Food is one of those expenses depending on the amount of people you plan to have over at a given day. I have found if you do your homework you can almost always find some resteront. Just tell them you are a student filmmaker or an indi filmmaker that is looking for some food donations to the production. You might need to reach the corporate offices of some companies. Never hurts to look. Secretaries are always your friend and your best asset so be nice to them like you are talking to a boss. Trust me you will thank me later.
I think the most generous restaurant to donate to my filmmaking cause is pat and oscars.
Costco can also donate like a 25 $ gift card. Its not allot but you can be surprised what you can git with it. Just go to the manager and tell him or her your filming situation and your need for any kind of donation that can help.
Remember its always better for the filmmaker making the film to ask for this stuff because it shows more heart. I have found sending anybody else just makes it harder. if you are the producer then I guess it could work.
The point being is you never know where you can get donations. The larger the resteront chain the better chance you have of getting some kind of donation. and don't be picky take what you can get and be nice.
The reason why this works is because there are many corporations that are looking for a tax brake and they have a certain amount of money set aside every year to give to charity. Filmmaking is still an art and it is not begging its a mutual relationship.
Ok here comes the next million doller tip. foam core
make sure it has white and black on both sides, but if you find a sale then just take what you can get. One time I went to the 99 cent store and it was selling them. I bought 12 I think. they where all white, but I did not care. They where cheap.
In production these things have as many uses as gaffer tape. You can block light from windows, lights ect. You can bounce light from the light fixture to the subject or if you are out side you can put them on the ground to reflect the light up to the actors faces.
The article has a lot of good lighting tips but mostly I wanted to show it because they have a cupel of places they show lighting with foam core.
The quality of light these bords bounce is really nice. In all honestly I really don't like those silver and gold reflectors because it reflects too much of a sheen. It works if your doing a hot model on a summer day or if you are doing some kinda scifi flick or something along the lines, but its not a stubble look that foam core inherently produces.
Mirrors are awesome, but can be a pain because the sun's position changes throughout the day. there are mirrors that you can get at a rental facility that stick on a c stand but I don't see why you can't make one. its just a mirror sitting on a swivel. these mirrors can reflect the equivalent of a 10 k light or more. No power requirements and its cheap. make sure you have the outside edges taped with gaff tape. and see if you can put a frame with a backing in it to prevent any accidents.
Neon Paper has some awesome properties too.
Just put some neon paper on the floor and you can bounce up some crazy light on your actors faces. If you use a large glass bole you can put some water in that and set it on the neon paper and shine some light on that and it can create some neat effects with the water ripples. If you put blue paper down you can get that nice water reflection in a controlled environment.
white bed sheets are nice for a number of things. you can reflect or soften light from an incoming window.
Clear plastic sheets are great for defusing light of different sources.
This stuff I have used on a production where we needed a lot of light but we only had 1 k lights at my disposal. So what I did was bunched all the lights together and had the plastic sheeting about 5 feet away to avoid any fires or milting of the plastic. I was able to light the a whole room without too many shadows using this technique.
Florescent shop lights are great too.
You can use daylight bulbs to have a fixed color temp. Just set your cameras shutter at 100 to compensate for the balest flicker issues and you are set to go.
Florescent daylight bulbs are awesome too.
you can put a string of these things together and you got great even light.
I am not sure what these are called but I will call them shop lights for now. In any case, you can use these and they are super cheap to get.
You can use long florescent lights or the bulbs to a green screen or infinite white. I am sure your imagination can go wild with these lights alone. If you get the dim able florescent light bulbs you can controle the amount of light in your environment. Not to mention getting those nice close up shots.
Halogen shop lights also work ok but its a little on the warm side and a little muddy. I would use these for indoor and out door shoots because of the warmth it can produce. Keep in mind that these store bought halogen lights are like 300 kalvin. Tungsten is 320 kalvin. I would not bother jelling it. let the camera on daylight or tungsten and leave it at that. You can always color correct in post.
You can also use screen door mesh to cut out light from out side. It works kinda like a silk. If you have a screen big enough you can put it behind the subject on a bright sunny day and cut out about 1-2 stops from the bright back ground. you can also hang it over there heads to cut out light.
These lighting elements are all things you can find lying around the house. The diference between these penny productions and a big budgeted production is the amount of energy it takes to make it all come together. Having money to spend on a production cuts out some of the headache, but it does not make it any easer. Its just different. Putting stuped people in charge of any money will cause problems and will drain a budget rather quickly. These tips will help minimise budget related issues and make producing a film more realistic.
So get out there and make a movie already. With these tips there should be no excuse for why you can't make a good movie under a shoestring budget.
By
Robert Sawin
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