$23,149 Kickstarter Film Hits Redbox

P

prexdealer

Well-known member
Saw this movie on Redbox today.

IMDB said budget was 70k, Kickstarter only raised 23k. And the review said 30K. So you figure the budget, lol.
I think this ties well with the other thread about 30-50k budget films. BUT the key thing is this guy has experience. If you watch the kickstarter video and read his imdb he has done stuff.

Abstentia

Kickstarter Link
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...a-a-new-vision-of-horror-from-mike-flanagan-0

IMDB Link
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1610996/

Microfilmmaker Article - Review
http://microfilmmaker.com/critiques/Issue61/Absentia.html

Microfilmmaker Article - BTS written by the director
http://microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue60/Absentia1.html

A couple of paragraphs from the BTS

"We live in a world where you can raise money from strangers on the internet to shoot a movie, and owe them nothing of it back. We live in a world where you can buy a camera for less than $1000 that can shoot full HD, 24p, and sport a filmic depth of field (my new Rebel T2i looks just lovely). Because we have these tools, it just means that MORE effort must go into making sure that the stories we tell are worth telling, and told well. Those talents lie in the instincts of writers, directors, DP's, and sound artists, and cannot be replaced by technology.

After all, once Prometheus gave mortals the gift of fire, there were still people who couldn't think of anything better to do with it than lighting bags of feces ablaze on peoples' porches."

Love the last line. I have it in my Netflix queue so everyone wait until I see it before putting it in your queue!:kali:
 
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Kickstarter probably topped off the financing. It wasn't 100% of it.

Then after it was initially finished they likely came in and spent several times that getting it ready for release. I'm kickstrtering a project right now and it's only about 60% of my budget (the kickstarter funds).
 
Well I am not sure about all that. I hear people fluff their IMDB budget, but if I were gonna fluff I would maybe at least say 100K instead of 70k on imdb. So maybe you are right. All I wanted to do was share an example that can show what is possible.

In his video it seems like he has done a lot and does editing and stuff. So it is entirely possible his friends from the industry helped him through post or he did it all himself and that he did it for 25k cash plus deferred, who knows.

That is the advantage it seems if you are actually in the industry. You can make a ton of connections and people who trade favors. There are a few people on this board like Kholi who have built a series of relationships which allow him to do stuff most people can't. But he also packed his bags and moved to LA and struggled for a while.

But what would I know lol. I am just learning about this stuff!
 
Very possible, I'm not sure either, just throwing out theories.

SO many different paths in this business all of which have succeeded for some and failed for others. What it would take to make a good feature for 24K is not anything I'd be willing to sign up for. I'm too old.
 
Well somehow Absentia went from nothing to a very long wait on Netflix lol. I couldn't wait so I redboxed it. The movie was ok. What I enjoyed was the audio commentary and the making of (30 mins) featurette. There were two audio commentaries -producer one and an actor one. The producer one discussed how they used kickstarter (the 23k was just part of the money, they also had investors.) Issues discussed were things like no lighting (some scenes were sort of dark), clearance on art etc, the post process, the festival process - including how festivals select films - a world premiere or regional premiere are important to festival programmers. Sometimes they only got one or two takes for a scene and coverage was sort of an issue - but the director is a professional editor so he knew what he needed in his mind. The actor commentary was ok.

I think if you can get it on Netflix and want some ideas of issues you might face on a microbudget film this is not a bad dvd to check out.

The big issue in my mind - is they mainly used available light. They had like 50 setups on a day, which was possible without having to deal with lights. But I don't think it is the best looking dslr movie I have seen.

The look is just a little off in my unprofessional eye.

It was shot on a 5D and pickups with T2i and 7D.

Hope that helps.
 
It's crazy how much crowd-funding has taken over lately. A movie called Blue Like Jazz releases in theaters the 16th and raised over $250,000 I believe on Kickstarter to "save" it.

/start shameless plug

My little movie which is mostly self-financed is hitting Redbox April 24th :P

/end shameless plug
 
There is no option to input "estimated" when adding budget data for film titles. You're allowed to choose currency type and the amount. That's it.

The IMDb staff add the "estimated" budgets:


Screenshot2012-04-21at35535PM.png


Screenshot2012-04-21at35420PM.png
 
Andrew McCarrick said:
All budgets on IMDB are listed as estimated. I've never once seen one without it.
Click to expand...


If that's true, then IMDb is adding "(estimated)". I see films on there that had fully publicized budgets and yet it still indicates "estimated" on IMDb near the dollar amount. I also see films on there that have budgets indicated that aren't even close to reality.
 
Chris Santucci said:
If that's true, then IMDb is adding "(estimated)". I see films on there that had fully publicized budgets and yet it still indicates "estimated" on IMDb near the dollar amount. I also see films on there that have budgets indicated that aren't even close to reality.
Click to expand...

Whoever submits the project can enter the budget, and yes they can put anything they wish. I just submitted "Summer of '76" as in pre-production and the budget option is most certainly there for you to enter... Budgets can go up and down by the time the project gets into production.
 
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