Film shot on 7D wins SxSW juried “best film” prize

DSLRs

Great news for the shooting films on DSLR movement, even better news for Lena Durham. Her second feature “Tiny Furniture” has won the juried best narrative film prize at the South by South West film festival in Austin, Texas. An incredible accomplishment for this very talented 23 year old who wrote, directed and starred in it.

The film was shot entirely on the Canon 7D in November last year.

Of course there is nothing stopping this film being shot on any other camera. Am certain budget would have been a strong reason (under 6 figures) and as we all know for the price there is no way you can get a look as good as this any other way. There is no way it being shot on a 7D had any influence on the jury or even that they even knew. These prizes are not given for what they are shot on but for the whole, but still watching this and knowing that movies that are winning prizes are being shot using cameras that you and I own makes this a very exciting time for all of us.

Check out the trailer…

Tiny Furniture Trailer from Lena Dunham on Vimeo.

Looks great doesn’t it!? Congratulations Lena on a winning such a coveted prize with your movie. Check out the official website here.

Film info

22-year-old Aura returns home after college to her artist mother’s loft with the following: a useless film theory degree, 357 hits on her YouTube page, and no shoulders to cry on. Starring Dunham and her real-life family, Tiny Furniture is tragicomedy about what does and does not happen when you graduate with no skills, no love life, and a lot of free time.

22-year-old Aura returns home to her artist mother’s TriBeCa loft with the following: a useless film theory degree, 357 hits on her Youtube page, a boyfriend who’s left her to find himself at Burning Man, a dying hamster, and her tail between her legs. Luckily, her trainwreck childhood best friend never left home, the restaurant down the block is hiring, and ill-advised romantic possibilities lurk around every corner. Aura quickly throws away her liberal-arts clogs and careens into her old/new life: a dead-end hostess job, parties on chilly East Village fire escapes, stealing twenties out of her mother’s Prada purse, pathetic Brooklyn “art shows,” prison-style tattoos done out of sheer boredom, drinking all the wine in her mother’s neatly organized cabinets, competing with her prodigious teenage sister, and desperate sex in a giant metal pipe. Surrounded on all sides by what she could become, Aura just wants someone to tell her who she is.

Lena Dunham writes, directs and stars as Aura, the girl who really wants you to know that she is having a very, very hard time. Lena’s mother, photographer Laurie Simmons, plays the fictional mother of Aura, and Dunham’s precocious sister Grace Dunham plays Nadine, Aura’s precocious sister. Alex Karpovsky and David Call are two very different but equally humiliating romantic interests; Jemima Kirke and Merritt Wever are Aura’s diametrically opposed friends. This is Dunham’s second feature film; the first, Creative Nonfiction, premiered at SXSW in March 2009.

37 comments

  3. This looks really great and just shows how cinematic we are now able to make video production appear. The only let down is the audio which sounds as though it was recorded from a 7D. If this had studio audio production and real punch to the sound (speech would need to be over dubbed), then you’d not really know it wasn’t a 35mm indy film. Very inspiring.

  4. Really great… love it. Very natural and well shot – so clean looking. It’s amazing the doors these HDSLRs are opening for young film makers without the expense. I think some of them are ready to graduate from the loft to the big time by the looks of this.

    The production values in terms of the way it looks, could they be any better? Not unless you want to make Avatar. If they’d had a bigger budget would it have been a better film? Of course not.

    There are tons of classic films shot in the history of cinema, whereby if you took away the lighting, the camera, and replaced it with a HDSLR, I bet the same film would have been made in the same way and it’d be just as good. Knowing that really does hand a mandate to indie film makers to concentrate on what matters and build a good cast, a good story, etc. It seems obvious now, that the next Alexander Payne or Jason Reitman is going to cut his teeth on HDSLR and perhaps even end up making his masterpiece on one as well. I don’t see the point of having expensive, large cameras for this kind of assemble piece and it just looks so natural and intimate.

    Have SXSW put up a podcast or video of the HDSLR talks anywhere?

  7. It’s truly a revolution. Sure good films have been shot on every format ever produced but with the DSLR’s the tools have come together so talented filmmakers can do so much with so little. Just think of the tools we have now that even a few years ago would have been ridicules to even dream about owning. An HD 24p camera with a 35mm sized sensor with interchangeable lenses, for less than a thousand bucks (T2i) my oh my!

