Group huddle (personal advice)

[Holosynthetic]

As a person with a passion for film, acting, and story telling; I feel as if everyone here really understands my pain and suffering when it comes to buying equipment. I'm in a situation where I'm lucky enough to have the ability to purchase the things I want instead of only the necessities. I guess what I am really trying to get out is whether or not the rest of you would spend every last penny you had on the things that you believe in most, in this particular case, film. I hear about directors selling their houses in order to gather the funds to produce a picture show, a commitment not many people I know would share.

how far would you go to pursue your dreams in film? what would you sacrifice?

Those of you following the thread about the Elite s35 lenses will know what I go on about. Something to do with spending ~$40k or upwards of $100k for cine lenses

[Jason Francois]

Wow, this is the kind of thing I've wanted to open a dialogue about, but have been to fearful of what people might actually say. I can imagine that there are a lot of different thoughts on this simply based on everybody's individual life experience.

I for one am one of those directors that put everything on the line to make my first feature. I didn't have a house, but I spent downpayment money on my movie, so I guess I gave up my house. :)

It took me many years to recover, so in real-world experience I wouldn't do it again...at least not the exact same way.

Passion is what passion is. If you're truly passionate about something then you can't run from it.

I'm not even concerned with whether or not I will ever achieve my highest, creative dream, but I have to keep trying. Actually, I make some shitty things from time to time, but passion won't let me sleep unless I keep trying. Every time I'm on a shot I end up wanting to kill somebody or myself and I swear I'll never do it again, but passion won't let me stop.

So, I am willing to keep putting a lot out there to keep feeding the passion. My wife and I live pretty comfortably, but if it weren't for my film dreams, we could live even better, but I wouldn't have it any other way. My wife would (we're still arguing about RED), but I wouldn't.

We're actually just getting ready to downsize our lives considerably to allow more money for college funds and filmmaking, so I'm the wrong person to ask it you're trying to have some sense knocked into you. If you're looking for validation for chasing dreams that reasonable people should know not to chase, then I'm your man. :)

People are always on my case, because I want this camera and say that a director has no reason to spend $40k+ to have a camera that I only hope to learn to use. They're absolutely right...and I don't care. I could be driving a Porsche instead and rent my cameras and gear when i need it, but I have control issues. :) I also want to be reminded of my passion every time I get in my non-Porsche car and drive off to work on a project. We are all motivated in different way.

As for the lens issue, i feel that there are plenty of good options out there for imaging that would please 95% of people watching your end product. So, get some nice lenses and shoot away, but when needed go and rent the really high-end kit.

That said, if you're anything like me you'll not pay a bit of attention to my opinion. :)

Jason

[Hrvoje Simic]

Believing is good.
If you really believe you will do everything else you have to.
Knowledge, experience......
After believing you will need the will power. Don't think it will be easy. It won't. Nothing really good comes easy.
If it did you wouldn't value it so much. food for thoughts

Many people discard their dreams because that's the easier way.
Dreams don't come cheap.

What others would sacrifice has nothing to do with you.
Their priorities aren't the same as yours. You have to set your own plans, goals and boundaries.

The more objective you are in doing that, the higher chances are you will succeed.

[Curran Giddens]

I'm 27 years old and I've never owned a car. I used to have an awesome surround sound speaker system (B&W Nautilus 802's, 805's, and HTM2), a 50" HDTV, and a premium digital cable service. Now I watch the absolute cheapest basic cable TV, on a 10 year old CRT computer monitor with headphones for speakers. Pretty substantial sacrifice when you consider my friends are getting new HDTV's, HD Satellite service with all the premium channels, and then sitting around playing Playstation 3 all day.

I decided to save all my money and buy all the equipment necessary to start my own production company. I plan on purchasing all the equipment upfront by myself. Only the best quality equipment, and only the necessities. If the business fails, I can do whatever I want with the equipment. Clients will pay to have their projects produced by my production company, and that money will pay my employees weekly wages. When not working on projects for clients, my employees will be working on my own movie. Investors will pay for actors, props, location shoots, promotion, etc., for my own movie. I have my own other source of income from the freelance typesetting work I do currently to pay for everything else (rent, bills, insurance, craft services, etc.).

