Canon 550D/T2i Short Film : REDD

Here is a very cool low low budget short film – shot with a Canon T2i. The short was submitted to a Film Festival with the theme of Speechless.
What appealed to me the most was that this was a DIY low budget film shot on the Canon T2i. A really low budget of $247
wow
I was very keen to just post this short film as is, however, I had a chance to ask Patrick Prejusa the Writer/Director/Editor a couple questions about the Film, check them out after the video.

What kinds of lenses did you use?

Patrick Prejusa :  I had the Kit Lens 18-55mm. Also purchased a $20 Nikon Adapter and borrowed a friend’s Nikon 180mm, which had some really great DOF.

I saw a couple dolly shots in the forest, considering your budget – what did you use/make?

Patrick Prejusa : I built a slider based on this tutorial from Indy Mogul youtube.com/​watch?v=4ILlNjfqc3E. It actually only cost me $17. Works great.

How on earth did you stabilize those shots? All on a tripod? Shoulder Mount.

Patrick Prejusa : I didn’t have a rig persay. Everything was on a tripod, even shots that moved, I kept it on the tripod and used it as a makeshift glidecam.

Did you make use of only Natural lighting with reflectors?

Patrick Prejusa : All natural lighting. I have handheld lamps with white paper over them for diffusion, but the natural sunlight worked out very well, and we didn’t use them much.

I was interested to see that you editing with Sony Vegas Pro 9, nowadays all you hear is Final Cut Pro and Premier Pro – I am a FCP user myself Did you do everything in Vegas? even the muzzel flashes?

Patrick Prejusa : Yes. All done in Vegas. Muzzle flashes and some of the other VFX bits were from Action Essentials over at Videocopilot.net and also from Detonationfilms.com. All of it was composited in using Vegas. I think Sony Vegas is a great piece of editing software. I find it very comfortable to use. This is really about budget. I’ve edited on FCP quite a bit on borrowed macs in the past. And even though I think it’s a superior editor, I needed to rely on what I already had and could use most often. And it’s a pretty amazing piece of software if you know how to use all of it’s tools. I get questions from people all the time on what kind of editing software they should use, and I always say “whatever you can get.” If you can afford FCP, or Premiere, or Vegas, then great. But if all you’ve got is Express, or Windows Movie Maker, you should still be able to tell a story no matter what kind of software you can afford. Skills and Creativity first, Gear and Software second.

Loved the guns, I could not figure out if they were real/replicas/toy or paint ball – some of those Paintball and air soft guns are ridiculously real looking.

Patrick Prejusa : Airsoft guns, totally. From doing my web series Monster Cops (check it out here monstercops.com) I’ve amassed a huge collection of Airsoft guns. Her double barrel sawed off I made from cardboard tubes, duct tape, and a rubber band gun I found at the thrift store. The gun at the end of the teaser I built out of packaging foam, cardboard tubes, and coffee containers. Both those weapons cost me less than $20 to make. Any recoil on the guns was composited in with Vegas.

There did not seem to be a scence with REDD and a Lycan together; what this a pre production or editorial decision?

Patrick Prejusa : Ah yes, one of the perils of no-budget work. This was all because of scheduling. I could only get our actress, April Crum, on specific days early on when the Wolf wasn’t finished yet, also she lives pretty far away. And when the wolf was finally built, it was harder to match up both our schedules, so I shot the Wolf separately. I do regret not getting the awesome shot of REDD face to face with one of the Wolf Beasts, then you’d really see how tall these creatures were. We’ll be sure to correct that when we do the full feature film. Hopefully we can raise some money for that, make it easier for everyone to free up their schedule.