Ed Burns Keeps It Real and Really Small

Ed Burns' film Newlyweds is having a one-week limited theatrical release in Chicago - his first since 2006's The Groomsmen. Says the micro-budget director about this $9,000 film (which is also being digitally distributed via iTunes, Vudu, Amazon and VOD), "We didn't really set any goals to what we would spend. Given that Newlyweds is shot as a pseudo-documentary
(the story and characters are fictional, but the stylistic approach is
that of a doc), we knew we could do it with a documentary-size film
crew, so two or three people. The actors did their own hair and makeup
and wore their own clothes, and we got locations for free. We were
shooting in 'live' environments, so restaurants, bars, coffee shops
that were open for business while we were shooting. No lights were used.
And we didn't have a sound person. The slate we used was basically the
actor would clap in front of their face on camera, and that's how the
editor would sync up the sound. And the other big change was the experiment with the consumer model camera, a Canon 5D."

Read the full interview here on The Chicago Tribune.