Use only industry cameras to get a major film distributor?

[AcousticAl]

Love it or hate it, "The Blair Witch Project" was wildly successful, and was shot on a mixture of Hi8 and 16mm (CP-16, vintage news film camera). It was conceived by film school students, who managed to line up a few investors. It got into Sundance and found distribution throuh Artisan Entertainment from there.

Marketing and connections. Artisan never questioned the shooting formats.

[directorik]

During the 1990's and early 2000's there were many movies released in theaters shot
on "consumer" cameras - both MiniDV and HDV. The theatrical distribution model has
changed since 2010 because of VOD and streaming. Fewer and fewer ultra-low budget
movies see even a small theatrical release.

But again, I find it interesting that with the availability of small, inexpensive full HD and
even 4k cameras none of can find a feature made on the Blackmagic that was released
in theaters. I believe this has more to do with the market than with the camera. In the
current market it's difficult to get theatrical distribution for a low budget genre film with
a big name star.

So while sammy attributes the lack of "blockbuster" movies made on the two camera
types, I think it has to do with the current market for theatrical movies.

[WalterB]

You might be onto something here, Rik!

[Alcove Audio]

Originally Posted by AcousticAl

Love it or hate it, "The Blair Witch Project" was wildly successful, and was shot on a mixture of Hi8 and 16mm (CP-16, vintage news film camera). It was conceived by film school students, who managed to line up a few investors. It got into Sundance and found distribution throuh Artisan Entertainment from there.

They also put in almost $1million into audio post to make it theater ready.

[sammy81z]

Originally Posted by directorik

In the
current market it's difficult to get theatrical distribution for a low budget genre film with
a big name star.

Interesting post. Did you mean to say "without
a big name star."?

[sammy81z]

Originally Posted by Alcove Audio

They also put in almost $1million into audio post to make it theater ready.

One million is a lot if it is to be paid by the filmmakers making an ultra low budget flick. I assume the said million was paid by the distributor?

Not to stray from this point but can an average feature film get some decent theatre ready audio post for $5,000 to $10,000? I know audio post has a lot of elements but for the sake of this question, let us assume the film had excellent recorded dialogue and no ADR is required.

[Alcove Audio]

Originally Posted by sammy81z

One million is a lot if it is to be paid by the filmmakers making an ultra low budget flick. I assume the said million was paid by the distributor?

Yup. A very large chunk was spent on ADR. Other than that it was mostly Foley, some sound effects and a real theatrical mix (the biggest $$$ chunk).

Originally Posted by sammy81z

Not to stray from this point but can an average feature film get some decent theatre ready audio post for $5,000 to $10,000? I know audio post has a lot of elements but for the sake of this question, let us assume the film had excellent recorded dialogue and no ADR is required.

Excellent production sound changes the approach to the dialog edit. Instead of being a rescue mission (which happens all too frequently) the dialog edit now becomes a creative endeavor. It may sound stupid, but just choosing which "yeahhhh….." can take quite a while, but can make a huge difference in the final product. You may want to check out this thread:

http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=63057

My specialty is audio post for low/no/mini/micro budget projects, "Last Exit" being one of them. I put a little over 100 hours into it - a full dialog edit, as detailed a Foley as I could in my small room, and pulled sound effects from libraries & created them myself. I then dropped in Mitchell Gibbs very cool score and did the final mix.

For "Last Exit" my 100 hours comes to a little over seven hours of audio post work per linear minute of film. So, at least for me, a 100 minute feature would be over 700 hours worth of work. The amount of "special" sound effects work - for example, a 9 second two person shoot out ("Last Exit") versus a 3+ minute gun battle involving 14 people with 6 different types of weapons plus magic/supernatural effects ("ShadowGlade") - will impact the budget.

With film/video you only get to influence only two (2) of the five (5) senses - sight and sound. Sound is, literally, HALF of the experience.


If you want to PM me I could walk you through a sample budget.

[directorik]

Originally Posted by sammy81z

Interesting post. Did you mean to say "without a big name star."?

No. Even with a name star it's getting more and more difficult to get
theatrical distribution. Even if a professional camera is used.

“Tangerine” (2015) was shot using the iPhone 5S and was released in
16 theaters in the US – bumped up to 44 on its third week. It was in
theaters for 10 weeks. Magnolia Pictures thought people might pay to
see it because of its content and didn't care about the camera used. It
even got a small theatrical in several other countries.

That same year Caliber Media made a western starring Kurt Russel shot
on RED. It did well at a few festivals but no distributor was interested.
All professional equipment was used and it was Kurt f-ing Russel in a
western. The camera used was not a factor. No distributor thought people
would pay to see it.

You get no argument from me that the equipment used is important. Just
not as important as you say it is. A distributor is far more concerned with
the content than the equipment; will it bring paying customers to the theaters.

[sammy81z]

Originally Posted by directorik

No. Even with a name star it's getting more and more difficult to get
theatrical distribution. Even if a professional camera is used.

“Tangerine” (2015) was shot using the iPhone 5S and was released in
16 theaters in the US – bumped up to 44 on its third week. It was in
theaters for 10 weeks. Magnolia Pictures thought people might pay to
see it because of its content and didn't care about the camera used. It
even got a small theatrical in several other countries.

That same year Caliber Media made a western starring Kurt Russel shot
on RED. It did well at a few festivals but no distributor was interested.
All professional equipment was used and it was Kurt f-ing Russel in a
western. The camera used was not a factor. No distributor thought people
would pay to see it.

You get no argument from me that the equipment used is important. Just
not as important as you say it is. A distributor is far more concerned with
the content than the equipment; will it bring paying customers to the theaters.

Quite interesting indeed!

[b0ssPLEASE]

I'm not an expert by any means, but generally I'd say it doesn't
really matter what kind of camera is used to get the shots in a
film, as long as the shots are framed well etc.
I doubt a major film producer would be so elitist that they would
refuse to work on a film because an industry specific camera wasn't used