Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?

Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?

  • Total voters
    157
Why don't the folks who say it can be done -- just go and do it?

Let's talk about what you did, rather than what people think they can or can't do.
 
Barry_Green said:
Why don't the folks who say it can be done -- just go and do it?

Let's talk about what you did, rather than what people think they can or can't do.
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Because the question OP asked was "Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?"

It's a poll thread. We have to be allowed to discuss the question and motivate our answer.
 
True, but with 261 responses and now some snark coming from the accounting police, surely it seems like the discussion's probably close to exhausted by now, and all that remains is the actual doing, yes?
 
Snazzy Flapper said:
Why are Clerks and El Mariachi being used as examples of "Amazing Movies"??? They aren't amazing. It may be amazing that they were produced for a low budget, but neither movie is amazing compared against other movies. In fact, they're anything BUT amazing when you look at production value, etc.
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I think most of us are answering the question with a very loose definition of "amazing." While you may not define those as amazing films, they were "amazing" enough to launch the careers of both Smith and Rodriguez. There is also the whole subjective nature of films anyway. One person's amazing is another's worst headache. For example....Avatar is loved by many, many people. It did absolutely nothing for me.
 
Barry_Green said:
True, but with 261 responses and now some snark coming from the accounting police, surely it seems like the discussion's probably close to exhausted by now, and all that remains is the actual doing, yes?
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Well there are two separate questions in the thread.

There's also the "Is a movie really worth only the money that you put into it?" question, which I'm not sure who asked, but at least it's being answered a lot.
 
I think it's clear that there are two camps, and the whole discussion can be summed up as:

1) If "AMAZING" has anything to do with production value, then no, almost by definition.

2) If "AMAZING" means something that at least a significant art-film crowd might love, then, possibly.

Is "My Dinner with Andre" amazing to you? "Roger & Me"? "Yawar Mallku"? "Inland Empire"? "The Gods must be Crazy"? "Why We Fight"? "Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037"? Things like this will never be called amazing by some people, will be called amazing by others. I think it's in the realm of possibility - not likely - to pull off something like that, under 10k, with a lot of wheedling.
 
I like the thread. It's a broad net, but I've learned some things. I haven't learned, but rather had it refreshed, to take the thoughts and feelings of my crew very seriously. It's a good reminder that as a film helmer your number one duty is to be someone who can be trusted in order for the cast and crew to do their best work. I think we've all been burned to a certain extent in this industry, and it's understandable that some of those scars have grown over with defensiveness. But at its best DVXUser is a good place for people to hear each other out. I don't fully agree with what some have said here, but I'll be damned if I won't take them into consideration going into the future. My opinions might be wrong.

I don't think talking and doing are mutually exclusive. At least the 10 to 30 minutes it takes out of my time each day to talk about things like this isn't too distracting to me. Now, if I were the type to proofread and redraft everything I said on here, I might count the time spent to be a bit ridiculous.
 
Giriki said:
By the people who think it's amazing. I think that Closer is an amazing film, almost perfect. For some it was utter crap. Name any film in the world and someone will think it's amazing. Heck, one of my ex-friends (wonder why...) once told me that he thinks Scary Movie 2 is the best film ever and much better than The Exorcist.
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Totally agree. Films are just like music in that respect - Some of my favorites of all time are absolutely hated by many, many others.
 
Giriki said:
By the people who think it's amazing. I think that Closer is an amazing film, almost perfect. For some it was utter crap. Name any film in the world and someone will think it's amazing. Heck, one of my ex-friends (wonder why...) once told me that he thinks Scary Movie 2 is the best film ever and much better than The Exorcist.
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Have you seen this film? Do you know which one it is?
 
Film Industry Budgeting/Accounting

Film Industry Budgeting/Accounting

Just posting here to let everyone know of a thread I just started on Film Budgeting/Accounting. It includes a video of Charlie Rose interviewing 2 Hollywood producers (1 an Indie, the other more studio based).

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...to-Stop-Worrying-and-Accept-Studio-Accounting

The intent is NOT to carry on this discussion here. The starting point on the new thread is from a comment Giriki posted in this thread:

Giriki said:
Yes, but not with everyone. The most valuable persons of the cast and crew will get their share of the profits (the exact amounts are always stated on the contracts). So when the check arrives, you divide the profits like you've agreed to. Let's say 50% to you, X% for each member of the cast, X% for DP etc... But it sure as hell doesn't count towards budget as something you've paid/spent. Or did Jurassic Park's production budget include the 250 million in profits that Spielberg got?
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You never did respond to my reply, and if you choose to do so now, perhaps you'll do so on the other thread so as to keep this one more on point. Here was my reply:

keylight said:
Jurassic Park's production budget almost certainly included a big fee for Spielberg. On top of the fee he earned up front, he also had a backend deal for a share of profits. Now, Spielberg being who he is, almost certainly got a percentage of dollar one (in other words, he got a percentage of the total revenue earned from the first dollar). Except for a few power players, back end deals are usually for a percentage of the Net (after all expenses are paid).

Example 1 - movie losses money:
 Total cost: $1,000,000
Movie grosses: $700,000


Back end DOLLAR ONE GROSS participants (who have a total 30% share) get: $210,000
Back end NET participant earns: $0

$700,000
- $1,000,000
===========
- $300,000


Example 2 - movie "appears" to make money:
 Total cost: $1,000,000
Movie grosses: $1,200,000

Back end DOLLAR ONE GROSS participants (who have a total 30% share) get: $360,000
Back end NET participant earns: $0

Why? Because the Dollar One Gross participants got their 30%, leaving just $840,000 remaining. But the total cost for the film was $1,000,000.

