It was mentioned in a Criterion DVD Forum that Carruth doesn't want any EXTRAS on the bluray or DVD release. One reason that producers often keep budget and technical details about a movie confidential is: it can affect how much they can get in a distribution deal. Even though this movie was self distributed. Directors, like magicans, may not want to reveal their methods. Keeping it a mystery. David Lynch had no extras BTS on Mulholland Drive.

RE DIY moviemaking...There's a movie about Orson Welles: One Man Band. Exiled from Hollywood, scraping up money to buy film, he travelled the world with a flatbed editing table in a suitcase ( his version of a Macbook Pro), shooting feature films piecemeal over many years, often dubbing his own voice for other actors. He even snuck into Hollywood studios hidden in a trunk of a car, with film students, because he couldn't afford to rent the studio. When studio guards came by, he would hide in the trunk until they passed! This is the same filmmaker who once had access to the finest cinematographers, set designers, etc before he was persona non grata in Hollywood!

http://bedeutung.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/orson-welles-the-one-man-band/

Has anyone seen any "The Making Of" videos about Upstream Color?

I'll try and consolidate some other PV-posted info here...

@kazuo wrote here:

The film Upstream Color, ..., was reportedly shot with the Nokton 25mm. Check it out and see if the lens works for you. Watch in particular how the Nokton behaves in the wider shots.

@JDN wrote HERE:

just watched Upstream Color and it was a solid reminder of two things

1) Even the gh2 is more than enough camera for any project and

2) Shallow DOF (not 5d shallow, but shallow) remains such a key ingredient in making something appear like a film and the m43 sensor size is really great for that, and was put to excellent use in Upstream Color (especially in an indie context where m43 gives up a bit more safety on focus pulls than s35, without losing the bokeh-y backgrounds you want); would have been much harder to do on s16, although certainly not impossible.

@jleo wrote HERE (speaking of CBC News review):

Not bad coverage for a one man band with two hacked GH2's!

SO far we seem to know they used two hacked cameras and maybe a Nokton 25 lens.

NoFilmSchool say:

we do know that they used at least a Rokinon 85mm lens, and supposedly Voigtlanders were used for much of the shoot.

IMDB's "Technical Details" for Upstream Color include are just one technical detail, "Panasonic GH2"- but we really want to hear much more. As we have read, the producers have been tight-lipped about revealing much about their technical details, (and I can understand why). Observers are quite ready to discuss about the film's innovative Distribution but that's off-topic here.

I cannot download the movie but have ordered the DVD and will by watching it at least twice: once for the heart, and thereafter for the brain - to try and see what they're doing.

Any more info would be welcome :-)