Stephen Pruitt

(The original post has been edited by the author for clarity due to a significant edit of the previous posting.) And I was the employer. As you know, I'm an economist. I believe in free markets to the very depths of my soul. Unions exist for the sole purpose of presenting constraints on the exercise of market forces. My actors were all big boys and girls (or, at least, their parents were!). I am certain that each of them made the best decision based upon their own unique set of personal circumstances. I would have it no other way. Your post about SAG did, however, remind me of that wonderful old joke about the Soviet Union: Bread was always 10 cents a loaf, but there was never any bread to buy. Or, as the Bible says, "A live dog is better than a dead lion." In the present case, that would be translated as "a real non-union film is better than a non-existent union one." Mike, you get the last word. I've got a another script to write! :-) I do wish you the very best with all of your projects. Stephen Wallace Pruitt, Ph.D.

Mike, just for the record, Kansas is what is known as a "right to work" state. Accordingly, SAG's rules legally absolutely do not apply to the state of Kansas. In case you're really interested, here is the exact statute: Kan. Const. art. 15, § 12 § 12. Membership or nonmembership in labor organizations. No person shall be denied the opportunity to obtain or retain employment because of membership or nonmembership in any labor organization, nor shall the state or any subdivision thereof, or any individual, corporation, or any kind of association enter into any agreement, written or oral, which excludes any person from employment or continuation of employment because of membership or nonmembership in any labor organization. (Adopted November 4, 1958.) Stephen Wallace Pruitt, Ph.D.

And for a very good reason, Mike. . . it wasn't a SAG project. It was what they call an "ultra-low budget, non-union feature." But, then again, you already knew that. :-) Stephen Wallace Pruitt, Ph.D.

Yep. . . that's my best guess on meal costs at the moment. It could prove to be low, but I won't know that until January and tax-time. And the best part? Each and every meal was served with love and a smile. :-) And, let's be real here. We didn't shoot 18 hour days every day. Some days we only shot for two hours. I'd say that, in most locations, we averaged about 8 to 10 hour days. It is true that we did pay a premium to purchase #791 and "move up" the "RED line," but the premium we got for selling #2217 was $2000 more than the premium we paid for #791, so we actually ended up in exceptional shape on that score. Finally, it's also true that both of our REDs will soon be going in for upgraded audio components. This is one of the things that makes the RED Digital Cinema Camera Company truly something special. These guys just keep coming up with new surprises. And all of it is included in the original price of the camera! Never in my life have I ever encountered anything like this commitment to service and continuous product improvement. My hat is off to Jim Jannard and his entire team. Why, just yesterday I got a call from the Ukraine from the folks who bought #2217. Their camera made it, but their accessories did not. Well, I called RED right away, and they got out a package that day to New York, where it is being hand-carried to the Ukraine to get it there in time for the shoot. Try that with some other manufacturers. But let's be honest here: RED isn't doing this because they are nice. They are doing it because it makes great business sense. And, frankly, with the rate of advancement in technology, they simply don't have a choice in the matter if they want to play in this game for the long-term. Like it or not, Mike, the future world of film belongs to people just like me—geeks from far outside the "traditional" studio system who have good ideas and who will find that they now can do what even big-budget studios couldn't do even twenty years ago. Now, I know I'm far too old (at 51) to make much of a difference in this brave new digital filmmaking world, but it is inevitable nonetheless. The technological changes that have given us project studios (like the one in my basement), superb digital equipment, and computer programs like Final Cut, Motion, Color, Logic, Pro-Tools, Shake, After Effects, etc., are changing everything. RED is at the very forefront of that change. Just today, Vudu announced a true HD-quality digital download service. A program like that will be the iTunes of the next generation. And that will open up the world of indie distribution in ways that anyone can see. We won't need to break into theaters. We'll be going straight to the ultimate consumers with our wares. And as for the future? That will be filmmaking in 3D. Gee. I wonder why we decided to keep both cameras? http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19642 http://www.eyeonline.com/Web/EyeonWeb/Press/DisplayArticle.aspx?articleid=366 :-) Stephen Wallace Pruitt, Ph.D. P.S. It's not too late to register for my classes next term. :-) That would be fun, Mike. That would be fun.

