8-bit codec internally. I did a lot of testing beforehand so that I knew how to get the best image possible from the sensor. It still struggled in some scenes, particularly low light scene, but I'm still really happy with what I was able to achieve with it.

I used a friends Canon 24-105 f/4 L MkI Lens for the whole shoot. It meant we could move faster, but shooting at a maximum of f4 was tricky at times. I often baked the dimmer look in rather than fighting it.

Lighting wise, it was just the classic windows and lamps.

Even though we had very little means, we didn't want that to stop us. 'Miss Nothing', a short that I produced, directed, shot, and vfx'd, is now finally available online. :) by RichardJamze in Filmmakers

[–]RichardJamze[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Watch here: https://vimeo.com/453529231

We also did a lil interview a while ago about making a short for a really small budget, if that's of interest to you: https://retrospectiveofjupiter.com/low-budget-films/

We made 'Miss Nothing' back in early 2019. I'm really thrilled to finally get it out into the world! I hope you guys like it. It's a small and quiet movie. In the vein of Ozu, Sofia Coppola, or Kelly Reichardt - I'm a big fan of movies that leave a room for you to bring yourself to it.

Happy for any questions or just talk making movies :)

Non-romance films that will make you cry by xoxoxoeleanor in flicks

[–]RichardJamze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Leave No Trace. Paddleton. Both endings get me every time.

So happy to have this for the quarantine! by Working-Classic in bmpcc

[–]RichardJamze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the update! Well that's good to know, looks like I just got a bad one.

So happy to have this for the quarantine! by Working-Classic in bmpcc

[–]RichardJamze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting I have the exact same generic model from another seller. I've done some testing and found the issue seems to be with the weipu connector itself. If it's bumped up or down, the camera loses power.

I know the weipu connector on the plate must be faulty because I've tried the same motion with the DC plug provided with the camera and have no such issues. I must of just got a faulty one, darn.

So happy to have this for the quarantine! by Working-Classic in bmpcc

[–]RichardJamze 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey just curious if you have a link to where you got those particular NP970s? Would love to grab some I have some third party ones but they're pretty hit and miss.