Looking to specialize in vfx greenscreen shoots and post-production. I am also looking to purchase a motion control rig like the Mark Roberts UltiHead http://www.mrmoco.com/index2.htm with track, lift, roll, remote head with follow focus. But I'm hoping Curt will come up with something as good for a much cheaper price. I will probably spend over 100k on gear, and another 50k+ when something like the 25kW SES Dish Stirling system http://www.stirlingenergy.com/ is available to small businesses.

I do have a little experience with greenscreen studio shoots, motion tracking data in Maya, 3D backgrounds, rotoscoping, supercloning, and compositing, etc. I used to work on post-production for a TV show ("The Book of Pooh") on the Playhouse Disney channel. I've done a few freelance post-production jobs from home since then, including the Fisher Price Little People series that comes with the toys.

[Michael Schrengohst]

I have been doing this for 27 years, so many of you were babies when I started....I have many friends who wanted to be the next Spielberg and spent every dime they had on their film. Most never recovered from that experience and many left the business altogether. I do remember one guy from the early 90's who did it one step at a time. He is the guy who created Jimmy Neutron and just directed Ant Bully for Tom Hanks. He used to do some low-budget animation's for us. I am still looking around for the cell artwork they did of a BlockBuster internal video we produced. The gear will only get you so far. Once you buy the gear it is only worth what you can produce with it. In 3 years that shiny new RED will be a paperweight. At least I hope it can be upgraded as opposed to sell it for $1500 and get the RED2. My first BetaCam cost $35,000 in 1985. Then in 1990 it was another $75,000 for an edit bay. And every year a new guy comes into the business with better toys. It never stops. So now all the HDCAM shooters and 35MM DP's are groaning about the RED. Some want to embrace this whole idea while others are pooping on the premise. Either way, I have my reservation in - but "the gear will only get you so far."

[Jason Francois]

"the gear will only get you so far."

Very true.

[Finner]

You don't have to eat kraft dinner for every meal to make it. Take one step at a time and do your best while taking those steps. Employers look for someone with a well balanced life for a reason, they make it.

Enjoy life don't put everything you have into your bussiness just get balanced and do your best. It takes a while but people make it.

[xin]

Also, to be politely honest there is sharing. Maybe we don't need an uber-individualist community. Does everyone need to have their own RED and SuperComputers and Studio Monitors and etc. in an Indy community? (sure it's easier, but need?)


If you have a good indy community around there should be no reason why people couldn't help each other out; be it through the connections and resources of REDuser, DVXuser, or your neighborhood film students and producers. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. And if there's not a good indy community around you, no reason you couldn't help create one RIGHT NOW.

Or maybe that's just my misguided Midwestern sensibilities, or maybe I'm just a dirty Communist. Who knows.

[Jason Francois]

Also, to be politely honest there is sharing. Maybe we don't need an uber-individualist community. Does everyone need to have their own RED and SuperComputers and Studio Monitors and etc. in an Indy community? (sure it's easier, but need?)


If you have a good indy community around there should be no reason why people couldn't help each other out; be it through the connections and resources of REDuser, DVXuser, or your neighborhood film students and producers. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. And if there's not a good indy community around you, no reason you couldn't help create one RIGHT NOW.

Or maybe that's just my misguided Midwestern sensibilities, or maybe I'm just a dirty Communist. Who knows.

It sounds really good in theory and it is a very valid idea. It's what I hope to do with my gear if I follow through on all this.

The problem with communism is that it doesn't take long for people to start getting greedy again and irrational in their entitlement, so then it ruins it for everybody.

We have a touch and go kind of indie community here in Phx, but I'm trying as hard as a can to put my energy in places that will make a difference and help those that are growing the community.

We'll see how it turns out.

[donatello b]

i have a friend that has been homeless for 3 years .. lives out of his car ... any extra $$ he gets he spends it on a film doc project he's been working on the past 15 years ... he just got $10K from a estate ... he is using it to telecine 10,000ft of 16mm to tape, buy a laptop to edit ...he plans to stay living out of his car ...
at 56yrs my brian just can't imagine putting everything on the line ..
my current limit is around 60k .. ( think when i reserved at NAB i was thinkin around 40k) .... i have no plans to rent RED 103 so my brain just can't take the thought of 100k sitting in the closet !!!