Like I said, we don't have the final figures all tallied, but since you are interested, and since I'm more than willing to share information to help future folks such as myself learn more about micro-budget independent filmmaking, here is a rough breakdown of our expenses: Salaries and housing: $38,000. Meals: $3000 (Mary did all the cooking herself). Gasoline: $2000. Locations: $4000. Props: $3000. Rentals: $2000. Data storage: $4000. Insurance: $7000. Travel: $1000. Miscellaneous: $3000. Guestimate total: $67,000. We had about 40 shooting days in total over the summer. Again, we most certainly did own three RED cameras (#791, #1256, and #2217), and we just sold one of them (#2217, which now is in the Ukraine filming a Russian "Bourne Identity"-type film). (Do a search for "#2217" on REDUser.net if you really do have doubts.) We happily retain two REDs (#791 and #1256). We also briefly thought about selling "Clark" (#1256), as well, and had many good (premium) offers to do so, but, in the end, my wife decided we should keep him and I relented. "Terminal" will be shot in very, very close quarters, using a very insert-oriented film-style, so working with two cameras will be much more problematic, hence my original thought to sell one of them. For the record, we will be upgrading at least one of these two cameras to RED's upcoming "Epic" when it becomes available this summer. Stephen Wallace Pruitt, Ph.D.

Mike is correct in statement but incorrect in implication. We actually owned three RED cameras, and did just sell one of them. We still happily retain two, and they both are available for rent to qualified individuals. Please email me for specific details. For the record, we did sell our 442 mixer, but only because we found it superfluous to some of our other audio gear (788T, etc.). No additional audio-related gear will be sold. Exactly why he would think that we didn't have money to feed our crew (in point of fact, we spent thousands), I have no earthly idea. And, yes, meals were served every six hours. As to his more, how shall I put it?, "incendiary" statements, again, I'll leave it for others to infer his motives. I have my own theories, of course, but I have never met the man and feel it would be inappropriate for me to make such judgments without first-hand knowledge. Stephen Wallace Pruitt, Ph.D.