  8. For all intended purposes regarding this forum, it’s great to know that a 7D was used. However, it doesn’t make any difference what that was shot on, or anything for that matter as any distributor who does this professionally and successfully will tell you, that an audience doesn’t care what it is shot on, they care and stay in the hope that someone actually has something to say and knows how to say it and convey it in the best way. I want to now see that film and that’s a good thing, however I wasn’t straining to observe whether it was in 24p or 25p. Cheers Philip, one to look out for 🙂

  9. this looks great! I love that it’s not depth of field porn but an actual narative subtly using the strengths of the camera to enhance the story. Congrats Lena, the trailer is wonderful, I’m very interested in seeing the film.

    Sure wish I could have made it S by SW!

    -dane

  12. I believe this is what the HD-DSLR is all about, having the ability to produce great looking video with the amazingly priced piece of gear.

    It’s especially great for those of us without much, if any budget at all. The part where she uses her mom and sister as other roles in the movie was quite brilliant.

    Can’t imagine being a director and actress at the same time though, must be really hard to do both well. But cheers to what it is, looks like full featured movie has potential

  13. “knowing that movies that are winning prizes are being shot using cameras that you and I own makes this a very exciting time for all of us”

    This has been happening since the days of mini DV – Blair Witch and 28 Days Later spring to mind.

    It has always been possible to separate good narrative story telling from expensive camera technology, so nothing has changed.

    The only thing that has changed is the availability of a previously expensive esthetic in the form of shallow depth of field.

    But given the number of great films and dramas shot on 16mm, even that isn’t a game changer.

    Any of us who work in the film industry as camera crew have access to free camera equipment, film stock, processing, RED cameras, etc etc through our contacts. It doesn’t make making a good film any easier at all.

    But I may be wrong…

    1. Yes but they never looked good! Ignoring getting free gear from film schools etc now everyone can shoot a movie that can look as good as the big boys…content and skill are of course the biggest things still

      1. Agreed, it’s very exciting that a camera 20 feet from me can make a picture that can properly be projected onto a massive screen and hold up in quality. 28 Days Later I’ll give you, but Blair Witch Project is a terrible example to put up to any of these cameras.

  17. its a shame that no one seems to be able to light these days though. Sorry. The 7d is no game changer, I think I’m seeing the blandest material ever now. Shallow depth of field is such a cheap trick!

    1. Matt, Do you have a link to your work?
      I would really like to see what you are doing as far a good lighting goes, always ready to learn. Looking forward to seeing all the great stuff everyone is making 🙂

  18. Does anyone else think the color/skin-tone is poor?

    Philip, I feel like your footage is so much more vibrant and defiantly not as flat. Is this a matter of poor grading? Or maybe a stylistic decision?

    PS – Are you still using the same PP setting you recommend in your f-top academy 7D video?

  19. Philip, I bought your two CDs on the 7d…amazing. I was up to speed in a day, thanks. Couple of q’s. Could you take footage exported into 60p (slo-mo) and speed it up to say 32fps in FCP (in other words 193%)to give the footage a slightly dream-feel but not as slow as 60p? This could give more frame rate options like the HPX??? Your thoughts?

  20. There are enough people proficient in sound design and Pro Tools that having a poorly mixed film or trailer is just not necessary. It doesn’t have to be mixed in surround, but should at least be mixed well for stereo playback. Not enough amateur filmmakers focus on sound enough – they settle for mixing straight out of FCP (not even using Soundtrack Pro). If they would just roundtrip it into Soundtrack Pro and spend a couple of hours balancing levels and adding judicious EQ they could work miracles. Just sayin’….

  22. A great achievement indeed…its about time we start seeing some features shot on HDSLR’s. Greatly anticipating a feature from phil, any chance of this in 2010 phil???

  25. A little that I shot called “Artois the Goat” premiered at SXSW in 2009 although we didn’t win. But now, after wins at a few smaller festivals, we find ourselves on the apple trailers website.

    http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/artoisthegoat/

    This may be of interest because we shot on the HVX-200 with the Letus Extreme adapter. I know this is the age of the DSLR (and the RED) but I think it is cool to see some good old fashioned 35-mm adapter footage on apple trailers.

    What do you think?

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