From the title itself you know that this blog post has an obvious point: there is a distiction between the image making that happens with an Arri Alexa and your mobile phone.
The difference is related to the money you have at hand for any project.
That statement above is the bottom line for everything that we image makers do.
I've spent the bulk of my career doing commissioned projects that are on tight budgets. So the equipment you use and the crew you hire are what you can afford. Occasionally, friends (technicians/ actors) have chipped in to lift projects above their budget levels, but usually the narrative is that the budget dictates everything- the style of the project to its technicians.
For a while I was doing projects in Kenya, Africa, and there the divisions were even more stark. Their were people who worked with overseas crews, on projects designed for international markets, and they did have budgets that were up to those marks. There were projects designed for local markets with budgets that were of a very different order, often less than ten percent of the 'international budget' projects. So quite obviously the equipment and crew were of a different level. We could compete on the 'ideas' or the 'creative' fronts, but often due to the expertise level of the crew, even the technical standards with which we operated were quite different.
Right now, I live and work in Meerut, in Uttar Pradesh. The work that I do here is mainly local documentaries, with the once a year bigger 'national' project. With local documentaries, the budgets are 'local'/low, so the same principles operate again. With the 'national' projects you can access better equipment and technicians, but these are smaller budgets than the still bigger projects with a corporate or international broadcaster backing.
All this was driven home to me when I went to a friend's place and new equipment was being demonstrated there. Yes, the equipment was great, the controls on those cameras were worth dying for, but the issue was where could we afford that gear? In my situation, on very few projects.
but of course my projects were going to look second grade compared to stuff shot on these new cameras and lenses. But my backers do not have the budgets to afford this equipment.
I suppose I could hike up my budget so that I get better gear to shoot. But I'm trying to create a market for low budget but high concept documentaries that can in budgets that are possible for the local businesses. Am I right? Who knows.
Will I get the time to be proven right? Or will I too move away to bigger cities in search of bigger, better projects. Again, I don't know.
This is all the truth today.
The difference is related to the money you have at hand for any project.
That statement above is the bottom line for everything that we image makers do.
I've spent the bulk of my career doing commissioned projects that are on tight budgets. So the equipment you use and the crew you hire are what you can afford. Occasionally, friends (technicians/ actors) have chipped in to lift projects above their budget levels, but usually the narrative is that the budget dictates everything- the style of the project to its technicians.
For a while I was doing projects in Kenya, Africa, and there the divisions were even more stark. Their were people who worked with overseas crews, on projects designed for international markets, and they did have budgets that were up to those marks. There were projects designed for local markets with budgets that were of a very different order, often less than ten percent of the 'international budget' projects. So quite obviously the equipment and crew were of a different level. We could compete on the 'ideas' or the 'creative' fronts, but often due to the expertise level of the crew, even the technical standards with which we operated were quite different.
Right now, I live and work in Meerut, in Uttar Pradesh. The work that I do here is mainly local documentaries, with the once a year bigger 'national' project. With local documentaries, the budgets are 'local'/low, so the same principles operate again. With the 'national' projects you can access better equipment and technicians, but these are smaller budgets than the still bigger projects with a corporate or international broadcaster backing.
All this was driven home to me when I went to a friend's place and new equipment was being demonstrated there. Yes, the equipment was great, the controls on those cameras were worth dying for, but the issue was where could we afford that gear? In my situation, on very few projects.
but of course my projects were going to look second grade compared to stuff shot on these new cameras and lenses. But my backers do not have the budgets to afford this equipment.
I suppose I could hike up my budget so that I get better gear to shoot. But I'm trying to create a market for low budget but high concept documentaries that can in budgets that are possible for the local businesses. Am I right? Who knows.
Will I get the time to be proven right? Or will I too move away to bigger cities in search of bigger, better projects. Again, I don't know.
This is all the truth today.
No comments:
Post a Comment