Mike Carroll - Naked Filmmaking: How To Make A Feature-Length Film - Without A Crew - For $10,000-$6,000 Or Less Revised & Expanded For DSLR Filmmakers

BOOKS BY MIKE CARROLL

Breaking Into TV News: How To Get A Job & Excel

As A TV Reporter-Photographer

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Dog Soldiers: The Dogumentary

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Nightbeats

NAKED FILMMAKING: HOW TO MAKE A FEATURE-LENGTH FILM-WITHOUT A CREW-FOR $10,000 $6,000 OR LESS. REVISED & EXPANDED FOR DSLR FILMMAKERS 2013 by Mike Carroll. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Mikecarrollfilms.com

ISBN-13: 978-1475027488

ISBN-10: 1475027486

First Edition: March 2010

Revised Edition: March 2013

Dedicated to my amazing wife
Bonnie,
who unhesitatingly encouraged me to jump into the digital revolution and has supported every computer and camera investment along the way and always been honest with me whether an idea did or didn't work. Not many people can claim that kind of support in their partner. I still find it pretty amazing myself. Everyone tells me I'm a lucky man. But then, I knew that already.

When I started writing the first edition of Naked Filmmaking in 2006 I honestly didn't know if I could write a book. For most of my life I'd focused all my attention on writing screenplays, where words are used sparingly and the emphasis is to have pages with lots of white space. With a book, on the other hand, the words have to fill the pages. This was extremely daunting. Yet, I believed I had something new to say for filmmakers trying to break into film festivals and the independent scene.

The Digital Revolution had completely changed the game for aspiring filmmakers. You no longer needed to play the money game that was required to make a movie in 16mm or 35mm. Nor did you need the traditional crew of cinematographer/camera operator, assistant cameraman/focus puller, soundman/boom operator and so on. (You'll notice that I've combined several of these jobs because that's the norm on low-budget filmed features.) In fact, with the new digital camcorders that could record picture and sound together-and on automatic for the novice technicians-you could make a movie without any crew, as I have done on a documentary and two feature-length dramatic films.

The Revolution is continuing to march onward. In the first edition I stressed the importance of shooting scenes and not playing them back for fear of wrinkling the videotape and ruining a take. As Naked Filmmaking was just going out, the new tapeless cameras were just coming in. A year and a half later videotape production had ceased all over the world.

I also railed against dual-system audio recording in favor of recording directly into the camcorder. Then the DSLR cameras started crashing onto the filmmaking shores where the only way to get good, clean professional sound was to return to the old-fashioned methods of a camera and a separate audio recorder for sound. So again, changes in technology dictated taking a change in my stance on how to record audio.

Not wanting to be left behind, I pre-ordered one of the first Canon 7Ds to arrive in the U.S. in order to get a grasp on the new and rapidly evolving DSLR scene. Amazingly, as I write this in February 2013, there still aren't any DSLR cameras with direct XLR audio inputs built into them. (In keeping with the first edition, however, perhaps once this Second Edition starts hitting publication that too will change.)

Now anybody with $800 can buy a DSLR camera capable of shooting 1080 HD and 24p. It's only a matter of time before DSLRs capable of 2.5K will become available for purchase at your nearest Best Buy, Target or Costco.

For these reasons alone, after only three years since Naked Filmmaking first went into print, I felt it was time to bring the book up to date.

Lastly, on a simpler level, I wanted to make the book more user friendly for the beginning filmmaker. Throughout the first edition of the book I describe various types of equipment from lavalieres to C-stands to birdcage lights, but this was done entirely through words and descriptions. If anybody wanted to know more about these things, the information was there for them to look these items up on the Internet. But the more and more that I thought about it, I started to think that the whole process of making a movie is so complicated and so daunting, that if I could simplify the learning curve in any way, the least I could do is to include photos of what all this stuff is. (In fact, when I've spoken to professional film groups, even most professional cinematographers have never heard of, much less seen, a birdcage light.) So, as thoroughly as I can possibly be, I have made an effort to include pictures of everything that I am talking about.

Much of the original edition has remained in tact. My filmmaking methods of how to cast a film, working with actors, to light or not light, making a film with what you have access to-all of that remains the same. Although some things have been moved around in the revising process. And I've added many more photographs of the equipment that I am talking about.

If you enjoyed Naked Filmmaking the first time around, I think you're going to like it even more now.

My term for all narrative (non-documentary) films that involve scripts and actors, whether they're drama, comedy, musical, action, sci-fi, whatever.

Also, this book only deals with how to make a movie and not the wheeler-dealer aspects of money raising, deal making, negotiating, profit participation or points. Although, if someone promises to pay you in profit points in lieu of cash don't think twice, get up and walk away. That's because in the movie business nothing ever goes into profit. Companies keep cranking out film after film that pull in loads and loads of bread, yet all the accountants' books show nothing but red. In spite of this bookkeeping anomaly wheeler-dealer producers and executives still wind up with new cars, big houses and heated pools.

A huge profile of a man with blond hair and blue eyes stares intently at a burning match. The man's mouth wrinkles in a bemused smile and blows out the flame. In the blink of an eye we're transported to an expanse of desert.

Twp men in Arab robes stand caked in sand and dust, parched from thirst, on the edge of madness. Then from out of the wilderness comes the blast of a ship's horn. Beyond the crest of sand dunes appear the smoke stacks of a steam ship. The two men race up a sandy slope to behold the rich, blue waters of the Suez Canal.

The same blue-eyed man astride a horse leads a thunderous charge into a tattered, defeated army of retreating Turks.

Finally, the blond-haired man stares off into nothing as he's driven out of the desert.

Finally, I was my first movie going memory. I was seven or eight and my parents had taken my brother and me to see Lawrence Of Arabia. To be honest, I didn't understand anything on the screen. But I loved every frame. It was a defining moment. I've never been the same since.

GETTING NAKED

naked filmmaker (n_-k_d film-m_-k_r) noun a: an artist of motion pictures responsible for all aspects of motion picture production; b: a writer-producer-director-cinematographer-soundman-editor of a film; c: an auteur who makes a film without a crew and is solely responsible for the production quality, as in having no one else to blame