Film Flap Morphs into The Frugal Filmmaker

In an effort to narrow the focus of this blog a bit, it has been renamed to "The Frugal Filmmaker". While I like all types of filmmaking from micro to big budget, I'm more passionate about creating with what I have around me or what I can easily obtain at little or no cost. This forces creativity, and I get very excited about coming up with inexpensive solutions to filmmaking problems.

An example of this is a DIY light kit that I have been putting together. I want to improve as a cinematographer and I need more control of the light entering the lens. This meant I needed a light kit, but knew that I could not afford to spend around $1,000 for a nice one or even $200 for a cheap one. So, I did my homework and assembled a pretty versatile kit for about $100. It fits right into the new philosophy of this blog and fills a very real need. I'll be detailing it here in the near future.

There is so much you can do if you just think outside the box a little. You don't need the latest peice of fancy gear to make good movies. You need a good script, a good cast and good crew and the rest will fall in line. With these elements it doesn't matter if you shoot on a cell phone or a RED camera. What matters is that you work hard and get your vision in the can. No more excuses. Use your brain.

Remember in Apollo 13 when the CO2 scrubbers failed? The engineers on earth had to build one using only a box of parts available to the astronauts. And they did it! So it is with us. We have lots of things we have access to that can help us succeed. It won't always be free, but it will be affordable. And it will work.