About this episode

Mark Hensley discusses his experience shooting a micro-budget feature film with no crew and shares valuable insights on sound design and filmmaking techniques.

In this episode, I'm joined by filmmaker and re-recording mixer Mark Hensley to talk about his micro-budget feature Clown and Out in Valley Village, which he shot guerrilla style over the course of a year with no crew, a cast of two, and a total budget of around $4,000 (half of which went to a single permit). Mark shares how he found the script through a Facebook writing group, cut a 200-page draft down to something shootable, and built a workflow around editing each scene the night it was shot so he and his actors could review the footage and reshoot anything that wasn't working. We also dive deep into his remarkable background in sound, from recording music at the Record Plant in Sausalito to mixing major network TV shows in LA, and the practical audio techniques every indie filmmaker should steal from his playbook. Topics covered include: Why shooting slowly over a year with no crew is a creative advantage Operating as a one man band with the S1H, an RS3 Pro gimbal, and lavs into camera Why no single plugin fixes bad dialogue, and rescuing scenes with tools like DX Revive Having actors re-run scenes as audio-only safety takes to patch dropouts in post When emotional production…

People in this episode

Host: Noam Kroll

Guest: Mark Hensley

Topics covered

• micro-budget filmmaking
• guerrilla filmmaking
• sound design
• independent film production
• editing techniques
• filmmaking workflow

Keywords

• micro-budget
• filmmaking
• sound design
• guerrilla style
• editing
• independent film
• production techniques

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Record Plant

Products: S1H, RS3 Pro, DX Revive

Books & works: Clown and Out in Valley Village

Places: LA, Sausalito

More episodes of Show Don't Tell: Micro-Budget Filmmaking

• Partnering With Joe Swanberg & Shooting A Puppet Horror Feature In 11 Days - With Aidan Leary & C.R. Thompson · July 5, 2026 · 1h 4m
• From 80 Acting Credits To Producing Her First Feature, Plus How To Actually Crowdfund A Film On WeFunder - With Hannah Barefoot · June 26, 2026 · 57 min
• How to Make a Sub-$500K Feature In 14 Days With A Crew of 5 - An Interview With Filmmaker Cory Thibert · June 19, 2026 · 54 min

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