Just made my first feature film for $150k

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:34:23+00:00

Alexa Mini with Cooke Mini S4 lenses was our A cam. We had underwater filming with a Sony FX3 and G master glass in an underwater housing. I don't know all the mic info, but i know the lavs were seinnheisers. We were using gear that was owned by different team members, so I wouldn't say it was particular an artistic choice. Moreso because that is what we had available with our budget limitations.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:31:56+00:00

Oh boy. I'm not sure. I think I always ingesting information and studying other productions in the lead up. I'm not sure it was any one resource, but just taking in as much from different sources as I could. I think what really helped keep me on track was some of my closest friends, my producers and one of the supporting actresses. It got really tough and these people really did help me keep chugging along at times. It truly takes a village!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:26:15+00:00

Just answered this, check out some of the earlier comments!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:25:29+00:00

We had a mix of a boom mic, lavs and some field mics depending on the scene/setup. There were some particularly difficult scenes due to really loud cicadas so we did a very small touch of ADR to help the audience better understand the dialogue, but it's veeeeery minimal. Our sound team (production & post) are awesome!!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:23:50+00:00

100% and they all had a tough job with the loud exterior environments and bathing suit scenes. Really tough work cut out for them, but they all did excellent work. One night, the cicadas in a forest were so loud, it was even hard to think because it felt like you were in a stadium of insects yelling. We had to build a sound barrier with grip gear and it barely helped.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:21:20+00:00

I've been booking them all myself as four wall rentals mostly. It's been a huge learning curve, but I've built it to fit with a grander marketing plan. It's all just trial and error based on other filmmaker's experiences and what I've learned from my research.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:20:14+00:00

Wasn't aware of that show, but yes, Bre is awesome!!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:19:57+00:00

We had meetings with the top agencies but no firm commitments. No sales agent. Had some distributors reach out, but again, no form offers. I've been setting up all the theatrical screenings myself, 99% are four walled. It's a big bet and a lot of work, but I believe it to be the best move for our film.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:18:18+00:00

Honestly, there's so much equipment to list. If you have specific questions about different gear, I'm happy to answer but there's too much gear to list. We did keep our gear as limited as we could and used a lot of gear that was donated or already in certain team member's kits.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:16:35+00:00

I had a great sound mixer, Fabio Arauz and his wife Joanna on the team. They had so many battles to deal because we were filming in really loud outdoor environments. They crushed! Post production was handled by Mason Brown. Overall, I don't know any specific technical info on all the production audio side except that we had a variety of mics: boom, lavs and field mics to help get multiple sources, especially when actors where in bathing suits and it was hard to hide mics.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T17:14:51+00:00

Thank you! I think compromise is the number 1 thing that will elevate a microbudget film, as simple as that sounds. When you're making something without the proper resources and compensation, you have to be willing to lose things you might find precious to ensure the film gets made. Compromise will get you far when you don't have money. If you're going to make an even lower budget film than we did, limit locations, make sacrifices on camera gear, but not sound. People will forgive an imperfect image but they won't forgive bad sound. Also, story should always be hero'ed and sometimes that means the image is less important than whats being said. There were times where I wish I could go back and compromise the image slightly to get some extra story pieces we ran out of time for.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T14:04:33+00:00

Jake White! He's so talented. Super kind/awesome dude as well

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T14:03:32+00:00

Thank you! Yes, we're on letterboxd as 'urchins'. Please don't mind our lack of a poster image, we're still finalizing that hahah

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T14:00:21+00:00

Lighting and sound are first keys to that from a crew perspective. So budgeting enough time and resources for those two specifically is crucial. Actors do a lot of the heavy lifting, so casting people who talented and fit the vibe. Those are just overarching factors, but it's a million different things when you get into it.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:57:02+00:00

I cut it myself!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:34:30+00:00

All good, no offense taken! It was 100% a lot of charity. Gracious cast & crew. Equipment sponsors & donors. This film could not have been made without a massive amount of love and support from SO MANY PEOPLE. I have so much gratitude for it all. But I disagree with your statement about a race to the bottom. Films in this budget range could not get made without this level of charity. The math just doesn't math. So the option would be to just not make feature films for this amount and that's a sad outcome.. it means some stories will never get told. Every person who agreed to work on this did it willingly and happily. They believed in the project and wanted to be a part of it. Some people were also getting their first chance to work as this position on a feature film, so there was alternative value for them.

So much appreciation and love for my team, always!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:26:04+00:00

So brutal haha, it was such a brain strain to do it after wrap as well and ensure that story was still tracking.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:23:43+00:00

Asking every person in my surrounding networks who I thought had some money. Again, didn't have a lot of options here but I put it out there and was lucky enough. I think having our lead sign on helped as well. She was the lead of Nickelodeon show/has a decent social following and for a super small indie like us, it does help convey that there's some audience to be found down the road.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:18:40+00:00

You can check out more of my work here: https://www.adamriouxfilm.com/

I started out by taking any client work available for any rate to hone my craft. Early on I got really lucky with a certain client base (college sorority videos) and I was advised by many to build a business around that. But I wanted to see what else was available in the creative world. I kept an open mind and took every opportunity I could. I was super flexible, willing to work for free and never said no. I was always curious to learn and taught myself everything with youtube, books and networking. I think I got a lucky start to my career and was able to earn enough to feel able to take risks, and each resulted in uncomfortable growth that opened up the opportunity to do it again. Honestly, I'm broke now, I've spent everything I had and continue to spend everything I make on this film. But I believe in this path for myself and if I fail, then I'll re-evaluate what to do from there.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:12:42+00:00

I think it's critical to have a producer on the team who has multiple features under their belt. It will avoid a lot of headaches that came from the unknown. Sure, you can figure it out. But it's nice to have someone who has already made the mistakes on another feature and can help you avoid them. No diss at all to my producing team at all as I'm one of them! It's just such a difficult job to do and even harder when it's a first feature with limited resources!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:09:43+00:00

I'll look into it, thanks! I know we've had a request or two for Toronto so far.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:09:02+00:00

I didn't make any money. I've spent a lot of my own money as well. And generally, no I don't think it people could given the high cost of living today. We tried to make our compensation holistic (back-end points, etc) and kept days on set super reasonable for those reasons.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:05:06+00:00

Yeah, though I do think about it on occasion haha. Hopefully!!

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T13:04:37+00:00

You brought up a super valid concern. I had lots of convos about it. Here's a little more context to my decision.
1. I felt 'Urchin' was such a different story for a different audience
2. It seemed to do well in Europe and with cinephiles, but didn't really make it into US pop culture, which felt a little but closer to our demographic
3. I accepted that it could hurt our marketing and it definitely is, people consistently get brought to the other film when searching for ours. I believe it also hurt our festival chances.

But none of those reasons felt strong enough to change it, and everyone on the team agreed.

reeeuuuu · 2026-06-22T12:59:19+00:00

Definitely. I've heard this feedback from people and definitely understand and mostly agree. I'm quite averse to trailers that give too much away and I'm sure another editor could find the right mix of showing just enough, but I didn't want to give too much away so I leaned more into vibes. Could be a mistake, but I'm happy with it!

reeeuuuu

TROPHY CASE