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What do you pay for in your shorts?

G

gorillaonabike

Sooo.... I have shot a small number of shorts, music vids, interviews etc... Got into a couple of film fests including the London Independent Film Fest (that was incredible).

What I did for my last short was a learning experience and for my next, I am aiming at paying a couple of guys with skills to bring my short up to the right level. The London Inde is typical of the level I am aiming at, specifically with directors and crews flying in from LA, India, Continental Europe etc... to London and there are feature films there with budgets up to $1m USD. Some of the films have Hollywood 'B' listers in and for example, one of the movies had the supporting actress from the new Spiderman movie (not the lead actress, the supporting actress). Another, local, British star was Steven Fry who gave his time to one of the prize-winning productions.

To get into that level of fest, clearly I need a good short and I'm happy with everything that entails. However, to spruce it up, I figure I need to pay a little money. The areas I am thinking of paying people are:

- A pro 'soundie' to create a basic, balanced mix which will sound OK. Last time around, I did 95% of the sound myself and then paid someone for a day to mix it together. He had a great strategy which worked extremely well.
- Colourist: Probably one day, if this is enough.
- Music: I want to use Mike McGuill on this forum. Fantastic composer. Get him while you can.
- Paying a cheap cinema to screen so I can see it on the big screen with a few other people to criticize the hell out of it. A TV or laptop just isn't enough.

I would edit it myself as I enjoy the creative process and want to get better. Last time around, it wasn't good enough but was a huge learning experience and I want to focus on directing and editing.

What would be your essential 'paylist' where you would pay professionals to properly enhance the quality of your short? What would your priorities be and why?
 
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It all depends on your priorities, your role (for this I assume Director is your key position, also filling other positions), your weaknesses and strengths:

My priority list (assuming I had the money, which I don't) would be along the following:

  1. Writer
  2. Producer/Production Manager/Production Coordinator.
  3. Food/Caterer
  4. Actors/Talent
  5. Location Scout
  6. Production Designer/Art Director (team)
  7. DOP & Camera
  8. Soundie & Boom
  9. Gaffer & Grip
  10. Post Sound / Dialogue Editor / Sound Designer
  11. Composer
  12. Colorist/Color Grader
  13. First AD
  14. Editor
  15. Extras

There are a lot of others depending on what type of film you're making, like Armorer, Stunt Coordinator, Stunt Performers, Pyrotechnician, Animators, VFX crew and so on. The larger your post production team and the more complicated your shooting schedule/script, the more you need a great Script Supervisor.

For other filmmakers, I'd put Editor and First AD a lot higher on my list as they are essential to getting a production done, though I'm relatively strong in those areas, hence why they are lower.

Writer - First and foremost, without a great quality script, no amount of production value will make a bad story good.

Producer - They put it all together. There are particular roles that if you take both (or more), your work cannot help but suffer. When directing, those roles that I think don't should be the same person is Producer and First AD. Mixing creative and problem solving people at the same time will take away from your creative side and the production will suffer if any issues crop up. I like to consider myself a decent producer and I still put this role up high.

Food/Caterer. Nuff said?

Talent / Actors: It depends on your goals here. If you're looking at no budget, then bury this deep down. I personally can get no-name actors to act for free in my productions. If I wanted a name to ensure more people would watch and/or get accepted into more festivals, I'd have to shell out a bunch of cash.

Location Scout: It's an area I'm very weak so I value location scouts more than most.

Production Designer/Art Director: Another area that I'm weak. The production value rotates around a few people and this is one of the key ones. Even if I wasn't weak in this area, having someone take the day to day issues of having this done is invaluable and will increase the quality of your production.

DOP & Camera: While I'm not strong in this area and it's not an area that I personally have a lot of passion for, the DOP/Camera roles are very important in a visual medium.

Soundie & Boom. This is an area that I've recently learned a lot about. While my experience and gear isn't up to the standard of veteran sound people, one thing I learned is a great soundie during production (and a location scout that understands sound) will save you a bunch of resources/time/money in post.

