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How to make a short film almost anywhere with one crew, a small cast, and almost no money
In the past seven years, I’ve made around a dozen short films with one or two actors and myself as the single crew person on set. In this article I will share some of the things I’ve learned from this kind of run and gun filmmaking.
It can take an army to make a film, between camera, location sound, lighting, directing, and all of the other crew positions, it can be time consuming to make a plan, put together a budget, and schedule a film shoot. But sometimes you just want to make a film with a couple friends over the weekend.
AUDIO
One of the biggest hurdles to overcome with low budget film is poor audio. If you’re relying on a camera mic, your film won’t go far. If you have any money in your budget, you should put it in audio first.
When I am on set as a one person crew, I use two Zoom F1 recorders with lavalier microphones. Before these came out I used two Zoom H1 recorders connected to a Rode SmartLav via an adapter. On one early shoot, we used an iPhone and the Rode SmartLav+.
The trickiest part of this set up is learning how to place a lavalier microphone and understanding the limitations of this set up. Here’s a tutorial I used in the past.
