Just Because We're not Big Budget

I firmly believe that just because we're small and "low budget," it doesn't mean we have to appear that way. I mean this in every sense of the word, too, because there are so many ways to do a lot with a little, especially these days. For example, you can start with a business card. It goes without saying that if you work in visual media, you better have a good looking card. It's sort of the first "impression" of what your work looks like. You can do a fairly good looking card with services like vistaprint.com and others out there. The trick is getting some help from a designer or someone with a keen eye for design and layout. Then, getting some help from someone who knows Photoshop well and can show you how to properly upload the artwork so it looks great. We're lucky because I was a web designer before I got into film, and my husband is a wonderful illustrator, so that helped. But paying attention to all of the details, even the presentation layout is a good idea, as well. Megha and I spent a lot of time putting together the look/feel of our presentation, using images we went out and took, then spending quite a bit of time to pick out a color scheme, the proper folders and other materials. As we're moving ahead, we're using this same strategy for the movie. I am working on thinking through all of the details, like the specific shot compositions, and using small, inexpensive ways to make them visually innovative. For me, this goes back to the basic framing and how I can add depth of field and texture to each shot. We can't afford fancy cranes and tons of movement, but that's okay with me, it's much more about emotion and context for me in this film...