How Much Should I expect for costs?

Freya Black · February 10, 2012

I feel as if I might be overlooking somthing. If your saying that it would be expensive to make it look like the early 80's, then how did John Carpenter do Halloween for a budget of $320,000 total? if that is the look I'm going for it shouldn't cost about the same?

John Carpenter had the advantage that it actually WAS the 80's so he didn't spend time trying to replicate the 80's because it was there already! Back then the 80's were just kicking around and anyone could use them for free! Even if you were a kid and only had a Super8 camera. These days the 80's is very rare so you have that scarcity thing going on and people have to spend a lot of time trying to replicate the 80's because they don't have access to the real deal!

Hence it's expensive.

On the upside if you were to go for an early 21 century look then that could be done really cheaply!

love

Freya

Brian Drysdale · February 10, 2012

On the upside if you were to go for an early 21 century look then that could be done really cheaply!

Indeed, one of the rules of low budget film making is to set the story in the present day. Setting in another period adds to your costs. Of course, some people occasionally do break this rule, but they're the exceptions because of the difficulty.

That's not to say that you can't use a particular cinematic style in a modern story, there's no rule about that, only if it works with the story you're telling.

Freya Black · February 10, 2012

So the technology has depreciated in value any? But wouldn't it if its not standard for today?

Stradivarius violins are not the standard for today either.

They sell for staggering amounts.

Check out the wiki and read all about them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius

Not sure which exact technology you are talking about. If you are talking film stocks then they don't make those ones anymore so you have to try and fake the look which is a bit harder as you don't have the real thing.

As to Anamorphic lenses... well anamorphic scope IS one of the two major film projection standards today! It's not used as often as 1.85 because it is more expensive to work in scope. Thus you notice that Sophia Coppola has never made a film in scope which is possibly because she couldn't afford to!

Working with anamorphic lenses is also more expensive because they can be more difficult to work with.

The prices of things like lenses fluctuate. At one point you could pick up cheap home cine style anamorphics for something like £30/$60 or something. Unfortunately right now anamorphics are VERY trendy so the cost of the lenses is lots and lots. That's just the cheap home cine type ones. As for more pro type lenses... well lately the cost of those is way up whether they are anamorphic or not. On the up-side film cameras are presently very cheap (comparitively) so you could pick up a cheap film camera and at least shoot on film but I'm suspecting you might not have the budget for that right now.

If you wanted to do something very cheaply... you could shoot digital..crop to a scope aspect ratio.. and use those funny fake filters that give you a fake blue lens flare type thing like you have going on in anamorphic films sometimes.

I guess at the core you need to work out what kind of things it is about John Carpenter films that you like. If theres something about the framing or some other kind of thing like that then obviously you can still do that now and as a filmmaker it's worth you taking the time out to analyse the film you like anyway so that you can learn from it and get a feel for what it is you like.

On the upside it might still be possible to pick up 80's style synths cheap. Not sure if the 80's nostalgia thing kicked in to the extent that all that stuff is expensive right now. I'm sure some of it must be cheap... if not I'm selling my DX21!!!! ;)

love

Freya

Brian Drysdale · February 10, 2012

So the technology has depreciated in value any? But wouldn't it if its not standard for today?

The price of old 35mm lenses has gone up in recent years because of the demand created by 35mm sensor digital cameras.

You've got to factor in the cost of film stock and the lab, those have kept up with inflation, although you can negotiate some kind of a deal.

Mark Dunn · February 10, 2012

I have never heard of anybody backing up a print before, if you wanted an extra print you would print another, however for safety in those days one might have struck a CRI.

Black-and-white days, so no CRI, in those days a finegrain positive at most. But I agree, nothing to do with Kodak. Kubrick obviously just couldn't track down all the prints. There weren't many, I dare say- 'Fear and Desire' is a bit of a lemon by all accounts.

Dutch Gannon · February 10, 2012

Ok, so let's say aquiring that film look is an idea to be put on the back burner for now. But can anyone recomend a good digital that can shoot night without harldly any light or none? Or a Full Moon? How about a really good one, for under a grand?

Thanks in advance

Edited February 10, 2012 by Dutch Gannon

Brian Drysdale · February 10, 2012

Try the C300 http://vimeo.com/36512776, but you won't get these features for under a grand, although you could rent one for a film.

Chris Burke · February 10, 2012

Forgive me, but I only skimmed through this thread. Has the script been mentioned? Specifically, how long, how many locations, how many actors? You could shoot anamorphic 35mm, with a very competent crew and a print master and a video master all for around 100k. It all depends on the script. Both Fuji and Kodak and all the labs and post houses will make a deal, especially for an indie/student/first timer film. Right now I am shooting an independent sitcom pilot on super 16 for about 10k. Every vendor we have dealt with has been very sympathetic and supportive of us and made it very affordable. Have you considered 2 perf or Super 16, they might be a good fit.

Marcus Joseph · February 10, 2012

I have never heard of anybody backing up a print before, if you wanted an extra print you would print another, however for safety in those days one might have struck a CRI. I can't believe Kodak would have had done it at all, they would not have been allowed to & would not have had access to the negative.

