In reality this means you are only filming master shots. You can't control the environment to get coverage. However, this really, really speeds up the production process. Basically, you and the actors pick your location. You decide where you are going to place the camera. When you're set up, they walk into the set up, set away the audio and play out the scene. Because there is no crew and no lines to edit, the acting can be completely natural (think Woody Allen circa Manhattan).
Here's the list of kit I think I use (feel free to improvise better solutions):
A good DSLR camera
A portable digital audio recorder
A microphone (not the kind you’re thinking about.. The one I use cost $40)
A Zippo cigarette lighter
A small beanbag
A computer with some professional editing software on it
Some actors
A pocket sized notebook
A brilliant idea for a movie
A script
A dedicated hard drive
An idea about how you’re going to build an audience
One of the things that I think makes this philosophy work is that the writer/director decides in advance, to give everyone who contributes to the movie the rights to distribute the movie for free or for profit. My project has been running for four weeks so far - we’re in writing and pre-production – the first actor I attached has already told me he has friends at a European TV station, to whom he would like to give the finished movie... along with a raft of international arts festivals. Neither of those two distribution options would ever have occurred to me. I'm working on free distrinution via iTunes and also on getting a US thearical release via some of my US contacts. Once you take the rights shackles off a project, it's amazing what happens. Seriously amazing.
Location shot for 400 Grams.
Finally, I know there are issues about working this way. It forces moviemakers to give up a lot. However, the freedoms it gives in return, to just work with a team of people quickly and creatively to make a movie, more than pays off for any restrictions.
And… finally, if you know of anyone who would make an outstanding movie, if only they had this one piece of paper, then give it to them. Pass this on to the people you believe it will inspire.
[Editorial Note: Clive also plans for this to be opensource so that anyone can make their own, with provisions for where they are in the world. One is already being adapted for Texas. - JH]
Clive Davies Frayne is an award winning screenwriter and film producer, ex-standup comedian, former award winning radio copywriter, cultural philosopher and founder of Filmutopia. He has spent the last twenty years working in the media industry, sometimes making a living as a writer, but mainly spent as a full time mediahobo and professional irritant. He has written and directed half a dozen shorts, radio drama for the BBC and two features. He’s best known for his iconoclastic rants about movie making and the movie business. His new Lone Gun Manifesto Movie 400 Grams goes into principal photography August 2010 (release Feb 2011). He can be reached on his website.
