We've been video recording Adelaide Fringe Festival events since the early 1990s. Either as multi-camera productions, or just a single camera recording. If you want your performance recorded for posterity, then make a booking while we're still available.
From time to time we're asked if we can film a performance at the Fringe for a really low budget. Yes we can. The basic equipment prices are the same as on the pages mentioned above, but you can reduce some of the additional costs involved with a production, as written about on the low budget productions page, and briefly outlined below…
Everything to do with filming your performance is an operating cost; pre-production work, equipment, transportation, crew, post-production. Yes, we, and all other businesses, charge you for all of the expenses involved in your production. Some will do so as a lump price, based on years of experience of what to expect the job needs. Others will charge for each expense, separately. Rarely will someone not charge you for the extra expenses, they'll be factored into other costs.
As a way for you to get a cheaper production, perhaps an affordable one. If you want to, and it's beneficial to your budget, you can provide some of this, instead. Such as:
Transportation to and/or from the venue for myself and the equipment. You'd need a station wagon, or a courier van for any jobs using lots of equipment, or large equipment. Usually, that costs about $50 each way (based on taxi or courier costs, or paying someone to help out who has a van).
You can supply your production crew. We'll train your crew (e.g. during a rehearsal), and give them instructions as they go along (all of the crew wear intercom headsets). This is an excellent way for you to get that multi-camera recording of your performance, that you didn't think you could afford, instead of just a single-camera recording. Usually, crew costs are around $150 to $250 per crew member. You, also, get a much better production that just getting several of your mates to film randomly with their own cameras, which you'd have to spend hours, or days, editing it all together.
You could band together with some other acts performing before or after you, have all your acts filmed, and spread the production costs amongst all of you. Yes, doing more filming can be more expensive than just one filming session, but not significantly. You pay a daily price to hire equipment and/or crew, whether they work for the full day, or less. So you may as well get as much done during that time frame. In this case, it's just the expenses that will increase (such as more recording media being used). But working longer than a normal day's work, weekend work, or late night shooting, will be a higher charge than just a daily rate.
NB: Live-mixed multi-camera shoots are usually cheaper, overall, than individually recorded multi-camera shoots, because of all the editing time required to combine the individually recorded cameras together. A live-mixed shoot needs no editing, it's virtually edited as it's recorded. And even single camera recordings can be more expensive, for the same reason (post production work). Also, live mixed shots are all co-ordinated by the director, whereas multiple undirected individual cameras will often have many moments when none of the cameras have a useable picture. And, how quickly do you need the finished product? Live-mixed shoots are ready almost immediately, but any shoot requiring lots of post-production work might not be ready for a week.
If you're enquiring about this special offer, mention it when you contact me. I don't, usually, offer the no-budget options to people over the phone, unless they start to talk about crewing a production themselves.
You'll have to pay a non-refundable booking deposit (cash, direct deposit, or paypal). You may have to pay the full amount, or part-payment of the full amount, on the night, in cash. Cheques may only be acceptable when the job is payed for in advance, and the cheque has already cleared before the job.
Don't try to skimp by planning to have some of the equipment un-manned, or having one crew member do two or more tasks that need the full attention of individual crew members. It makes doing a production extremely difficult, and I do not want to have to put up with seriously inconvenient working conditions, not to mention that a production can completely fail when inadequately equipped or crewed.
I will not hire out equipment by itself, I will always be a part of the deal. It's additional crew that's optional, and some of the other expenses that you can handle (e.g. transportation).
Lighting needs to be adequate (bright enough, and evenly spread), and how the sound will be recorded needs planning (simply taking a feed from someone else's mixing desk is usually inadequate; they're usually mixing for amplified speakers, which has different technique and requirements than mixing for recording; and we need to add microphones for ambience, else it looks like a mimed performance when you can't hear movements on stage, nor the audience responding).
Yes, it may sound complicated, but it's not really too difficult to manage, and this this is the price you pay for doing a low-budget job. You either do a lot of the work yourself, or you pay for it to be done for you. Professional video productions are moderately expensive because a lot of work goes into them.
The no budget productions page goes into greater detail about what's involved in a self-crewed production.
We've had one or two performers ask us to film them, then run away, become uncontactable, and not pay their bills. And, no, not collecting your video recording doesn't negate our operating costs. We've had to get to your gig, and hang around, when we could be doing something else. The next act to do that will have copies of their video recording sold to the public until we recover our costs. The alternative is to take legal action against them.