It would seem impossible to make a 105 minute film professionally edited, color corrected, scored, designed, and mixed in 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound, but not knowing this the naive filmmakers of 'SYMPATHY' pulled it off. The film all takes place in one room, this element wasn't created to serve the budget, rather the story, but fortunately it makes for a contained expense account in the production phase. The set was built by member's of the cast & crew and some family, the building materials were donated. The furnishings were all purchased from a real motel supply store for under $250. The actor's provided their own costumes (of which they wear the same outfit the entire duration of the film). The director already owned his own digital film and editing equipment and acted as both cinematographer and editor. The soundstage was a barn in Indiana, behind a farm house that provided the tiny cast and crew's accomodations during shooting. The only real production expenses outside of that were blood, food, and tape stock (which in the mini-dv format runs less than $8 an hour). In post-production the film was cut for free by the director, who then lured the talents of a composer, sound designer, and mixer to work for passion (paying what he could to cover studio expenses, all of which were cut dramatically). Companies such as Dolby Laboratories donated their resources for first-time filmmakers because they believed in the film and its creators. No one was paid up-front for their efforts and most involved actually spent money to see the project come to fruition. The print-mastering of both the sound and video were all formatted digitally and the final project currently only exists on DVD, which was all done in house with the director's home apple computer. The film has played theatrically in multiple venues, projected off a burned DVD which can be purchased for under a dollar and holds a high-quality mpeg2 transfer and the compressed 5.1 surround sound mix. With modern digital technology solid-state formats (which are incredibly expensive) aren't incredibly necessary. When the technology services the story, and the storytellers are willing to work within their confines -- ingenuity, creativity, endurance, and endless will can make amazing substitues for money.
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