1 GET FREE OR INEXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT
One of the easiest things you can do to shave some dollars off the bottom line is to beg, borrow, or maneuver your way into the equipment you need for your project.
Free or inexpensive equipment is all around you. You just have to sniff it out. If you find a DP, crew member, or friend with their own equipment or access to equipment, you can: (a) convince them to work for free, (b) barter for their services, (c)borrow or offer to rent their equipment, or (d) negotiate a good rate for them and their equipment.
The other route is to maneuver your way into a free equipment situation. Hands-on filmmaking workshops are one way, but there are also multiple jobs at TV stations, film/video rental houses, colleges, production companies, and in corporate video departments where you (or a very close friend) may borrow equipment as a standard perk. Imagine that. You can actually get paid to borrow the equipment you need for your project. Now that’s resourceful filmmaking!
2 GET FREE OR INEXPENSIVE CREW
Free or low-cost crews are pretty standard for tight budgets. Look for people who are serious and take a professional approach to their job, even if they are less experienced. Seek out the hungry boom operators looking to move up to sound mixer. Look for the 2nd
Unit DP or Asst. Camera with a gleam in her eye, who’s ready to be a DP.
If you have production skills, you may also barter your services for those of a colleague. It’s a fairly standard practice for small groups of indie filmmakers to just take turns cooperatively working on one another’s films for free. (Just make sure this is mutually understood before you give up half your summer for your friend’s film only to find out that he’ll be vacationing in Cancun during your shoot.)
If you enroll in a film school or workshop, there’s a good chance you’ll get a free crew. If you pay any of your crew (and you really should if you can), start with the DP, Sound Person, and/or Editor as these are your make-or-break positions.
3 GET FREE OR INEXPENSIVE FOOD
Feeding your crew good food can get expensive, especially with larger crews and longer shoots. As any hungry college student knows, free or cheap food isn’t too hard to come by if you know where to look and who to ask.
4 USE CARS INSTEAD OF PRODUCTION TRUCKS
I don’t know about where you live, but here in New York City cargo van rentals start at about $100.00/day and Cube Trucks rent for almost double that. Add in the price of gas and insurance and you’re talking about a good amount of change. Since most DV equipment is fairly small and portable, a cheaper alternative is to just use cars for transporting crew and gear whenever possible. If you empty out the trunk first, you should be able to easily accommodate a DV camera, sound gear, light kit, and accessories. Even if you don’t own or have access to a car, renting a car is always cheaper and more fuel efficient than renting a van or truck.
5 SHOOT AND TRAVEL OVER LESS DAYS WITH LESS PEOPLE
This is simple mathematics. The more you shoot and the longer you travel, the more your film will cost. With unfolding subject matter, knowing when to stop shooting and start editing is often difficult, but many projects such as historical docs or reality shows can be scheduled and planned ahead of time. Do the math for each shooting day and look for shoots that can be eliminated or combined. Travel is a necessary part of following a story, but you want to make sure your travel is cost-effective and adds value to your project.
Traveling for 6 hours and feeding and putting up a 5-person crew in a hotel just to shoot some B-roll for a montage of your subject’s hometown is not a wise investment of your resources. Instead, you could just shoot it with your DP only. You could also make the most of the trip by interviewing your subject’s family members and friends while there. Maybe instead of video of their hometown, a montage of still pictures will suffice . . . Make travel count. Just take a few people and stay only as long as necessary.