Most of the others are fairly obvious and you can get the gist from what I've already written.

I hope I didn't miss too many spots. This was all off the top of my head.

Paying a cheap cinema to screen so I can see it on the big screen with a few other people to criticize the hell out of it. A TV or laptop just isn't enough.
Click to expand...

You're so right. You notice way more on a large projected screen than you do on a computer screen or even a TV. After each version of an edit, I watch on a projected screen (also invite appropriate people if they can make it) to nit pick. You just notice more when you play on a system with good sound and visuals.
 
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What do you pay for in your shorts?
Click to expand...

Oh, about $14 plus tax for a 6-pack.

HNS_1A0492_White_is




Sorry, I just can't resist a straight line.....:lol:..:lol:..:lol:
 
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Depends on what my goals would be. At the moment it looks like this:

1) Food
2) Props
3) Covering people's travel expenses - i.e. petrol.
4) Essential gear this is mostly regarding safety - if I need to get a light above 2 meters, I'll hire a stand and some sandbags, as my own stands are not great quality. It also covers things like extra power chords, basic tools and stepladders if my crew and I don't have them between us - typically I buy these as they're low cost and always useful in future.

As I look to move to the next level (entering low tier festivals) I'd add:
1) Sound and music (location, post, score) as I definitely can't do this myself. Thankfully I know a couple of people who can help me out here, but if I needed to use someone else for whatever reason, this would be the first area I'd invest in.
2) A colourist - this is definitely an area I can't do myself
3) A DoP - again I have a friend who's really good and helps me currently. But he's moving away soon :( Once he goes this'll probably move above colourist
4) Writer - this is really on par with the above few. I write myself at the moment, and I enjoy being involved in story creation. But I don't think it's my strongest point, so I'd want someone to collaborate with
5) Other gear - fancy things I can't justify right now (e.g. Jibs)

Next level - looking to enter larger festivals:
1) Producer (I am a decent producer myself - perhaps a better producer than I am director, though I'll figure this out in the next few years - but by this point there is too much going on for me to do both well)
2) Talent (up until this level, having a semi-recognisable name isn't huge, but matters more)
3) 1st AD
4) Art dept - something I'm not great at, and usually get someone else to help out with anyway (though unpaid)
5) Gaffer/Grip
6) Advertising work
7) VFX - I don't do much VFX stuff, though I do write the odd story that needs it. If I wrote something that needed VFX in any of the above stages, I'd also look to pay someone.

And so on until (if?) I reach the stage of making features.

Of course, I'm still at stage one, hopefully moving into stage two soon. But given i'm not at any of these imagined stages, I'm really only guessing. I'm sure this list would look different as I progress ;)
 
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I have someone who is an innovative DoP (the banned, 8Salacious9) who's a really good guy. There is a sound recordist on this forum who did a great job and I have good crew.

However, the one area which really improves my shorts is post and I want to put my money there. Or at least, that's what my experience is.
 
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If you don't mine me asking Gorilla, who did your sound mix? My audio really lets me down, I have spent what to me is a lot of money on what is actually just bottom of the rung gear (rode video mice and tascam dr-05 etc) but it isn't something I can muster much passion for and thus when it comes to my productions always ends up by the way side.


I am about to start the first project where I may have to pay for some talent, not because I am after anybody in particular but because I need a very specific talent and look (Pacific Islander who can do a Haka) and thus I am struggling to find suitable actors without advertising on star now or spot light etc.
 
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Really all depends on budget and what you can do yourself?

If your talent lies in editing, writing or directing then you don't have to worry about that. Or if you have some great actor friends, etc. Really it's pulling as many favors as you can to get quality work. Then once you exhaust that option pay for the rest.

Hopefully in one way or another, you're getting someone who can light and shoot the thing and some sound so you can hear it!!
 
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