5 ms·

While this stuff gets me excited, it never ceases to amaze me how indie movie producers/direction keeping thinking it is the price of technology that is prevent

by kitcar 15y ago

While this stuff gets me excited, it never ceases to amaze me how indie movie producers/direction keeping thinking it is the price of technology that is preventing them from creating an oscar-worthy film. As a proportion of overall budget, Labour is a much higher cost than equipment in film products. The cameras could be given away for free and it would STILL be difficult / expensive to produce a good movie, because what you really need more than anything is high caliber people (writers/actors/DoP/etc...)!

reitzensteinm 15y ago
You're mostly right - people are using it as an excuse. But the cheaper equipment gets, the more people can dabble in the field. Five or ten years down the road, a small percentage of those people will be the high caliber talent. So while finding talented people is still the bottleneck, I think as a long term trend, the move to digital and effect of Moore's law is going to help with that as well (as long as the person looking is also talented). There were a hell of a lot less programmers when you had to buy time on a mainframe. Or scribes back in the Roman Empire. Think of all of the amazing works of art or literature that were never created because the tools (literally, paper) were beyond the means of average citizens.
gcb 15y ago
Heh, living in LA i can say the cheaper part is talent. Half the recordings i see in the neighborhood are huge budget series. The other half is a small production where everyone is working for film credit and lousy catering lunch.
- GoodIntentions 15y ago
  ok, asking from total ignorance here - I know 0 about the film industry and live 1000s of miles from LA, but sorta curious. Isn't there a minimum scale for wages required for any film? Or is it only if the film somehow becomes a "union" job?
  - gcb 15y ago
    when you are a BIG studio, and want to hire the best guys, they will only work if the union allows. and for the union to allow your production has to use professionals from all other unions (guilds). And that reciprocates so many jobs that everyone i know pays (or are making ends-meet to pay) the union (most are something like 5k for actors, 20k for photo, per year). But, small indie movies, just shoot for a couple days and nobody has any pay. They usually gets people with little experience via email chain and facebook noise.

by kitcar 15y ago

reitzensteinm 15y ago

You're mostly right - people are using it as an excuse. But the cheaper equipment gets, the more people can dabble in the field. Five or ten years down the road, a small percentage of those people will be the high caliber talent. So while finding talented people is still the bottleneck, I think as a long term trend, the move to digital and effect of Moore's law is going to help with that as well (as long as the person looking is also talented). There were a hell of a lot less programmers when you had to buy time on a mainframe. Or scribes back in the Roman Empire. Think of all of the amazing works of art or literature that were never created because the tools (literally, paper) were beyond the means of average citizens.

gcb 15y ago

Heh, living in LA i can say the cheaper part is talent. Half the recordings i see in the neighborhood are huge budget series. The other half is a small production where everyone is working for film credit and lousy catering lunch.

GoodIntentions 15y ago
ok, asking from total ignorance here - I know 0 about the film industry and live 1000s of miles from LA, but sorta curious. Isn't there a minimum scale for wages required for any film? Or is it only if the film somehow becomes a "union" job?
- gcb 15y ago
  when you are a BIG studio, and want to hire the best guys, they will only work if the union allows. and for the union to allow your production has to use professionals from all other unions (guilds). And that reciprocates so many jobs that everyone i know pays (or are making ends-meet to pay) the union (most are something like 5k for actors, 20k for photo, per year). But, small indie movies, just shoot for a couple days and nobody has any pay. They usually gets people with little experience via email chain and facebook noise.