Blog
Articles on filmmaking technique, production planning, and industry knowledge.
Showing 12 of 37 posts (Page 3 of 4)
What Happens If You Run Out of Cards on Set?
A practical recovery protocol for when your media fills up mid-shoot - covering in-camera offload options, emergency purchasing, and how to restructure the shooting day without losing footage or shutting down production.
Which Guilds and Unions Apply to Micro-Budget Productions?
A practical guide to SAG-AFTRA, DGA, WGA, and IATSE agreements for micro-budget and low-budget films - covering 2025-2026 budget thresholds, minimum rates, signatory requirements, and what actually happens on non-union shoots.
Dropbox vs. Frame.io vs. Google Drive for Film Production: What Each Is Actually Good For
A direct comparison of Dropbox, Frame.io, and Google Drive for film production workflows, covering remote review and approval, file delivery, collaborative editing, and the specific use cases where each platform outperforms the others.
Film vs. Digital in 2026: A Side-by-Side Cost Breakdown for a 12-Day Shoot
A full line-item cost comparison for a 12-day indie narrative feature shoot on 35mm film versus digital acquisition on an ARRI ALEXA 35, covering stock, processing, scanning, crew differentials, equipment, and delivery costs at 2026 pricing.
How to Calculate How Many Cards You Need for a Shoot Day
The answer is not just codec bitrate divided by card size. It depends on whether you can offload and reuse cards, how many cameras are running, and what happens if offload takes longer than expected. Here is the calculation that covers all three scenarios.
Day for Night: The Exposure Math and the In-Camera Technique
Explains the exposure strategy for day-for-night shooting, the stop-loss calculation, sky blocking techniques, and how modern color grading has changed the technique. Includes worked examples from different solar conditions.
Slow Motion in Practice: Frame Rates, Playback Speed, and What Your Camera Can Actually Do
Moves beyond the basics - covers resolution trade-offs at high frame rates, audio capture limitations, lighting requirements for overcranking, and which cameras offer genuine slow motion versus interpolated results.
How Many People Do You Actually Need on Set? A Practical Crew Size Guide by Budget
Cuts through the 'it depends' answers - maps specific crew roles to specific budget tiers and explains which departments can double up and which cannot without causing problems on set.
Lighting for Indie Film: Calculating Power, Avoiding Blown Circuits, and Rigging Smart
The electrical planning process for shooting on a practical location without a generator: how to calculate total wattage, read a circuit breaker panel, distribute loads, and plan a lighting setup within the location's capacity.
Shooting Ratio: What It Means, Why It Matters, and How to Stop Wasting Media
Explains shooting ratio, covers industry norms by genre, shows the downstream impact on storage costs and editing time, and shows how to set realistic ratio targets in pre-production.
How to Budget Location Costs for an Indie Film: Permits, Rentals, and Hidden Fees
Covers the complete cost structure of shooting on location: permit fees by city type, rental agreements, liability insurance, travel allowances, and company move logistics for low-budget productions.
The Perfect Call Sheet: What Every Department Head Actually Needs to See
A dissection of the professional call sheet - what each section does, what information is non-negotiable, how to format weather and location details, and the mistakes first-time ADs always make.