Very strange story from the video age IMHO.

Yeah I've read his biography and although it's very detailed, they cannot be sure of a lot of things as he was so private. Needless to say he's a very interesting person.

Some facts from the imdb trivia:

This was thought to be a lost film, and one researcher, Mark Carducci, had suggested that Kubrick destroyed the negative following the death of Joseph Burstyn, the film's distributor. Bootleg copies abound, however, and there is one (legal) print in all of the Americas. It is located in the Kodak archives in Rochester, New York; the Kubrick estate allows viewing of the film with the provisos that it is screened by individuals (not groups), that the print never leaves the building in which it is housed, and that it cannot be duplicated in whole or in part.

The original camera negative was discovered in the late 1980s in the holdings of a now-defunct film storage facility in Puerto Rico, and was acquired by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1993. (How the negative got to Puerto Rico in the first place remains a mystery.) The OCN is being kept at the Library's National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia.

Stanley Kubrick disowned the film soon after it's release and wanted to make sure it was never seen again by not re-releasing the print. What he didn't know was that Kodak when making the print had a policy of making an extra print for their archives. It is this one that survives and where the DVD-R and VHS bootleg prints come from.

Kubrick later denounced this film as amateurish, saying he considered it like a child's drawing on a fridge.

One for the do it yourself men:

Stanley Kubrick insisted on setting up the lighting himself, as he liked to do, and did it without allowing a place for microphones. When his sound recordist Nathan Boxer objected, Kubrick fired him and recorded the sound himself.

Originally shot silent with a budget of US$13,000. The budget went up an additional US$20,000 when the actors dubbed their lines in a studio.

Maybe he should have worked with his sound recordist lol.

Freya Black · February 10, 2012

Ah so according to that there is both a print and the OCN kicking around!

Edited February 10, 2012 by Freya Black

M Joel W · February 10, 2012

I guess you don't ever shoot film. EXTRA 100K your having a laugh, as for slower set up times........

Features have been shot on 35mm where everybody gets paid for $100,000 the films have even turned a profit.

I don't shoot film because I can't afford to; don't be patronizing. My occupation is listed as student and even that's not really true. I took one intro class in school and public access video production and I still want to take more classes some day and hopefully make a living working in video production... Not pretending to be someone I'm not.

A few friends of mine have recently shot features, shorts, etc. on film. With lab costs, telecine, etc. the cost was about $100,000 more for a feature on a similar scale to Halloween or something versus the budget for something shot digitally. A 10:1 shooting ratio on 5219 for a 100 minute feature puts you at $60,000 for raw stock as per Kodak's rate in America. Okay, you can get discounts, but then factor in the cost of camera rental, processing, telecine, dailies, timing/DI, etc...

I'm sure profitable features have been shot on 35mm for under $100,000 but those are exceptions, not the rule. Particularly not in America where you need a star to sell your script to investors, let alone your movie to distributors. Assuming a normal shooting ratio, unless you're willing to pull in tons of favors to which a first-timer doesn't have access, $100,000 extra to shoot on film (versus cheap digital--high end digital would be somewhere in between) is a reasonable figure. How would set up times not be increased? You have, effectively, half the DoF at a given stop for anamorphic and film is a stop slower than popular digital alternatives; those extra lights don't set themselves up... Don't see why you need to feel like a big man and butt in about how you get to shoot on film--oh good for you. Your claims are still wrong and you have terrible grammar.

Edited February 10, 2012 by M Joel Wauhkonen

Stephen Williams · February 10, 2012

Ah so according to that there is both a print and the OCN kicking around!

I doubt the person writing the IMDB trivia has any clur what they are talking about, clearly not 'facts'

Marcus Joseph · February 11, 2012

I doubt the person writing the IMDB trivia has any clur what they are talking about, clearly not 'facts'

Don't get me wrong, I read a biography and it had extremely similar information that someone wrote up, they didn't just make it up, they're basing it off something else. Here is another example, it's the same stuff all over the place.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=29014 Maybe Kodak didn't back it up, but the negative was definitely found in a lab in Puerto Rico. Who knows how or why. If anything existed in the Kubrick estate, no one would have had rights to touch it for anything etc. I've read many stories of weird places for the negative to end up. There was a well made Aussie film called Wake in Fright and only until a few years ago there was no trace of the negative for a restoral, the original was absolute rubbish. I think it was the editor that tracked it down.

'Wake in Fright might have vanished completely had its editor, Tony Buckley, not decided in 1996 to undertake what turned out to be an epic search for a print of the movie. His quest lasted eight years, leading him eventually to LA. The project had originally been backed by the future owners of the massive entertainment conglomerate Columbia, which is why the negative was found in the US. Columbia had sent the last surviving negative to the archive and disposal firm Iron Mountain, which made the decision to destroy them. Buckley found them just in time, and spent two years restoring them.'

Sometimes a film print isn't the best archival when it's about to be destroyed :lol: