One of the achievements of Kung Fu Vampire Killers is that it was made for the ridiculously small budget of just $NZ14,000 (just over $US6,000). Let's face it, next to 'Lawrence of Arabia' or 'Titanic', it looks cheap. It is also kinetic, exciting, suspenseful, and very funny. KFVK revels in the grungy quality of the heavily processed video and makes up for what it lacks in 35mm gloss with boundless energy and chutzpah. "I think if we had more money we may well have made a less good film" says director Phil Davison.

    Tips...

Work with what you've got.
Sometimes it's best to write your story around what locations you have rather than do it the other way around. Even if the only place available is the dingy depressing flat you live in there's a story. If your parents own a florist's shop set your movie there. Starting this way can throw up all sorts of useful ideas for script writing. For example:

Florist shop plot ideas:

1. •Comedy romance - former tough guy inherits failing Florist business and decides to make a go of it.
   

2. •Thriller - the florist is next to a bank or something and the bad guys are digging a tunnel while the florist is tied up.
   

3. •Comedy thriller - The florist is a front for a dope growing operation
   

and if these ideas seem silly, remember Little Shop of Horrors and its remake. It's as if by accepting limitations you remove the whiteness of the blank sheet of paper and get inspiration.

Free Sets
With a cute little MiniDV set up you can race around and shoot your scenes without causing too much fuss - meaning that locations that would cost a big production a small fortune to rope off and populate with extras are yours for the taking. Just turn up and do it before anyone notices. Make use of public buildings. I used the wonderful entrance to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, shooting at night when no one was around using available light. I once shot a chase through the Auckland docks - we just shot until we were chased away by security guards, but we had the footage by then. This is not very legal, but I've not heard of anyone having serious problems.

You are making a STUDENT film.
Tell people that you're making any other kind of film and the dollar signs will light up in their eyes. Tell them it's got a low budget and they might knock off a zero, but tell them it's a student film, and they'll be keen to give you whatever help they can. Usually.

Shoot on DV
Why would you use anything else? It's cheap, easy to edit, and high quality.

Celebration (AKA Festen) was shot on an ultra cheapo single chip DV camera. It doesn't look like 35mm, but it has its own charms, not the least the good storytelling. If you can use a three chip camera (Cannon XL1, Sony TRV900, PD100 etc) the quality will be really good. Blow it up to big screen and you can see the difference, but it's still surprisingly good. On VHS no one will notice the difference.

If you shoot on any kind of film you'll get that "film look" but it will cost you an arm and a leg. Every time an actor forgets their lines, every time a mic falls into shot it will cost you an arm and a leg. You'll get tense. Everyone else will get tense. You'll have no limbs left. When an actor gives a performance that's merely OK you'll be tempted to say 'Print', instead of going for the dynamite performance that might be just around the corner.

Shoot on anything at all.
Make a virtue of the technical limitations of your equipment. If you can't afford DV you can probably borrow an el-cheapo handycam from someone, of even buy one second hand. Perhaps you should be looking at worse equipment still - VHS is familiar to us all, but really bad toy formats like pixelvision can actually look interesting. La Jettée, the Chris Marker film is comprised almost entirely of still images. Sketch your ideas and scan them. Lateral thought is mightier than the dollar. If you've got it, get it out, somehow, anyhow.

But Get Good Sound
People will forgive a bad picture as some sort of grungy art thing, but no one likes bad sound.

The sound on most of these cute little DV cameras is crap. From the inbuilt mikes you will hear the sound of the tape transport motor, and the minijack mic inputs don't work well with quality microphones. It's as if someone at Head Office said "These cameras are so good they are threatening our professional line, we better make sure they all sound like crap or we'll lose our pro sales."

Put your resources into good sound collection - one good mic is worth its weight in gold. Something to plug the good mic into (eg. DAT recorder) is even better. Another cheap alternative - use a laptop with a USB audio interface (like the Edirol UA-25 or M-Audio products) and record your sound with a decent mic into garageband.

The important thing is to not leave the sound as some second rate after thought - it's as important, if not more important than the visuals.

Enrol Professionals
Try and convince people with experience that your project needs to be made. A professional doing a job for fun can bring a lot to your project and might even own their own gear.

Just Do It
Most important of all - get out there and do it. Make mistakes and learn from them. Experience is the best, and most fun, teacher.

All materials © 2006 Phil Davison
All rights reserved.