quote:

Originally posted by Darkfire001:
wow Paul lol, how many takes did you guys do?

Generally for every minute of footage we have, we try to record at most six takes of it. Then with scenes where we want extra shots it averages out to about six minutes of unedited footage per minute of finished footage.

SO 1-DV Tape per 10 Minutes. Albeit, we don't run length to length, we generally only use abotu 60-90% of the tape jst to give some room.

For my latest film (which I'll submit to studentfilms.com as soon as I complete all the post-production), I used 2-and-a-half tapes for scripted scenes, and for the improvisational sections (which total 6 minutes), another 2-and-a-half were used. Multiple takes existed for nearly every single scene (I would retake only if something messed up or didn't look right- I didn't have the time to do the "Film numerous takes and pick which you like best during editing" method), though I only had to do reshoots once (bad lighting). The final cut should run a little under 24 minutes.

As for how much tape I use... I fast-forward one or two seconds ahead of a take, so as to make sure the ends of takes don't get recorded over (I've had that happen to me before). I use the tape straight from the beginning, and I'll usually stop once it says there's 5 minutes of tape left. Near the end of the tape is where it gets all scrambled. Scrambled video = ruined take = reshoots, and I don't like reshoots. (my cast runs on a very tight schedule, and there are far too many scheduling conflicts to waste time)

I think they specify on the box the tape comes in, as to how long it is. I could be wrong, though. (...if we measure in the literal sense, I've used over 158 meters of tape on improvisational sections alone!)