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The ABC's of No-Budget Filmmaking - articles by Peter Broderick

Someone needs to invent the machine that takes the script from my computer & quickly turns it into a completed movie & burns it on to a DVD within a couple of hours. That would be nice. Maybe Apple is working on that machine. Until that machine comes out on the market we still have to go through budgeting & crews & props & editing & all that good stuff if we want to make a feature. Even though the 3 movies (The Living End, Laws of Gravity, El Mariachi) that Broderick looks at were all shot on 16 MM, this page is a useful one to review before you go out & shoot your no-budget DV or HD feature.

The ABC's of No-Budget Filmmaking

Full Movie - SNEAK PREVIEW - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene And The Mystery Of Immortal Time Travelers

NEW - COSMIC DISCO DETECTIVE RENE (2023) - TRAILER!

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Written notes/review plus live video review of By the Stream (2025) by Hong Sang-soo

By the stream review - from Lincoln Center, NYC viewing - no spoilers The hype is real - By the Stream is very good by Hong movies standards and also normal comedy-drama standards. There were like 30-40 people at Lincoln Center for the 1PM Fri 8/8/25 (opening day) screening of By the Stream.  People in that neighborhood are serious about their foreign films. Cinematography is very simple, from a canon XA small sensor HD cam, I could see familiar details, how those cams film the moon, scenes at night - it’s like a 1980s or 1990s early indie cinematography style that we do not see much these days - works well for Hong’s movies. No color grading, very simple video/cinematography. A more fleshed out movie than some recent Hong movies. In the movie a skit is prepped, and we actually get to see it performed. A couple of serious issues are discussed.  Some unexpected, light things happen. It’s a comedy-drama chill hangout movie w/ creative South Korean people - good times. Probably o...

Review - doing difficult things well - making a period movie about the early 1980s with teenagers - Blake Calhoun's CASEY MAKES A MIXTAPE

By Sujewa Ekanayake * Blake Calhoun is an experienced indie filmmaker - but, it's very difficult to do period movies well - movies set in another era - on a low indie film budget, and it can be difficult to have several teenagers in your cast as the main characters - to get great performances. Calhoun has managed to do both things well in his new movie CASEY MAKES A MIXTAPE. The early 1980s Texas in Calhoun's movie looks - and more importantly feels - believable.  Great cinematography and color grading work.  And his teen actors do a great job bringing their characters to life.   I think the movie is being promoted as a mainstream accessible, realistic, light comedy-drama.  And perhaps it is also being marketed to a teenage audience. But, as an old person in NYC, I found the movie to be almost an observational movie - documenting a summer in the life of the main character (played in a low key, somewhat dramatic, and overall an entertaining way by the excellent Presle...

Canon G60 daytime and nighttime test videos - excellent camcorder for indie filmmakers

 

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