As the Producer/Director of the film(s) in question, I have to say that I have found some of "Senator" Mike's posts to be rather amusing. Unknowingly, Mike has actually done us a great service by leading to a sizable number of hits on my website (www.NVR2L8.com). In fact, and this is something of which I'm also sure he is unaware, but, thanks to him, with the exception of "Who I am today," this thread is now, by far, the longest and single most viewed thread in the entire history of JWSound.net! Now, exactly why Mike seems so compelled to follow my work with such regularity is a very different matter. I shall leave it to others to decipher his true intent. What does bother me is the consistent suggestion here on the forum that, in the making of our first film ("Works in Progress"), we somehow "took advantage" of the people on our crew or in our cast. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, every crew member I have spoken to about the new film has already told me that they want to work on the next film ("Terminal"), as well. Believe it or not, the most experienced SAG member of our cast sent us an incredible, warmly glowing 'thank you' note at the end of film, praised our crew as "first rate," and actually returned almost half of the money we had paid them, telling us to put it toward our expenses on the film. Obviously, these are indications of neither incompetence nor mistreatment, but they certainly are indications of the type of people we hired and the type of projects we are endeavoring to make. (As an aside, it is interesting to note that, except for Mary and I, every member of our cast and crew gained weight during the production. Mary and I, on the other hand, each lost 13 percent of our body weights! We are now thinking about writing a book: "How to lose weight and money making independent films.") The bottom line is that I put together a crew of extraordinary young people (their average age was 21), the vast majority of whom were college students, and paid them for work that, under normal circumstances, no one would ever have paid them to do. Every crew member was paid, at a minimum, two thousand dollars for their "summer job" work. Some were paid as much as $6000. They had no prior film experience and, to most industry veterans, probably would have been considered to have very little to offer a production. But I felt differently. I was interested in their character and attitude much more than their knowledge or experience. Knowledge can be learned. Experience can be gained. But character is different. You either have it, or you don't. And these people had it in spades. Sure they made mistakes. As a first-time producer/director, I made a lot of mistakes. But the last time I checked, we all make mistakes. It's that wonderful old adage: "How do you avoid making mistakes?" "You get experience." "How do you get experience?" "By making mistakes." In sum, we're all very proud of the work we did on "Works in Progress" and are utterly blown away by the edited sequences we've seen. Did we make the best indie feature of the year? Absolutely not. But our story was compelling, our script was novel and first-rate, and our production values were, for a micro-budget film (the final tally isn't in, but we suspect that direct, non-equipment costs ranged between $60,000 to $70,000—almost all of which was for salaries), exceptionally high. (And, yes, using first-rate gear does make a difference.) We can't wait to finish up post and get this film out on the festival circuit. I suspect that a lot of people, including several posters here on JWSound, are going to be very surprised by what they see (and, yes, by what they hear). As for our next film, "Terminal," well, that one will be very hard for me to make. Much of it will deal with the death of my own father to cancer when I was 17. It's going to be very dark and, yet, ultimately redemptive. Unlike "Works in Progress" (which was a poignant romantic comedy), "Terminal" doesn't have a happy ending. But it does have a hopeful ending. Frankly, we have the bones of a story that is, without question, one of the best I've ever encountered. I just can't wait to make that film. And, yes, you can take it to the bank that I'll be making it with a paid, and well-treated, crew that no "professional" would ever consider hiring. :-) Finally, please let it be noted that I never, ever claimed that, all other things equal, a non-experienced, non-professional crew could ever equal the results of a professional crew. That's not even a reasonable thing to say. I merely said that 1) I didn't have enough money to pay a totally professional crew to make the film in the way we needed to make it, and 2) that I was completely confident in my crew's ability to give me the results I was expecting. It's just like me in my recording studio. I can't make a record as good as a great studio with great engineering talent. But I can get the results I was expecting. And, whether in the case of my CD or in the case of my movies, in the end, that just might prove to be "good enough" for the market, as well. After all, whether one cares to admit it or not, passion really can make a difference. And that, my friends, for better or worse (and I really do debate within myself whether it is a good thing or ill), I have in abundance. Stephen Wallace Pruitt, Ph.D.

I am certainly fine to leave this forum to the professionals. . . but I would hope that the pros would at least like to keep the facts straight. Again, I would be more than happy to post some unedited samples on my site and see if any of you can guess which ones were pulled from the 788T and which ones came from the RED. I'm guessing that no one will be able to do so with better than 50% accuracy. Stephen

How much is my time worth??? That's a great question! When it comes to consulting with companies on matters great and small, it varies, but is usually in the neighborhood of $2000 a day. That's work. But when it comes to my hobbies, it's almost valueless. I'm certain I've spent well over 3000 hours on my CD so far, and it's only 3/4 finished. Figure 4000 hours total. That would make my CD worth $1,000,000. But you know the funny thing? If you offered me the chance to have $1,000,000 in cash, or my CD, I'd take the CD hands down. That's a dream. Funny how different perspectives make for different outcomes. It's a great problem in economics. . . "non-transitivity of preferences" is what we call it there. But it's what makes us human. Stephen

Do I think we're getting sound as good as we could if we used the best audio recordists? Absolutely not! But I'm also certain that most people sitting in theaters will never be able to tell the difference. How do I know that? Because the people who listen to my songs (www.NVR2L8.com) never, ever mention anything about the poor mixing, singing, or sound-quality. It's too funny, 'cause I can hear every error. Every one. And I can fix 'em, too. Every one. But the bottom line is that I just don't want to take the time and effort to do so. It's always a compromise. . . we can try to make one painting perfect. . . or many paintings with flaws. The former might earn immortality, but is always futile in the end. There is no perfection this side of heaven. Again, I sincerely appreciated the break in pricing that Sergio offered me this past spring. It was a wonderful gesture on his part. It just turned out that with the change in my project, it would never have worked to try to hire him. With any luck, I'll have a lot more money for the next film. :-) Stephen

