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Reviews Nuts & Bolts Filmmaking
by Dan Rahmel Review by James MacGregor Dan Rahmel's Nuts and Bolts
Filmmaking takes up where all the other guerilla filmmaking handbooks leave off.
If you want high screen value on a restricted budget, this book will stretch
your money to the max. Rahmel's years in the commercial movie business have been
paralleled by his own moviemaking activities on DV. He knows there's no
substitute for having the right equipment to achieve some shots. The problem
Rahmel has in common with every other guerilla filmmaker is that he often can't
afford it. His advantages are that he knows from his movie experience how the
technology works and he has the technical skills to reconstruct that technology.
He just makes it a lot simpler, cheaper
and affordable, using items from the local hardware store This is serviceable,
practical film equipment for pocket money prices. If a steadicam is beyond your
budget, what you need is Dan Rahmel's book, a length of electrical conduit pipe,
some nuts and bolts and a 2lb steel weight to make a camera glider. That's a
mounting post with a weight at the bottom to dampen side-to side motion. A
little practice and you have a thoroughly practical camera-steadying tool at a
fraction of the cost of a steadicam. It is astonishing to discover what may be
achieved through observation, the application of a little lateral thinking, some
alternative technologies and a few basic craft skills, but the essential
filmmaker's tools simply pour out of this handbook: a sturdy camera dolly from
warehouseman's furniture trucks; camera matte boxes; high-hats; a tripod
camera-glider running on drainpipe rails; light, reflector and flag stands made
from conduit pipe; an underwater camera stand made from a pet shop fish tank;
smoke machines fuelled by camping fuel and ground-up sweetcorn; a lightweight
sound boom from plumbers pvc pipe; a working, vibration-free, microphone
boom-mount made from a small kitchen sieve, plastic coat hangers and rubber
bands - not forgetting the one piece of kit every shoot must have, the essential
apple box…. By the dozen. You can have confidence in Rahmel's solutions.
He's a practitioner and all his projects are supported by clear, detailed
photographs, well-lit by a filmmaker. There's also a liberal sprinkling of
anecdotes about how they work in practice. Rahmel goes further though. He is
safety- conscious and safe working practice is built in; an essential component
as much as the jubilee clips, cable ties and self-tapping screws he uses to such
good effect. This guy has been there, built the kit and shot with it safely
before he wrote the book. With this handbook though, as well as the nuts and
bolts of guerilla filmmaking you also get to learn the knots. My trucker's hitch
can stand scrutiny in a transport café anywhere, but the sailor's one-handed
bowline was a new one on me and useful too when you have one hand otherwise
occupied. There's an added bonus to the book. It's
sub-title is "Practical Techniques for the Guerilla Filmmaker," and
Rahmel delves into al those areas of filmmaking where he is thoroughly
experienced like Art Department work and Construction. He not only describes in
detail how to make that film essential a good Break-through Panel (fist or
man-sized?) but also tips the magic ingredient that will make the breakthrough
work on screen - flour sprinkled on the back that looks like plaster dust when
the break-through is staged. Without it the effect on screen is like a fist
coming through cardboard. He has good advice to on scouting and managing
locations - all derived from experience. He not only provides a template for a
Location Agreement, but a Location Release template for the owner to sign on
hand-back, agreeing that all necessary remedial or repair work required after
filming has been completed to his satisfaction. Rahmel's not the first location
manager to have been presented with an unexpected bill from a location owner for
"additional" repairs to defects to his property that were needed long
before a film crew arrived on the scene! Finally, if you have ever stuffed a suit with
rags and a dummy head and filmed
the result being hurled out of an upper floor window, you will have noticed how
on screen it always looks just like a dummy. What you really need is a fake
body, not a dummy and this book shows you just how to get one. It articulates
just like the real thing and has correct bone proportions. Only this body's
skeleton is not bone, but plumbers half-inch PVC piping, cut to length and
articulated at the joints. The
plastic pipe is light but brittle like bone and strong enough for the job.
Pre-cut to weaken it with a hacksaw and you get a pretty realistic crack if you
call on one of your actors to break the fake body's arm in a fight scene. Essentially, this is an on-set manual, with lists
of essential on-set tools and practical assistance with everything from script
supervision to building a safe, secure in-car camera mount. Sometimes the
transatlantic English is different than ( different to?) ours, but as long as
you can figure that a screw-adjustable steel band has to be a jubilee clip, you
can see why we are said to be two peoples separated by a common language. In
this case though, we are united by the art and craft of filmmaking on micro
budgets. Focal Press are to be commended for bringing Dan Rahmel's expertise
across to this side of the pond. Low budget filmmaking in Britain can only
benefit. In paperback the book runs to 360 pages lavishly illustrated with
photographs and diagrams. It costs a whisker under twenty
pounds and depending on the scale of your next project, it could save you twenty
thousand. This book is worth considerably more than its own weight in guerilla
filmmaker's gold. ISBN: 0-240-80546-1 Focal Press 2004 Buy Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking from Amazon.co.uk Buy Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking from Amazon.com |
