Edward Burns talks Indie Filmmaking

Edward Burns, the Writer/Director/Actor who makes "those small talky New York movies about the Irish guys from Long Island," conducted an informal Q & A about his latest indie project via Twitter yesterday.

Burns first came to fame with the film The Brothers McMullen, which was shot on a shoe-string budget of $28,000, and though he's produced films on much larger budgets since then, he is now focused on very low-budget indie films; "I went hat in hand to the money guys for years. Just couldn't do it anymore. Decided to write smaller stories and never looked back."

The latest movie,  Newlyweds, just finished shooting, and is now in post-production. It was shot with a budget of $9,000 and a tiny crew; three guys rotated responsibilities. The plot of Newlyweds he describes as "they think they have a nice easy marriage. Then reality hits."

What follows is most of the tweets from last night (he also posted some photos from the production.) I've reordered the posts and made some slight editing changes to make it more digestable. But follow him on Twitter and you may learn other things about film making - and the film - like how the title Triangles of NY lost out to Newlyweds. He's also been soliciting poster ideas for the film's showing at the Tribeca Film Festival.

"Anybody can make a movie now. There are no more excuses."

Newlyweds started as workshop. Some scripted pages. We shot improvised scenes, rewrote, then reshot. then cut some sequences...Story then showed itself. Wrote more scenes, shot more scenes. Wrote the rest of the script over three months with actor input. Hard but fun

When we started shooting back in November, we didn't have a script and were thinking it might be a web series.

Our first day of shooting was a camera test a few days before Thanksgiving. Half that days footage made the cut. 4 months and 12 shooting days later we finally wrapped.
Ultra low budget filmmaking. Behind the scenes of Newlyweds. Indie film lives! This is the whole crew: http://yfrog.com/h0luahrj
Newlyweds shooting budget: 5k for actors, 2k insurance, 2k food and drink. 9k in the can. We only shot 12 days. That's how to make an independent film.

Got all locations for free, wore our own clothes, no hair and make up, no lights, no sound mixer, owned our Canon 5D.
Another behind scenes picture: http://yfrog.com/h8pduirj
Actors are all friends I've worked with before with the exception of Caitlan Fitzgerald - who is now a friend - and are all SAG. [You've] got to work with friends when you have very little money to pay them.

For audio we used these flash card recorders by M-Audio? I think that was the name. Set the levels and used lavs. Wish the digital revolution extended to location sound recording. Somebody know something I don't?

Lighting was mostly available light and practicals. On a few scenes we used a china ball
Here's another Newlyweds behind the scenes shot. Take notice of what you don't need. http://yfrog.com/h8sxnpvj
No boom (most days), no AD, no script supervisor. Three guys, rotated responsibilities. And a great DP.

We own the camera, sound equipment, and use Final Cut on my Mac.

Sound is important but don't let it slow you down. The Italian Neo-realists didn't and they made some pretty great films.

No disrespect to soundmen and women, but on these shooting schedules (12 days) you can't be precious. When I have a budget, I have respect
Shooting on the streets: http://yfrog.com/h2avnbwj
Anybody can make a movie now. There are no more excuses. True, you do need a few grand. But you used to need a few million.

Budgets for past movies: The Groomsmen 3 Million, Purple Violets 4 Million, She's the One 3 Million, Sidewalks of NY 1 Million, No Looking Back 5 Million, Brothers McMullen 25K. Looking For Kitty 250K, Nice Guy Johnny 25k, Newlyweds 9k

Now [comes] the tricky part. Keeping the post production cost down.

Twitter: Edward Burns
Edward Burns.net

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sony GV-D200 review

Image
Sony GV-D200 I've been using a Sony GV-D200 deck to transfer old Video8 and Hi8 tapes. Some of these tapes are over twenty years old, and no longer having a Hi8 camcorder that worked I was concerned that if I didn't do something about transferring them to a more modern format soon, I might never be able to. While Sony no longer make camcorders that use these tapes - that I know of - Sony does still sell the GV-D200 deck (or Video Walkman, as it's sometimes labelled.) They also offer the GV-D800, which is almost identical but adds a small LCD screen for about $120 more. I didn't think I'd need a screen since I was using this to capture to the computer, but you will need an external monitor when you first set it up. Physically, the device is small. At 5 7/8" wide, 5 3/8" deep and 2" high, it's the smallest video deck I've encountered. I used to have a Video8 deck that I thought was small; and it was twice as deep and twice as high. The t...
Read more

Response: Which iPhone to Get?

Image
In response to my iPhone musings, I got the following reader email which actually sums up a lot of my second and third thoughts too: You might have a point about the fancier camera, but otherwise I would buy the smaller model. Its screen is about the same size as that of my Nexus 4, and I don't feel at all like it limits me with a too-small screen. But I do sometimes stretch to get my thumb the reach to the other corner of the screen. It is plenty big for a phone. A phone is a pocket thing. (Well, in my case it lives an ancient REI soft sunglasses case that I have on my belt.) Ubiquitous, handy, convenient, almost always with me. Small is crucial for all of that. Certainly a large screen is cool, but you need a place to put it: don't break a fundamental feature of a pocket phone by getting too big. That is what your small tablet is for. I have my phone with me almost always. I have my Nexus 7 tablet with me nearly as much. The bigger screen is great, yet it fits in some...
Read more

Should you buy the Sony NEX-FS100 Kit Lens?

Image
The Sony NEX-FS100 is available in two configurations: B & H : NEX-FS100U Camcorder only $4,999 B & H : NEX-FS100U (with 18-200mm lens) $5,599 But what does that extra $600 get you? It get's you this: Sony 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Zoom Lens for NEX Camera This lens is also available separately for $799.99, so at $200 off you'd think everyone would be jumping on it. But not so fast... In his article about switching from the Canon 5D Mark II to the Sony NEX-FS100 , Paul Antico  at Need Creative says of the kit lens: 7) Its 18-200 F3.6-6.3 kit lens absolutely sucks and should be avoided (thankfully, you can order it without one) [ 1 ] But is it that bad? At B & H 's site, 43 reviews give it an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars. That's not a bad rating, though many of these people are using it for stills, and the most common complaint noted is how large and heavy it is. Of course this feeling of size would be exacerbated when you put it on a tiny camera ...
Read more