I have no problems with Sergio or anyone else. He clearly is a seasoned vet, well-deserving of his pay. Indeed, I checked his references and everyone gave him top marks. It is absolutely true that Sergio's quote for 5 weeks WAS way over my original expectations at that time. As he knew, I was going to be paying him over twice what I was paying anyone else in the cast or the crew. But I was certainly willing to do so. The real change came when we decided we couldn't do what we wanted to do in five weeks and still live to tell the tale. . . we would have to shoot over 12 weeks. That change would have taken his "salary" (such as it was) to over FOUR times as much as anyone else. It simply couldn't be done. As it happens, my wisdom (dumb luck?) to shoot over the entire summer has certainly been vindicated by many developments since that time. We're a young crew, so we don't work as fast as the pros. But we are having the times of our lives and everyone is just the best of friends. It literally is an amazing blessing. Young crews make mistakes, but they also make miracles. I will never forget that I was never smarter, more productive, or more innovative in my career as a college professor than the day I got my Ph.D. It's been all downhill ever since. :-) As far as the audio on the RED, it's true that phantom power is inoperable at this point. But that's okay, as we were always planning on using the 442 for a preamp, anyway. We are always running a double system, running lines to both the 788T and the RED. However, in side-by-side audio comparisons, we simply cannot hear any audible differences between the audio lined-in to the RED and the audio recorded directly into the 788T itself. Of course, there must be differences, since we are talking about a second pass through AD/DA converters, but we honestly can't hear it. Since the RED files have the audio already in synch with the video (which saves an enormous amount of time), it therefore, for us, makes no sense to use the 788T's audio files except in that rare instance where some obvious glitch occurs with the RED's audio (like when we run out of media on a great take). Now, it is possible that the 442/788T combination is not of sufficient quality in and of itself, but that seems pretty unlikely. It is also possible that we just can't hear obvious differences that are there. But our conclusion is that the RED's audio recording capabilities are absolutely to the standards we'll need for a great final audio product. Perhaps I could set up a little experiment and see if you folks can tell the difference between the RED and the 788t? I'm guessing that the experiment will reveal, as recent 44 versus 88 sample rate tests certainly did, that even seasoned pros can't tell the difference between them. Stephen

Hi there, Jim. . . I actually have purchased a very hot Mac Pro (fastest 8-core available, lots of memory, two cinema displays (one 30 inch and one 23 inch), Kona 3 card (allows for real-time playback of pixel-to-pixel 2K files), HD Link Pro, loads of software (FCS, Nattress plug-ins, Shake, etc., etc., etc.). It wasn't ANYWHERE near $22,500. That's only if you are buying Apple memory and drives (way overpriced!). I think we spent about half that. (Oh, I didn't count the MacBook Pro in that total.) This stuff just isn't that expensive or we couldn't do it. And the memory costs are almost inconsequential. We'll be able to store this entire film on a lot less than $10,000 worth of drives. (And that's with multiple redundancies!) Hi there, Studio. . . I'm not sure if you are complimenting me there or not. :-) Truthfully, the financial side of the film really is very, very generous to our investors. We wrote the script (working almost full-time for over two years), bought all of the gear, did all of the preproduction work (including hiring the crew and identifying locations), and are producing and directing the film. We aren't charging the film any rental costs for the equipment at all. Our investors are only paying for the cast and crew (about $75,000 in total) and for gasoline, meals, etc. And for that, we're keeping 40% of the film. (My best friend is getting 10% for serving as Co-DP). And if we can't raise the money, that's okay. We're prepared to pay for it all ourselves. As for my economics training, well, this is a labor of love. Pure and simple. If I was in it for the money, we wouldn't be doing it in the first place. :-)Our sole objective is to make a great, redeeming, wholesome film. And if it doesn't make a dime, that's okay with everyone. We just want everyone to be 100% proud of the final product when it's all said and done. But, in point of fact, if we take care of the art, the market will take care of us. And, even if it doesn't, that won't matter one bit to me. I'm not about economic success (I've already got that as a professor). I'm only about the art. The shot. The dream. Crazy, I know. Thanks again. Stephen

