Sometimes you don't get the budget you were hoping for on jobs or you want to shoot your own project without incurring too much of a financial hit. What can you do?
Sherif Mokbel is a filmmaker and photographer working out of New York whose relatively unknown YouTube channel is consistently growing with fantastic content on cameras, editing, and cinematography. In this video Mokbel goes through some suggestions on how to shoot with zero budget and still create beautiful content.
A few of these tips I've used myself. One that certainly resonates with most people is getting your friends to help you out. This has been invaluable to my career, with friends of mine acting as models and assistants for years. The primary perk for me is not that they might be free (in fact I do my best to make sure they are compensated in one way or another), but rather that it's someone you can trust and you'll both be relaxed from the get-go.
What do you do when you have no budget for something you want to shoot? Share any ideas in the comment section below.
If you truly have zero budget, your priority should probably be finding more work for yourself so that you have some disposable income to work with. :/ Even if you ask friends to help out, it's polite to at least buy them a meal or something...
I don't think "zero budget" literally means $0. Also, he mentions meals towards the end. Even same day pay.
Yes, although he calls it stealing from local businesses and government agencies, but similar concept... 😁