Filmmaking / Directing : Research Questions by Maurice Vaughan

Wind and Rain is pretty cheap. Hours and Crawl are great examples of using water in pictures. Overall, you could probably write it and add parts of the water digitally which is your trade-off budget-wise. But you could be looking at 2-15 million automatically with the idea of flooding. Hours was around 5 mil. Crawl was around 15. Imply the water more than you show it. Limit your scenes in streets with big areas to just a couple of must have set pieces. Wind and Rain can be manipulated practically and digitally with a key production team planning for the "look" of the project.

Hi, John & Jamie. How are you two?

Thanks for the advice! I'm going to switch the community to a small town, so there will be scenes with open roads and lands that are flooded (which can be filmed on a sound stage?). I'm thinking that will be cheaper than a flooded community with a lot of houses.

Maurice you'll love this. it works Indy mogul was awesome, so many gems, this was one of the best on a budget things they ever did,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjNuAYxo6QI

Thanks, Russ McDonald.

John & Jamie, I'm probably going to have one or two flooded areas to keep the budget low. Most of the script will be rain and wind.

Maurice I was trying to find a set near you. At one point there was one you could take an online (and sometimes in person) tour of that was close to Wilmington. I don't know if it was at screen gems or not but the photos and video would let you sort of picture what the limitations are. You can definitely get away with a couple of flooded houses and areas and keep it lower budget.

Thanks, John & Jamie. I'll look up the photos online. A couple flooded houses and areas would be great.

I'm reminded of the 1998 Morgan Freeman flop Hard Rain. I'm pretty certain a production in miserable flooded conditions will not be cheap whatsoever. Flooded sets, rain machines, wind machines, water-proofing, etc can be pretty expensive. Even if you wish to use pre-flooded terrain, it will be expensive to care for the crew in those working conditions. The Peanut Butter Falcon required Georgia tax credits just to keep their swamp-filled production on-budget.

Thanks, B A Mason. The story will mainly have wind and rain. I'm thinking one or two flood scenes in act two or act three.

Maurice - use your imagination. You can rent one of those 'whole house' fans from a tool/equipment company (builders do it all the time) and for rain - a hose and garden sprinkler works. Record a wild track, layer in some flood scenes, shoot MOS and ADR dialog. Pretty simple.

Thanks, Doug Nelson. I'm not filming the script. I'm writing the script and pitching it. I posted these questions in the Filmmaking/Directing lounge since they fall under filmmaking/production.

If it was me, I'd wrap my camera in a garbage bag, then wait for it to rain outside and start filming like crazy!

Great idea, Claude.

That's resourceful, Stephen.

Thanks, everyone.

Actually the sage advice is to avoid anything with floods and rain. The "cheat" is to do a lot of night shooting so you have control over small elements. Miniatures or heavy VFX for exteriors (a combo of these two). For practical shooting if you're flooding a house / building that means a set build in a tank. You can use real houses / buildings for shooting with lots of rainmakers and wind machines (color grading will make it look right/better). Check out 'Force of Nature' (2020) shot in an apartment building for exteriors during a hurricane.

If the rain/wind/flooding is outside but your characters are inside, that will help. If you've ever watched the Netflix series "The Films That Made Us", the episode on "Home Alone" really paints a picture about controlling the house flood during the final chase - they had to build that set in a pool to contain it. And that's really the crux of my two cents - find a way to contain that rain/flood. If it's outdoors with a wide-shot, then you're either looking at expensive Special Effects (done live on set) or expensive Visual Effects (done in post-production with CGI).

Thanks, Lindbergh. I'll check out "Force of Nature."

I appreciate the advice, Kay.

Maurice - since you're the writer, you just write it however you think it should be written. If I'm the Director, I'll figure out how to make it rain and flood - on the screen.

Hi Maurice, it does make the scenes cool, but it could be dangerous, like putting a man fire or an explosion

heres another thing i found looking for something else, show any producer this, it takes time an a lot of post but it can be done an a laptop... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skxzkudg1pQ&t=211s

Thanks for the advice, Doug.

Thanks, Billy. I try to consider actor safety when writing scripts.

That's a cool video, Russ. Thanks.

I guess it's not that bad

Shoot elements. Use a green screen and studio. See my Tree that saved my life loglines. You can also use 3 D or Virtual aspects.

Thanks, Tasha.