Shane: "It was a few thousand for the camera rental, a couple of thousand for processing, and then, of course, the cost of film stock. I called around and managed to get a lot of expired stock donated. I also used tungsten-based 35mm slide film to storyboard the movie - this really helped me show the various labs what the final film would look like and thus negotiate prices with them. They are much more likely to give you a discount when they think you’re someone that might be back one day with a bigger budget. I'd also like to stress to people that the $7,000 did not cover the 35mm blow-up. A friend loaned me the cash for that when we realized we would need something to project at Sundance. I had a few offers from certain bodies to pay for the blow-up, but they demanded that they be credited as Executive Producers and that their credit show before everyone else's. I didn't think that was fair to me and everyone who worked on the film for free before it was a "Sundance" film. Luckily, my friend Scott Douglass saved the day."

Shane: "I looked into rigging up a skateboard-style dolly, but in the end I found a dolly that was cheap (around $40/week) compared to the camera rental which was about $1,000 per week."

Shane: "I had a bad experience with the casting. I saw about 100 actors in total, but found that they either were a little too theatrical, or that they'd show up unprepared. In the end, only one professional actor ended up in the movie. The rest were either family members, or friends-of-friends. It's funny because I've heard several nice comments specifically about the acting."

Shane: "I would do a better job of securing a producer (or ten). One of the problems I had shooting PRIMER is that I didn't have enough time to concentrate on direction. I was too busy phoning the actors, securing locations, picking up equipment, running to the lab, and just coordinating everything. I also would add that, in retrospect, if I had just increased the budget a little - say from $7,000 to $10,000, the film could have been two or three times better.

A good example is the fact I edited the film with Adobe Premiere. In addition to it continually crashing, I have found that it is just not cut out for proper film work, where something like Final Cut Pro is. Premiere is fine for home videos, but it lacks certain features that restricted what I could do and how seamlessly I could work with the sound."

Shane: "I am finishing a script now that I hope to direct."

Shane: "That's a question I've been deliberating over for a while now. While I don't want to appear stubborn, I must confess that I find the writer/director route much more attractive because I will always understand my scripts, their characters, and their motivations in a much more intimate way than a script by another writer."

Shane: "I met the early deadline for Sundance, but I was kind of paranoid about how political the process of getting in might be. I had heard it was always a good idea to get a producer's rep, so I travelled down to LA and spent some time phoning around. I called around 500-600 people a week, everyone from publicists to managers to agents. I also created a trailer and a website for the film. Ultimately I don't know exactly what led to the film getting in. I'd like to think that everything that happens is based completely on a film's merits, but so many things happened, it's hard to pin it down to a certain series of events."

Shane: "Yes. I found a guy who claimed to love the film and wanted to rep it. He also wanted $5000 a month as a retainer. Actually, that happened quite a few times. One guy told me to send a screener to his friend in New York along with a check for a few hundred dollars for "editing notes". It's a bizarre world out there. To this day, I don't know if those were scams or if that's just another way it could have gone."

Shane: "I have zero advice. There are so many contradictory recommendations out there, that I'm sure first-time filmmakers already have enough to deal with without me adding to the noise. For the last 3 years I have been given so much bad advice, I'd hate to do the same to anyone else."

Shane: "I was one of those guys you mentioned, who didn't pay the sound enough attention. I had a DAT recorder and a crappy old mic. The sound wasn't good to be honest. About 80% of it needed to be rerecorded."

Shane: "I did the ADR work in my apartment. The only things that seemed to make noise in my apartment were the fridge and the computer. I switched the fridge off, and put my PC in a back closet with just a mouse and keyboard and monitor wired (with extension cables) up to it."

Shane: "I just finished negotiations for the North American distribution deal with THINKFilm. PRIMER will be in theatres before the end of the year."