Newbie rental/scheduling questions...

[FormerDominator]

After wondering how, with my extreme laziness, I'll be able to save up $800 for a T3i by August, I had the brilliant and totally not-obvious revelation that maybe I should rent the stuff instead. After doing a bit of research (read: clicking on two links in a Google search) I came across borrowlenses.com. You guys heard of 'em? Are they on the up-and-up? Their prices are much cheaper than the other place I was looking at, ATS rentals. Is online renting a good idea, you think?
That brings me (kind of...) to my other question: My script is 45 pages long, mostly dialogue. How long do you think shooting for something like that would take, keeping in mind there's no crew and everyone involved is a high school student and knows everyone else? Obviously I'd schedule with everyone well in advance to make sure there are no issues. Ten days seems good to me, but of course I could be wrong...

 

[PaulGriffith]

Borrowleneses.com is awesome. Rented form them and lensrentals.com several times.

45 pages.. If my crew worked pretty long days and had everything storyboarded/shotlisted I think we could do it in a minimum of 9 days. That said, we work together all the time and have a great flow together on set, everyone knows what needs to be done.

Have you shot with a t3i or DSLR before? Have you shot anything before? If not, schedule more time.

Hollywood, with huge crews and some of the most talented people in the industry, shoots .5-3 pages a day, and 3 is a fast shoot. Indie budgets don't allow the luxury of long shot setups and time to really tweak the lighting or paint that smudge on the back wall of the set. Indies shoot generally anywhere between 4 and 10 pages a day (12-16 hour days) and that all depends on if it's dialogue, action etc...

How long have your shorts been in the past? How long did they take to shoot? If you haven't shot much before, 45 pages is a MASSIVE undertaking. How bug is your cast and crew? Are they experienced? Big, inexperienced crews are slower than small experienced crews.

Now, to argue against renting, if you've never used a specific camera before then your first few times with it probably won't be great. There's something to be said for a production team having it's own gear. You can practice with it and really learn the ins and outs and hammer down technique.

How long do you think it'll take?

 

[directorik]

I've heard good things about them but never used them personally.
If you can get more for your $800 than just buying the camera
then it's a great deal. I am an advocate of renting when the numbers
make sense. Run your numbers - and don't forget insurance and
all the needed accessories. If you end up spending between 15 and
20% more but get more then it's a great option.

A ten day shoot means four and a half pages per day. Without
knowing your experience or skill or the experience and skill of
your crew and cast that number seems reasonable to me. When
I was in high school I could average 6 pages per day with no
issues. Think you can?

When you say “no crew” that isn’t what you mean because you then
say “everyone involved”. So you have some crew, am I right?

 

[FormerDominator]

When I say "no crew" I mean I'm the only one who has any technological background whatsoever when it comes to film-"everyone involved" referred to the actors. While I have not actually used a DSLR, I've had my hands on one, and at risk of sounding like I think I'm a child prodigy, I'm pretty tech-savvy and can pick up the basics of a lot of stuff pretty quickly. My cast is, let me think... the most important players consist of 8 or 9 people, plus a few extras that are only in one scene or so. Most scenes, however, only have three, maybe four people in them, and with the way it's written it should be easy to coordinate shooting for all the scenes where the same actors are needed. I think that answers everything... Oh yeah, the most involved thing I've worked on is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFmomyKCeWw

It took about two hours, max. ...That doesn't bode too well, does it?

 

[knightly]

As a solo shoot, you'll be closer to the low end of the pages/day (or sacrificing quality of the picture/sound to fit your schedule). I wouldn't personally spend my money at all (unless I wanted to own for the many future shoots) on something that I couldn't give my all to. At least with ownership, there's an element of investment, not just $800 on a single project that may or may not turn out due to staffing issues/ scheduling issues/ spreading yourself too thin issues... the next shoot will cost you another $800, ad infinitum.

However, it may cause you to take the shoot more seriously if you're spending tons of $$$ everytime you shoot. I spent for my camera on my first short, then just tapestock for every shoot after that and had a long term savings/amortization of my investment (> 12 productions) with that camera, plus tons of test shooting and practice that I wouldn't have had with a rental making me faster and better on set, even without the same camera.

 

[FormerDominator]

Interesting thoughts, knightly. I think with my level of experience/money/connections (little, less, and none, respectively), the way my productions work will probably be a LOT different than is the norm in any filmmaking industry, let alone indie. My shoots are probably going to go like this: set up camera, zoom and focus lens, place Zoom H1 inconspicuously, press record. Now don't worry, I'm not an idiot, it'll be *slightly* more involved than that, I'm sure there will be lighting etc. going on, but again, not counting people who will also be on screen, absolutely zero crew on this. I'd love to be able to purchase one for indefinite use, but with the barely getting a C in chemistry, needing to fulfill community service hours for CCD and already being bad about those things I doubt I'd do too well with a job at this point, so I'm going to need to make do with my even-more-limited budget. Therefore, for this one-off shoot (no clue how frequently I'll be doing these "big" projects, I have no more planned) it'll probably make sense for me to spend a couple hundred bucks on a camera and lens for only a couple weeks instead of either a. putting it off for another year or b. filming it with my shit webcam, pardon my french.