Back to Basics
Posted: May 30th, 2009 | Author: John | Filed under: Good Advice | Tags: inspiration, production, video | 3 Comments »Video. The combination of moving image, spoken word and music is undeniably effective in captivating our attention, transmitting a message and eliciting an emotional response. It’s the dominant art form of our century. It is flexible and powerful, and now it’s open to virtually everybody. For two thousand bucks you can have a good HD camera and a computer for editing. It’s easy to go overboard in the editing room — because it’s so cheap, so easy and fun to manipulate images and create computer generated content. It’s like being God, or a god, and messing with how reality is perceived. (Zizek has an essay about how the camera is God’s eyeball.) However, like the bad graphics from the 80′s, it’s good to remember that new technology does not result in better art. It actually poses a great temptation to go overboard.
I just saw this video at the Matador Network. It’s by some students and an emerging rap artist in New York. This little production will no doubt launch Nyle into more of a spotlight and bring some musicians and directors to the attention of deep-pocketed producers. It just goes to show what some enthusiasm, talent and coordination can do. This was done in a single take with some masterful use of lighting.
I think of M. Knight Shyamalan’s “Signs” and how not seeing the aliens is more powerful. We fear what we don’t understand. Leave it to the imagination. Probably some other good maxims to apply here, but I’m out.
So, question #1: In film and video production, is less usually more? With a limited budget, less has to equal more. But how much more can we get with how much less?
And one more question (#2): What’s the lowest (inflation adjusted) budget film to reach the big screens on at least a semi-wide release?
That song rocks. Nyle is going places. And that lighting was great!
Is less usually more? No. Not usually. Because more means visual thrills and, if the story doesn't suck, the potential is sky high. But more is still possible with less, and that's what we care about.
In recent history the biggest blockbusting micro-budget films have been The Blair Witch Project and Napoleon Dynamite. Blair cost just over 20 grand… think about that… and made 240 million (the best budget-to-revenue take on record). ND was shot on film for under a half million and made 46.
I saw an interview with J. J. Abrams (http://guildreview.blogspot.com/2009/05/cinema-as... that addressed some of these issues. He mentioned a scene where a couple is having their perfect day together and we see them in a car but we don't hear what they're saying. It's a moment that allows – even forces – the viewer to fill in the content there. What would the perfect conversation with your sweetheart entail? It's a subjective question and the smart director leaves it that way.
This was the same concept that the greats of old-time radio drama understood: half the fun was in what you COULDN'T see, in imagining it yourself. In a similar way, many directors of silent film learned to do more with less.
I agree with Jacob that the cheapest film to make it quite big was the Blair Witch Project. It was a genius concept, really. But the down side is that you can only do that once.
It seems to me that one of the problems of trying to do more with less is that you can only tell certain kinds of stories that way. You can go intimate; you can't go epic. Frankly, people want both. I know I do. There are days I want to see an In America or a Once, but there are days I want to see a Lord of the Rings or a Saving Private Ryan. Low budget has its virtues and its place, but it can't do everything.
I read your article with great pleasure. Thank you.