1.

When I first saw that the studio’s name was PRODUCTION ON A SHOESTRING, my first reaction was that this course was related to the budget. When I read the introduction of the studio, I became more sure of my thoughts. The main content of this studio is “How do you successfully make a film on a ‘micro-budget’ without sacrificing production value and constraining your creative voice?” That’s why I chose this studio. Because I really want to learn how to make good work at low cost. Because I was an intern in an advertising studio last year. The studio mainly shoots commercials and promotional videos. My position in it is planning. When writing a plan, the question I need to spend a long time thinking about is “budget”. Because at that time, I always thought that what kind of work should be made at what price. So when I want to plan more advanced ads, my budget often exceeds the amount given by the manager. So every time my planning program needs to be corrected many times about the micro-budget. Before I was thinking, is the micro-budget really making good work? Where should the budget be reduced? Now I learn a lot of ways to reduce the budget through the study of this studio, such as location, song copyright, costumes and prop, and so on. There are many that can be scheduled. Like I’m amazed when I know the micro budgets of the movies Tim let us watch. Because the work is really great. Especially in the movie “THE RIDER”, it’s really hard to imagine that the final cost is so low. I hope this semester I can write a script and make this work with a micro-budget. Not just write a plan, shoot with this script, make a whole short film.

2.

-class exercise

I may be a special part of the class, because of my English not good. I couldn’t get all of the knowledge taught by Tim at the time. So for class exercise, it’s really important to me. Because every exercise will give me an accurate understanding of new knowledge. For example, for the second exercise, we write a script breakdown sheet. My understanding of HERO PROPS at the time was to find out the needed props for the script. But I found that my group members only listed a few props, and later I learned that those consumables or easily lost props belonged to HERO PROPS, such as cigarettes, food and so on. Because it is impossible to shoot only one shot during the shooting process. Even if the actors perform well, the same scene needs different shot, such as close up, wide shot, etc. So props need more preparation. And through classroom exercise, I can learn the ideas of my group members. I remember the group discussion in the first class. Our group selected videos about manicures. At that time, let us listed all the shooting needs in the video, I only listed the parts that I could watch. I didn’t pay much attention to some small parts, but my group members paid attention to the small props. For example, a sound effect. Maybe it’s been around for a short time, and I can easily ignore it. There is also the way of shooting. They will write in detail in the process whether to shoot with a mobile phone or with a camera. The background music, sound effects, etc. required for the entire video, they will think very comprehensively, and will take into account the micro budget. And I can only list what everyone both can think of at that time.This will make me pay attention to the particularly detailed parts in the future. The group discussion really allows me to break a lot of habitual thoughts and spread my thoughts, unlike the previous ones.

-Homework

Homework is a consolidation exercise for me. Because at the class exercise, I listen to the group members most of the time. Sometimes they may have results while I was thinking. Occasionally I’ll ask questions, or I’ll list them and email Tim for help. Through Tim’s reply and class exercise, I learned more about this course. And homework for me is to consolidate what I have learned, and it is also a test of whether I can understand fully. The most impressive is about scene breakdowns and dividing the script page into eighths. At first I didn’t understand dividing the script page into eighths and didn’t feel it was necessary. But then I thought this existence was necessary, and I thought that how long to shoot could be arranged according to this. According to script-EIGHTH GRADE, I try to divide the script into eight parts by myself, and break down the scenes of these eight parts respectively. With the scene breakdown sheet I did independently, I thought about a lot of details. For example, in this script, there is mention of walking through the hallway to the restaurant. I need pay attention to detail is the need find a house with this kind of corridor. I was also thinking about whether the hallway needs decoration, such as paintings on the walls, or whether there should be anything other than gifts on the chairs in the living room and the dining table. Maybe these are not clearly stated in the script, but we need to consider this budget when we actually shoot.

3.

Regarding micro budget, my understanding of it is to make good works at a lower cost. Moreover, some film productions are not sure whether they will be popular after release, and often directors will use the form of micro budget to produce. Some movies can still take this format if they have enough budget, because some different budgets will produce the same effect. So the micro budget movie has become an independent name. The film “The Rider”, which director-Chloé Zhao made with a very low budget, was surprising to me at first. I think that price is the budget for a short film. And “The Rider” is a feature film. So I’m curious about the effect of the film, I can’t think how the micro budget plays its role in this film, will the final film really be good.To be honest, I didn’t find the right sentence to express my feelings after watching this movie. I knew it was a rodeo movie before watching it, but when I started watching it, I realized it was like a documentary. Interestingly, the cast of the film are all non-professional actors, and the characters in the film are all playing themselves, and they are real cowboys, which is something that a “naturalistic” film has the guts to do. So this movie fits the micro budget movie very well. The director is filming real people in real situations, she is filming him at his house. She is filming someone that already knows how to ride the horse. She is making it like documentary style of filmmaking, very natural, So she is using that creative style very well. And by filming with real people ,are the costs are low. Because she is not paying people to act. Not only that, but since many of the actors are cowboys themselves, they’ll all have their own horses. Through this situation, it is entirely possible to negotiate with them to shoot with their own horses. This saves a lot of money. She also shoots a lot of natural environments, which are often featured in clips of the film. Shooting in the natural environment also does not require pay costs. As she said in an interview on Youtube, it would be more economical. And not using a lot of music background in the film, I think she could save a lot of money again. Because she doesn’t have to buy too many music copyright. The film pays almost no costs on the situation, casts, copyright.And about the costume props, there are no special props to use, so the actors can shoot in their own clothes. so for this micro budget film. It was successful. It did exactly what it work.The film debunks the unrealistic facade of American heroism and perfectly illustrates the need to let go of unrealistic choices, no matter how difficult they may seem. The director also won worldwide acclaim with “The Rider”.