I haven’t written much about 17 West’s latest short film lately so I think it’s time for an update.

Editing has been ongoing since the film wrapped in early May. Progress has been slowed somewhat mainly due to various human being responsibilities and projects I wanted to wrap up.

I’ve also spent the last few weeks focusing more on writing a couple new scripts so our slate of upcoming films doesn’t dry up.

That was one lesson I learned after making Playing Through. We finished that film and didn’t have a clear idea of what we would do next. That’s not the case anymore.

The editing was also slightly delayed because I was completing several online courses to learn new software. The new skills I learned will directly affect the technical quality of the film. I can’t even explain how pumped I am to color correct The Climb.

Now that the courses have been completed and some of my screenwriting projects are wrapping up, I’m now freed up to continue cutting the footage on a regular basis.

I LOVE having new footage to work with.

I’m also going to be posting the first poster from the film by summer’s end. We have one finished already but i came up with a better idea right before I posted it.

I’m really looking forward to finishing more of the promotional artwork as well. Hopefully everyone likes it. I’m a fan thus far.

All in all, we are still pushing towards the finish line and as we get closer, I’ll have more updates.

I am not a technical encyclopedia.

I’m okay admitting that I’m not an expert when it comes to video specs, codecs, formats and which camera shoots the best at night.

I thought it would be a good idea to put some stats up for The Climb.  Especially when it comes to how little we spent on the project.

Here is everything I know so far:

Video

• Sony HVR-Z1U
• HDV
• 1440 X 1080
• No lights

Audio

• Wireless Lav
• Boom

Post

• Final Cut Studio 2
• After Effects CS3
• Photoshop CS3

I’m hoping to edit, color correct and mix The Climb myself using my iMac and the software listed above.  This setup is almost identical to my previous short film, Playing Through except we shot with a Panasonic camera utilizing the P2 work flow.

Pretty much all of our equipment was borrowed and I can’t thank those that helped us out enough.

Somehow we managed to make this movie for less than 300 dollars and it wouldn’t be possible without our dedicated cast and crew.

Big thanks go out to Producer Eric as well for organizing the shoot.

For more on producing short films visit the INTERVIEWS section.

A while back, I wrote a post about producing a short film for little money.

Click here to read: No Budget Filmmaking.

I wanted to follow that up by discussing the final cost of The Climb.

Essentially, we were saved by borrowing equipment.  It also helped that our cast and crew were willing to give up a weekend to work for free.

In total, The Climb ended up costing us a little less than $350.

• $80 ($40 per day) for lunch
• $20 Tim Hortons
• $30 for tapes
• $80 special makeup
• $40 beer (nice)
• $60 wardrobe/props
• $40 supplies

I’m pretty pumped that we managed to pull it off with so little.

An important thing to note is that I handle all the post myself and charge nothing.  This would have definitely added a huge chunk to our budget.

I think it was a fantastic challenge to make this movie on such a minimal budget.

It definitely wasn’t easy but we have unbelievably generous friends to thank for that.

At the end of the day, I’m hoping when people watch the movie, they will believe we spent a lot more!

Understandably, you can’t really shut down city streets when you are making a low budget short film.

Obviously, we didn’t have much money to do so while filming The Climb.

For the most part, we used to steady traffic flow to our advantage but it backfired on two occasions.

Picture this…

It’s a cold Saturday afternoon and you’re 30 years old.  Clearly you’re on your way to buy dish soap because you have nothing better to do with your weekend.  After all, it’s on sale so why not pick up a bottle.  Maybe two bottles? Nah only one, you don’t need two…

While you ponder the future of dish soap in your dwelling, you come across a film shoot.

Two thoughts go through your head.

1. “Oh look, a film shoot!  I’m going to be courteous and drive by without disturbing those nice people.”
2. “I should really honk and screw up that film shoot.”

There were two idiots who chose Option 2 during production of The Climb.

They literally HONKED repeatedly while yelling out of their windows.

Who does that?

Here is what I think happened after the honking stopped…

They rolled up their windows and cranked Celine Dion while laughing to themselves.  However, something happened next that they did not expect.  They glanced at themselves in the rear view mirror and the smile disappeared.

They thought to themselves…

“I don’t have any friends to share this joke with…  Perhaps it’s because I’m an idiot who finds it funny to honk while people are filming.”

It’s okay idiot…  At least you’ll have clean dishes…

Logging and capturing footage can be extremely long and tedious but it’s important work.

Trying to edit a ton of unorganized footage is a huge pain so you may as well do it right.

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of capturing footage. It’s fairly time consuming especially when all I want to do is edit!

I knew going in that I would have to capture all the footage we shot for The Climb myself.

Normally, I would put it off as much as possible before starting but this time, I had a deadline.

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Our camera was borrowed and had to be returned first thing Monday morning.  This meant that all of the footage we shot had to be captured before we lost the camera.

We shot about roughly 6 hours of footage in total.

At the end of each day of shooting, I sat down, captured and watched each tape one by one.  It’s a lot easier to do when you have a deadline.  It was actually quite fun because most of the time, the crew was still around so I wasn’t by myself.

It also helps that Final Cut Pro makes ingesting footage relatively pain free.

I had a late night on Sunday but it was an amazing feeling knowing all the footage was digitized and ready to be organized and ultimately edited.

I woke up Monday morning with a smile on my face.

Click here for more editing posts.