Let’s face it – making a HQ video is not an easy task. High quality production requires a lot of meticulous planning, careful budgeting, and just a pinch of good luck (especially if the shooting is done outdoors – you’ll pray to all the gods available to grant you clear skies). Besides that, it usually requires sophisticated equipment that can cost more than someone’s car or apartment!
This usually means that once we see amazing footage with captivating frames and 4k resolution, we assume it must have cost a fortune to make.
Well, what if I told you that you could make an awesome video with just $40?
Yup, just 40 bucks for two amazing videos.
The following two belong to a series of promo videos we did for a an online sports community platform called Globe Scout Me. We wanted to make a few motivational videos for all young athletes who are pushing their limits in order to achieve their dreams and we started with two different sports – basketball and boxing.
I’ll tell you how we did it with practically no budget.
More info: globescoutme.com
#1 – Location, location, location
For the basketball video, we aimed to present the path that every player goes through as honestly and raw as possible, so we went to the place where it all usually starts – the streets.
Besides shooting at the public courts situated at a local park, we went to a public school and asked them to let us in for just 1 hour where we had the indoor shots taken.
Similarly, the boxing video had to depict the lighting (rather the lack of in this case), the sharp sounds and the heavy odor of a training ring, so we had to stay legit – we teamed up with a small local boxing club and shot the video in their training area.
So, zero budget for locations – checked!
#2 – Awesome networking
Knowing the right people who are willing to do you a favor at the right time is crucial for any young business venture – so, as a freshly launched startup with very limited resources, it was a relief when we got approval from the primary school principal for the indoor shooting thanks to one of the crew members who used to go to the school.
Also, it really comes in handy to have awesome, talented friends. The stars of both videos are die-hard fans of the sports, great players/fighters, and even greater friends. They agreed to jump in and help us with this project for no fee.
They were true pros – we had almost no bloopers, everything was done according to schedule, and our videos came out looking like a million bucks.
Therefore, actors’ budget = nada. (Thank you once again, guys!)
#3 – Talented cinematographer
Last but definitely not the least, it all comes down to the cinematographer.
Lucky for us, we have a brilliant one on our team who has a talent for capturing the dynamics of dribbling and freestyle shots perfectly. He plays ball himself, so he knows perfectly well how to catch an athlete in motion and has a clear vision of how the final product should turn out.
A true upside is that he is a one-man-show. For these videos, he’s done it all: shooting, editing and color grading.
Another advantage is that he has great equipment so we didn’t have to invest in expensive gear for this video.
He used a Sony a7sII camera with vintage lenses which he bought at the flea market for just 40$! Insane, right? You can check the rest of his work here: https://www.facebook.com/IgorZecevicVideography/
This makes our cinematographer’s budget $40 – for the lenses.
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To sum everything up: we were lucky with the weather forecast, we had wonderful friends willing to help us out, an amazing crew of talented people on board, so all we needed was a little extra gear to make our videos complete.
Did you ever make a low budget video? How did that go?
Let me know – we are really eager to hear your experiences since we’re planning to do more videos like these in the future :)
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Behind the scene photos by: https://www.instagram.com/freeman_jay_r/
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