The editor emails me, “Write a camera column about indie features.”

I reply, “I know nothing about indie features!” But I lied; too ashamed to tell the truth. The fact is I know a lot about making an indie feature.  I made one, almost.

 t was 10 years ago, I’m producing big-budget corporate videos and the money is pouring in. My bank account is climbing higher every day. “This is it,” I say, “Time to make my independent feature film. Gosh, if I can’t make one, nobody can!” 
 

Way back in the mid ‘60s, I was a cameraman at the BBC. I shot a BBC 90-minute feature about French composer Debussy, directed by Ken Russell (Sons & Lovers) with actor Oliver Reed (Gladiator). The entire film was shot on an ARRIFLEX 35IIC camera. Now ─ 30 years later ─ I need one of my own.

My Very Own ARRI IIC
I find one…buy the legendary camera that Herzog used to shoot Fitzcarraldo. My IIC is an old camera ─ a very old camera. Maybe this is the same camera that Kubrick held on Clockwork Orange. Then again, ARRIFLEX made 17,000 IICs. Hmmm…that’s odds of 17,000 to one.
 

I buy 100,000 feet of 35 mm short ends on eBay. Some low speed, some high speed. 1,000-foot cans, 400-foot cans, 300-foot cans, and baby 100-foot cans. Get the picture? In total, UPS delivers 417 cans. They reach from one end of my living room to the other, back again, and down the hall.

Dinner guests are forced to hold the camera up and look through the viewfinder.  I tell them that this is the camera that shot Easy Rider. “You’re kidding me,” the guests say. I reply with, “Would I lie?”

I go to BestBuy and order two huge freezers for my precious stock.  I write a “Road Rage” script; it’s awful ─ a great train robbery script. Yuk! Maybe I’ll do a modern version of Cocteau’s Orphée. Nope, that script’s even worse. I keep repeating G. K. Chesterton, “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.” I’m doing it badly, but is it worth doing?

A Year Passes

Nothing … another year … finally, I sell the 100,000 feet on eBay to a young man in NYC making his first feature. He can’t afford the UPS delivery from San Francisco to New York, so I send it all by Greyhound bus. Too bulky for one bus, so it goes on three separate buses…strange, but true. He can’t afford UPS but is making a feature film. Even stranger, I doubled my money on the eBay sale.

 I like to imagine that he held on to it for two years and resold it at a profit. It’s now a permanent, moving 417 cans of hopes and dreams.
 

Belladonna

Now it’s 2008, and haven’t things changed!  I’m still going to make that feature but I figure this time I’ll start with a script. I’ll shoot it in high-def with a 4K RED ONE.

 I search the internet for indie inspiration. Suddenly I find my role model in Annika Glac. With her partner, DP Marcus Struzina, she’s made a few short films, music videos, and commercials. Haven’t we all?

A & M have got the indie feature bug. Avoiding my 417 rusty cans ─ possibly because A & M is in Australia. They write the script, find the money (a Polish/Australian co-production), hire lawyers, cast the actors, find costumes, commission music, search locations, and rent a RED 4K camera.
 
Tuesday, August 7, 2007:  I guess this really is the beginning, even though our journey with this feature film started a couple of years ago…

Sunday, December 23, 2007:  RED, it’s a digital camera with a computer welded to it. It appears rugged and a little stockier than I expected, with a very un-ARRI aesthetic of its own.  After dynamic range testing, using widely varying exposures on a gray card adjacent to a black and white card, I have come to the conclusion that the ISO is 320.

Friday, March 14, 2008:  Wow! I have to say that I have fully recovered from the shoot, which really was a miraculous process…

Tuesday, June 3, 2008:  So we started color grading using the Quantel Pablo. The film is reborn before my eyes again…
This month, they have a 35 mm print. Annika says it looks great. I emailed her, “You beat the odds and did it, congratulations.”

Annika’s film joins the list of over 50 independent films shot or being shot on RED cameras. Today, the RED ONE is the new ARRI IIC.

CONTACTS:

RED
www.red.com
ARRI
www.arri.com
Annika and Marcus
www.belladonnathemovie.com
Quantel
www.quantel.com
Stefan Sargent
www.stefansargent.com