Personally...do some YouTube shorties (2-4 minutes) get use to using puppets on the camera and what you can do with the camera as well as setting up shots to accommodate actors and puppets...see how people respond to your work...maybe then you can gain some fanfare from family or friends who like what your doing and will give you some funds towards your movie project.  Doing shorts will help you understand the costs that build up quickly as well as not trying to learn the craft while doing a movie which will slow things down a lot and u might lose interest, your actors for taking so long to set up your shots, editing ect...the movie can then be looked at later on.

Just my two cents...

StiqPuppets

Quite right PoorFishy and Shawn. The more money you have  the more and faster you can go. I'm 12 minutes into ours (one version in Spanish and one in English = 24 mins total) I think I have spent $25 so far. I am like you TheAmazingRando, I have most of the technical setup already. I have no actors so far except me, and my daughter helped out on a few shots so far, and we feed her anyway, so she won't get pizza unless I decide we have it for dinner . I have some cave scenes coming up. I did a whole room for $1. Never let budget stop you... but the less you have, the harder you have to work to do something that will work.

I'm building a cave right now too.  I was inspired by a YouTube vid posted here a few days ago.  Changed an entire scene location (and added a few days work) just because it was such a cool idea.

I'm building a cave right now too.  I was inspired by a YouTube vid posted here a few days ago.  Changed an entire scene location (and added a few days work) just because it was such a cool idea.

That would be pagestep007 aka Philip that created those videos.   In fact if you are looking to do the film on a shoestring then I would suggest popping over to his YT page and checking out all his videos.  http://www.youtube.com/user/philipstephens007

Way ahead of ya.  Great stuff!

EXCELLENT! That is just what we want. Go PoorFishy!

Just as an aside, I got my DIY Jib to do a nice smooth crane down, nice and slow.. with a bottle of water. I'll be doing a tutorial update on that one soon I think.
 Here's a blooper shot using the thing. Starts at 38 seconds

http://youtu.be/CrXCdY1e_k8

Oops lol...how can an artist ever work with all these interruptions!!! LOL. n Very cool can't wait to see your tutorial on this one!

StiqPuppets

That was very nice camera movement (talked as an amateur, of course)- what did you do with that waterbottle, I don't think I got that. But a very nice gandalfian outfit, too...

AmazingRando, it's 'amazing' what you can do with little to zero dollars, as you can see by a few comments here on this thread.  That's the real trick in indie filmmaking; getting as much as you can for as little as you can.  These are the challenges that make filmmaking so much fun (and sometimes very frustrating). 

But good luck with your film.  As a filmmaker myself, I'm always interested to see what others put together..  Have fun and it'll be fun to watch your project come together.

Rika, the bottle of water is a counterbalance on the  crane. Then there is an extra smaller bottle of water with a hole in it. The water drains out and the balance  slowly tips. The trick is to get the move to come to a non jerky or non-bouncey standstill where you want it. I still have not perfected that part, but in this shot it worked for me. The Gandalfian outfit was made out of some cloth I got off some office dividers I found thrown out in the street, and some chair covers inherited from my motherinlaw. I was given the wig, the beard is mine the hat is  cardboard and sweatsuit material, and the stick donated from nature.

Okay, nice idea, I will put my husband to that.

I didn't get a chance to work on it because some materials I ordered didn't come. )8

you mean remaking Elbow TheAmazingRando?

Yeah.

I am nearly finished remaking Elbow. I started last friday and my sewing machine died so I had to sew it by hand which was a pain in the neck and took two days. I first made it out of a light colored fleece then I wrapped it in fur so there wouldn't be a lot of ugly seams. I put the mouth in and now I'm just waiting for the eye to dry. I'll put up pics when I'm all done.