As we go through the development of the
Demonspawn web series, more issues arise that we have to make
decisions about. These issues are in the category of line items that
must be funded. The question is how we will fund them. For example,
do we rent or buy costumes? Renting seems like a great option,
especially for the flashback scenes to the distant past. After all,
there are some cavernous warehouses filled with costumes from all
eras that are surprisingly affordable when looking at an individual
garment. But the rental fee per garment is not all that has to be
shelled out. Some costume houses require a deposit of a couple times
the total fee to hedge against damage or loss. And often, the
selection in an actor's given size is not the greatest. And sometimes
the condition of the garments is not the greatest (some are decades
old and have been rented many, many times). When we shot TheGunslinger, this became a big issue. After a lot of Googling, we
found a lot of sites that sold authentic western gear to reenactors.
The prices were great and the quality was amazing. Most importantly
of all, the actors really loved wearing the garments. That was a
really important lesson we learned from that shoot was that costumes
– even in the smallest production – are extremely important for
an actor to get into character.
We have an advantage with this first
story arc, because the flashback is to the Victorian era. Now, like
many fads, Steampunk is annoying. Much of the design is random and
silly and has drifted from the original style (Jon has followed it
for decades). However, the proliferation of the style in pop culture
has made for a great many high quality, affordable options for
costumes. We can age them if we need to. Usually that means gently
laundering them to make them look 'lived in.' The other advantage of
buying costumes – no matter what era – is that we're making these
shorts and webseries with something longer in mind. We may need to
shoot new material. It is very risky to do that assuming that we
could rent the exact same costumes. They may have been rented by
another shoot, or they may have been retired. That sometimes happens
when a costume is either too old to rent or it's discovered that it
is insanely valuable. That happened with Scarlet O'Hara's picnic
dress from Gone With the Wind. That was being rented with their
Holloween costumes for the public! The only real issue for us is
storage space. If this becomes the ongoing project we expect it to
be, we'll need to rent a storage space so that they can be kept
properly.
The modern clothes are really easy. And
no, we don't buy a bunch of clothes from stores, clean them carefully
and return them. I know this is common for indie films. I've been in
a wardrobe room of a major horror film that was very carefully
pressing and folding clothes to put back into bags. Each bag had a
receipt. They would all be returned the next day. I make no judgment.
It's just something I don't want to do. Our answer is simple –
Thrift Stores! We are in the Entitlement Zone of greater Los Angeles.
Folks here ditch clothes with each season. They already looked lived
in, and they are hardly anywhere near dated. The only real risk is
having one set of clothing for any given scene. If something gets
stained, it would have to be laundered before another take could be
filmed. But that is a risk with rentals as well. I'm not sure where
actors pick up this skill, but most of those I've worked with are
adept at not getting anything on their clothing. Some go through the
effort of putting a trash bag over themselves (cutting holes in the
bag for head and arms). Others are just good at keeping really clean.
I've yet to have to launder costumes for anything that wasn't planned
on set. But just to be sure, I always know where the nearest
laundromat to any location is. I also have detergent, stain removers,
fabric softener and rolls of quarters in my kit. The upshot is that
we have a budget for costumes that is a small fraction of a typical
shoot. It just takes more time and effort to gather everything
together. Time and effort are the cheapest assets we have.
Props are more of a challenge. I hate
renting props with a blinding passion. Binding passion, I tell you!
First, the fees are huge for what is rented. For instance, a basic set of cookware can run $100 for the week. I can find one by a Food Network Star at Target for a tad more than that. Second, the deposits are even more huge AND
most prop houses require a million dollar insurance rider no matter
how small the item rented. Lastly, it is almost impossible to get
those huge deposits back. We lost over 10 grand in prop rental
deposits that were not returned due to 'damage.' We had photos of how
we rented them matching how we returned them. Still, no deposits
returned. I will never rent a prop again. Once more, I am grateful to
the worlds of cosplay and role playing. Beyond that, there is Ebay.
We found all the dishes and the very old fashioned coffeepot for The
Gunslinger there. We even found this marvelous rain barrel. One of my
partners uses it at barbecues as a stand for his grilling utensils.
Again, we can find pretty much anything we need through these sources
and pay a price that is very close to the rental fee but without the
insurance rider and deposits. We can have very realistic props that
the actors will enjoy working with even on a budget as small as this
one.
As I said before, there is a lot more
to share than I do here. Think of this as part one on this topic.
'Till next time.
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