Blockbusters On A Budget: Guerrilla Filmmaking On The Fanimatrix
Unitec graduate Steven A. Davis is a 29 year old actor, stuntman, and writer/director. You may have seen him on several TV ads, Shortland Street and Xena, and he's done stunt work for Vertical Limit and Hercules, but most will recognise his face as 'Dante' in the short fan film The Fanimatrix. After his unsuccessful application in the 48 Hours film competition, Steven teamed up with friend Rajneel Singh and created The Fanimatrix as a buildingblock to becoming better directors, not realising that this would take the internet world by storm. At one point it was the world's fastest download - with 5 million views in 6 months, 2 million hits on their website in the first week and 80,000 downloads in 3 days, the statistics speak for themselves.
The short film was done with an $800 budget, shot guerrilla-style on a Sony handycam and edited by themselves on their own equipment. Locations were shot (illegally) all around Auckland. One nightclub sequence was created by renting the back room of a bar for $100 and posting an ad on the internet for a Goth-themed fancy dress party. Many of the interiors for the chase sequence were achieved by the cast and crew sneaking into various buildings after hours and shooting in the early hours of the morning. They called in many favours from people they knew, friends and old school mates - if it wasn't for them, they may have not been able to make the film as well as they did. Steven personally thinks there are a lot of directors out there who are too used to luxury, leading them to become quite lazy and wasteful. Steven says that learning to struggle with finances makes things more interesting, and shows what you are capable of when you make do with what you have. "If you have a dollar, learn to plan in advance. There is a lot of wasted expenditure through poor planning. Film making is 90% planning; good planning is what makes you able to afford to make good short films. Doing it the budget way sometimes is almost as good as the expensive way." "My advice on making short films would be to use a small hand-held camera. Larger cameras attract attention, whereas a small handy cam usually doesn't get a second glance. Once someone sees a big camera they instantly think money and try to squeeze it all out of you, and being short filmmakers with no funding, we can't exactly afford to do so." Steven spends most of his time writing and acting, but isn't too busy to show the ladies a good time - on a budget. When asked about his last date he took a girl on he blushes and laughs uncomfortably: "I only had, like, $30 to spend so I took her to a spot where we had a view of the city and the wharf and had a little picnic with food and even a bottle of wine. I thought the date went really well… but she never called." Steven is currently working on his new short film Bigger Fish which has a budget of $400. He is also rehearsing for this month's Equus at the Playhouse theatre in Glen Eden, the play which stirred controversy over little Harry Potter's nudity - unfortunately Steve keeps his clothing on in this one. His major focus at the moment is to get $10,000 to $500,000 funding for a feature film of his short film Take, which had a finalist placing in the Moonlight Short competition. Steven is a busy guy, but does everything with a smile: "It's my passion, it's my job and I'm doing it. It's my dream come true really." A happy guy, romantic picnics, good with money, creative, athletic, not too bad-looking either - this is almost like a dating ad.