Hi Borg. . . As it happens, the audio gear only ran me about $30,000. And my electrical engineer is not JUST an EE, he's also a very well-trained location sound expert, as well. I get the best of both worlds in one person. FYI, the REDs are only about $35,000 each, so they aren't quite as expensive as some have stated. As for the lighting control and lights (HMIs, fluors, halogens) and all of the other gaffer/grip goodies (butterflies, stands, dollies, jibs, etc.), we have all of that gear, as well. I did the math and it makes absolutely zero sense in our case to rent gear, when buying is actually cheaper. Remember, we are shooting over three months. For example, a three-month rent for a RED, if we found a great deal, would be at least what it cost us to buy them new (and probably much more). And we've still got the cameras (which are selling for more than list due to the extensive back-orders) when it's all over! Happily the investors aren't buying any of the gear. That's all been paid for by my wife and me. We'll be using that gear on our next couple of films. The investors are just paying for the variable costs of the film (actors, crew, other expenses), and, in return, will be getting 50% of the resulting revenue stream. We just started chasing the dollars, and things are already looking up. However, we aren't looking for much money, either. . . only $100,000. There's no doubt about it. . .this is a very, very low budget film. But the film world is rapidly changing, and the great majority of indie films of the future will be shot exactly the way we're shooting ours: Low budgets combined with state-of-the-art technology. (And, no, I don't expect Hollywood insiders to come study our methods. :-) Anyway, good luck with all your projects! Stephen

Hi all. . . It's been a lot of fun reading what some of you folks are saying about poor little ol' me here in Kansas and my film-dreams-coming-true project. I just wanted to correct a few misconceptions. Someone mentioned that we were using a 416 and figured "we'd get what we are paying for" (in other words, not much). In point of fact, the audio we are getting is just stupendous on this shoot. Our sound mixer, Jithu, was an electrical engineer before switching to sound design and now has two degrees in sound design (including an MFA). He knows what he is doing, and with a great young boom operator (a wonderful young man by the name of Adam), we're getting everything we had hoped we would. If using the best possible gear and the best possible individuals gets you to 100%, then I think we're at about 80% on this project, and that's certainly a Hollywood standard I can live with. Frankly, I could not be more pleased with our audio. As Sergio has noted, I originally had wanted to use him for our audio, and I'm sure he'd have been terrific, but we had to change our shooting schedule to run over three months shooting every other day instead of five weeks running full-out, which meant that I had to go a different direction. As for the audio gear, please pass the word that there are no 416s on the set. Instead, we are using a Sound Devices 442, a Sound Devices 788T, a Lectrosonics VR Field Receiver, four Lectro 400-series digital hybrid transmitters, great lavs (four Sonotrims with both wireless and wired capabilities, and two Countryman B6 lavs with wire/wireless capabilities), a carbon fiber boom pole, two Schoeps CMC6 bodies with a wide variety of matched-pair capsules (MK2, MK4, MK41) for interiors and special purposes (including a Schoeps active cable for hiding the mics in a set), a Schoeps CMIT-5U shotgun mic, and top-notch Rycote wind protection systems. It's a great, great kit. We'll be posting the first 8 minutes of the film very soon. I have a 1.3 gig file in a 720p compressed format (a 2K download would take forever, and almost no one has a computer fast enough to play it, anyway), that I'm currently looking for a host for. That clip has not been sound designed, and, except for a little trip into Color, it's not been toyed with visually, either. It's just the straight picture and audio coming off Final Cut Pro. We are using SonicFire for the moment for the music tracks. It's exceedingly impressive stuff. As for the RED, let us just say that all the naysayers clearly have never really used this camera. It's an utterly amazing machine. We are shooting "Works in Progress" in 4K, but doing a 2K finish. The 4K setting uses the entire sensor and therefore yields the true 35mm depth-of-field I was looking for in the film. It looks every bit as good as any film I've seen. Period. Seeing is believing, so check back to our site in a few days and see for yourselves. (But remember, this is just a 720p compression of the 2K RAW file and has not been sweetened or toyed with at all.) Good luck with your projects. Stephen