$840,000
- $1,000,000
===========
- $160,000

So while the movie "looked" profitable, it turns out it wasn't. What you end up paying someone on the back end DOES impact the profit. Back end deals are simply DEFERRED expenses.

IF the movie recovers some of its expenses, people with back end deals *might* get paid, depending on their deal. But make no mistake, that "pay" is an expense.

Every once in a while you'll read about someone in Hollywood suing a studio. You might remember this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/business/media/27movie.html

You might find this interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
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David Jimerson said:
That isn't what he's talking about.

He's talking about what needs to be paid to people for their part in the production of the film. Even if it takes place after production, it's still a production cost, because you agreed to it as a condition to them participating. No participation, no film.

If you build a house on loan and put a down payment in, the house gets built, and you get into the house -- but you continue to pay on it. That's the cost of the house.
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This just isn't true. It's true in terms of revenue/profits and loss/tax/sales et al, but it has nothing to do with *how much the film cost to be made*.

To stick with your home loan analogy, if I built a home using a construction loan and it cost me 120K and I only made 10 months worth of payments while the home was being built (on, say, a 10 year note prior to refinancing into a 30 year), if the payment is 1800 per month, that means it cost me $18,000 *to build the home*. Whether or not I continue to make payments the house has been built.

Now let's say I used that same 18K to buy 10K worth of land. With the remaining 8K I got together with all of my buddies who work in lumber, steel, welding, plumbing, electricity, contracting, etc. and we all decided to build a house together and live in it. We got most of the materials used and from random job sites and voila, after 9 months we had built a 4 bedroom house that we built together that we now all get to live in.

Again, how much did the house cost to *build* -- not how much did it cost to own, operate, pay taxes on and sell. That's a completely separate mathmatical entity.
 
Barry_Green said:
Here's the missing piece that nobody seems to be getting -- those people who are donating their services, are financing your film for you. You're financing it on their backs.

Let's say Kholi normally charges $400/day for his services. You're shooting 20 days. That's $8,000. He decides to do it for free. Is it truly "free?"
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Is it my film simply because I organized a group of people to create something? Why isn't it all of our film? Why wouldn't everyone involved just get a percentage of whatever profits from this 10K film based on their level of expertise, involvement and *real* financial investment?

I just gave a house analogy where a bunch of friends all came together to build a house to live in. Obviously there's going to be different sorts of people doing different sorts of jobs, but in the end on a project like that, it belongs to everyone at varying percentages.
 
keylight said:
Just posting here to let everyone know of a thread I just started on Film Budgeting/Accounting.
To the point of your posts, I think everyone should just accept that if they're doing a film for 10K they should never offer a specific deferred amount to anyone working on the film but should instead offer a percentage of profits if/when the film ever sells. Hence why it's a good idea to pay people a few hundred bucks up front and call it a day.

Settled. Yay.

(and why do you keep talking about profits and loss? That has nothing to do with how much it cost to actually *bring the film into existence*)

How much does it cost to bring a baby into existence?

How much does it cost to start a fire?

You're talking about a COMPLETELY different subject.
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Haha. I think Barry's right in that it's very safe to say that people are pretty set on how they view "A Feature Made for 10K". It's all in wording, anyway.

If I said "We spent 10K cash to make this feature", then no one could argue with that point. It means we probably spent a lot of labor, favors, etc.

It's been a pretty good discussion, and I don't think anyone is wrong, though! Just different points of view. Hopefully, at least one person got inspired to get a move on!
 
Brian_Rice said:
This just isn't true. It's true in terms of revenue/profits and loss/tax/sales et al, but it has nothing to do with *how much the film cost to be made*.

To stick with your home loan analogy, if I built a home using a construction loan and it cost me 120K and I only made 10 months worth of payments while the home was being built (on, say, a 10 year note prior to refinancing into a 30 year), if the payment is 1800 per month, that means it cost me $18,000 *to build the home*. Whether or not I continue to make payments the house has been built.

Now let's say I used that same 18K to buy 10K worth of land. With the remaining 8K I got together with all of my buddies who work in lumber, steel, welding, plumbing, electricity, contracting, etc. and we all decided to build a house together and live in it. We got most of the materials used and from random job sites and voila, after 9 months we had built a 4 bedroom house that we built together that we now all get to live in.

Again, how much did the house cost to *build* -- not how much did it cost to own, operate, pay taxes on and sell. That's a completely separate mathmatical entity.
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No. It didn't get built for $18000. It got built for the amount of the loan. It was not going to happen without the loan. Your $18000 by itself was not going to get it built. It may have cost you 18000 up front, but it's going to cost you the entire amount before you're done. That's now much it costs. Not the $18000. You just get a reprieve on paying the rest of it.

Honestly, this is such a simple concept I, don't understand why I need to explain it again.
 
I'm gonna stay in the 10K camp

It can so be done.

blah blah with all thing being equal and on par and nailed ...... DER NO **** SHERLOCK

The simple answer is YES YES YES

Of course it can and should be

-

Is it a rare feat ... yes. We know this

But don't tell someone they can't

BUT I WILL AGREE WITH BARRY on one particular point

THEN GO DO IT.

(Preaching and knowing I too need to just ****ING do it)
 
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