Due to the fact that the quicktime file is only about 3" by 3" in size, I could not tell whether this was shot on 16mm or 35mm. If anyone knows, I would greatly appreciate it if they could pass along the information.
hey sorry it took me so long to write back. hope you guys still check this out...
anyhow, the old man answered my add in Backstage Magazine, a popular magazine here in NYC to advertise roles for theater/film/TV etc. Mim was a friend of mine from church who i knew was a great actress. Lou the husband was a local Pennsylvania real estate agent who liked to do theater on the side. and Tommy was a friend's younger brother.
and yes, luck played a HUGE part in it. especially with the old man.
well...i've got a ton of credit card debt i'm still trying to pay off thanks to shooting and finishing "shark!" on 16mm. so financially, i'm in no state to make another short film...yet. and since i'm not a student anymore, i guess it wouldn't qualify. i could put some of my smaller projects up from film school, but they're not as "professional" as this last one. but we'll see.
buying it cost $1700. developing it and transfering it to beta so we could edit on avid cost $3000. then to take it BACK to film, i had to pay a negative cutter ($3500), get titles made ($2500), and have a couple prints made before they got the colors right ($1500).
To save time, i hired a professional to do my sound design and mix ($2400 with discount). Chuck in some video copies ($500) and posters ($600) and it starts adding up real quick.
I saved myself a lot of money though. All the actors worked for free, as well as the crew. I got all my locations for free. It was a 10-day shoot, my parents paid for food and housed my crew and a friend housed my actors for free. My friend is a commercial editor so he cut my film on Avid for free (saving me thousands!!!) My composer worked for free. so i did save a lot.
I got 95% of the equipment from NYU (for free...kinda), and only spent about $300 on other lenses and equipment rentals. renting a U-haul for all the stuff cost about $400.
The grand total came out to just over $19,000. I know, that's a lot. but at NYU they taught us that as a general rule, expect to pay $1000 for every page of script or every minute of finished film. My script was 25 pages long and my movie is 28 minutes long. and i spent $19,000. so i did pretty well.
unfortunately, a lot of this money came from my credit cards. i did manage to raise several thousand dollars, but i still have yet to pay off a large chunk. it'll probably take me a year to pay it off completely. but i've got a film i'm happy with, so to me it's worth it. and when it's projected on a big screen it looks GREAT.
but i won't be financing any more short films by myself for a looong time.