Make a Digital Film for a Few Hundred Bucks

Now that the cost of prosumer and consumer electronics has fallen, most people can now afford to make their own home or independent film movies. Whether you just intend to post to a popular video hosting site such as U-Tube, Myspace or Google Video or want to get involved in making short film and enter a short film art festival. It is important to know a few very low budget ways on how to get started.

If you have a PC already you won’t even have to purchase editing software. Windows movie maker is installed on most operating systems if you bought your home computer in the last few years. I recently purchased a Panasonic 3ccd camcorder for 430 bucks that is compact and offers a great picture. But you don’t even need that. Whether you go to the online classifieds or buy a new camcorder you should be able to get a decent camcorder for 150 to 250 dollars.

Lighting, no problem. Those old painter or mechanics lights will work fine. You can build in cinematic or artistic interest in making your lighting more or less extreme. That takes some practice and experience all of which makes it fun.

Actors are probably your hardest part. Of course, you can grab a few of your closest friends for a weekend and put something together. But, my recommendation if you are starting out at the beginning level would be to enter one of those 48 hour film making competitions where teams enter and write, shoot & edit a 5 minute film all in one weekend. This way, no-one would have to commit for a large length of time and your production will happen quickly. If any of that doesn’t work, then at least bribe your buddies by offering to pick up the pizza.

Once you have assembled your equipment and a list of potential actors to join you in this quest for making movie history. You are well ready to begin writing a short script. It is recommended that one person takes the lead and makes the main decisions regarding the overall story. But, it is more fun in this setting to make it a collaborative effort and invite ideas in from all interested and make a film that everyone is excited about doing.

Some additional items that will need to be considered is locations for the story, special props that will be needed and royalty free sound for background (like the latest hit, from your neighbors garage band.)

Film making is on the rise, movies being posted to the internet 24/7 as novice film makers are putting their creativity into motion. You don’t have to spend much money and until you have developed some greater experience in film making it is suggested not to invest too much money. Remember keep your day job…but stay producing and keep it fun.