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?

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Brian_Rice said:
Dude, if you're making a film for under 10K, are deferrals really going to be part of your vocabulary? You're calling in favors and having friends lend a hand. That's it. Only way.
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If you give a flying f..k about the people whose backs just carried your dream, then hell damn yes "deferrals" will be a part of your vocabulary at a $10k budget. For honest filmmakers, having money isn't going to solve problems or make creating a feature film any easier. The reason we'd like to have a $20mil budget is because we want to pay the people who work for us. At a $10k budget, all we have is the hope that when we sell the movie, or when it hits the DVD shelf, we have money to pay the people who offered their time and energy to make our film possible.

If you can say "Well, I got my friends to donate their time and I fed 'em, so that's that and I get all the money from this sucker once it sells," then I would honestly go out of my way to inform my friends of your outlook so as to avoid their kindness and help being taken advantage of. I volunteered my help on Canyon Road. I paid for my own ticket to fly out to LA, just to work on it with my friend. I never asked about money. When he told me what I was getting in deferrals, I thanked him and told him that I honestly didn't give a damn if I ever saw a penny of that. But it meant a lot to me that he DID give a damn about it.

Without that, without his consideration for myself and the rest of the crew and his desire to repay us for our help, I would have a hard time seeing him as anything more than someone who, as Kholi put it, just used up their favor.

In answer to Barry's question, I don't know if I would make a film for a $200 profit at the end of the year. But honestly, it's not my own time I worry about. It's the time that others give that is worth having a budget for. That's why I would prefer to do as few low-budget films as possible before moving into higher-budget work. I don't mind taking a $200 paycheck, but I don't want to give anyone else a $200 paycheck unless they're only working for 2 days.

"The reason actors, artists and writers have agents is because we'll do it for nothing."
- Morgan Freeman
 
keylight said:
You make a passionate argument here. And it is true that sometimes you do things for the love of it, not necessarily to make a profit.

Let me note that all of your examples are of a single artist (or perhaps a very small group - say 3 or 4 members in a band) working hard at something out of love. Film making is inherently different. It is a collaborative effort to achieve one person's vision. That's different than an artist working alone on their own thing. For the person in charge (director/producer) it can be a labor of love. For everyone else, it's work. Even if everyone is donating time for a friend, or in exchange for the experience....

So we can take self-worth out of the equation if you like, but should we take the worth or value of everyone else out?
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I dunno, I mean actors, set designers, make-up artists, writers and to a lesser extent DPs and Sound people are all potentially engaging in their specifc craft for the same reason that the filmmaker/director is engaged in theirs. Yes, it's your "vision" as the director, but it's the actor's performance, the writer's script, the set designer's choice of red drapes, the DPs insistence to frame something specifically and the sound person who spent two hours trying to find the right sounding bird to add to the soundtrack of a car taking a sharp turn.

It's a perfect world scenario, but no creative person is "losing" by creating something within a collective. The actor receives nothing less artistically by creating a character on screen than does the writer writing the script or the director feathering the edges. For some reason filmmakers always seem to think it's a horrible concept to ask other artists to work for free the same way you yourself are working for free (and often times spending your own money to feed everyone). When John Travolta was out of work for a decade he used to put on plays in his living room for his friends. Actors act, writers write, etc. Most of them are happy to do it if they believe in the material or think the collaberative process will be enjoyable.
 
Michael Traven said:
"The reason actors, artists and writers have agents is because we'll do it for nothing."
- Morgan Freeman
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This speaks directly to my point. Why is the film you're making only *your dream* and everyone else *carried* you? Why do filmmakers think that the actors et al get absolutely nothing from the experience? Are filmmakers that consumed with their own vanity? That seems like such an extremely limited perspective. Obviously if something makes money I would assume that someone would spread the wealth (if they won't, they're probably not the type of person who people would want to work with in the first place), but just because everyone (including the filmmaker) isn't making dollars doesn't mean that they aren't getting something just as profound out of the experience.

Most artists working in low budget films have actual jobs. It's not your job as a filmmaker to make sure that you're paying their rent by giving them scale. No one I know would expect that. We're talking 10K stuff here, seriously.
 
Yes, $10k. As in, I just came off a feature where I worked full-time right beside the director who shot it for $9k out of pocket. I know what $10k looks like. It looks like working professionals taking time out of their busy schedules to work for monopoly money on a project that all-said-and-done is very unlikely to actually be worth their time and energy invested.

On Canyon Road, we had several people who have recurring jobs on CSI:NY. Our key grip/gaffer works full-time in the industry. Our sound mixer works full-time as a music video producer. Our script supervisor/AD makes a living in this as well. If you're working with Bob from McDonald's as your DP and Jim from the YMCA as your sound mixer, good luck making that "amazing" film for $10k. Or $100mil.

I like to think that when I direct my own feature, I'll hire people worth paying.
 
I personally consider it a bit egotistical to think that my project is so insanely awesome and amazing that actors and grips and gaffers should feel blessed that I'm even allowing them to work on it. When you remove any promise of pay if and when the film makes a profit, I'm not sure how to consider that anything but what it is. It's just downright wrong.
 
By the way, I realize in hindsight that I probably come across more angry/aggressive than I am. The idea that someone would NOT offer deferrals to even the stupidest, most useless volunteer on set, to me, is unacceptable. It's not just bad business, it's bad character. Whether you're working $10k or $100mil, it's more important to me how considerate you are of the people working for you than whether you're making a masterpiece or a piece of s..t. Sorry if I communicated that poorly in my earlier posts.
 
Wow, this has been a lively thread. We do see that getting the numbers right on a $10,000.00 budget for a feature film has been articulately demonstrated to be a near Herculean feat. It was mentioned in the OP that a lot of filmmakers hold "El Mariachi", "Clerks" and "Primer" as where the bar is for ultra low budget filmmaking, and that the OP did not seem to think that they are "Amazing" films. I would also add Joe Carnahan's "Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane" to that list of relatively recent low budget flicks, and it is one of my favorites of that bunch. I do agree that in that list there are not films I would call amazing. However, I do believe that there have been multiple movies made for ultra low budgets that I would call amazing. Among these I would include John Cassavetes' "Shadows" and "Faces", Wayne Wang's "Chan is Missing", Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep" and William Greaves' "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm". These types of films may not be the OP's, or a lot of folks' on this board's cup of tea... and that is what it is.

I understand that most of us here need to analyze, to the nth degree, any defined filmmaking parameter, like a $10, 000.00 budget for a feature film. However, I think that most of us forget that while, in other threads, we discuss, to death sometimes, the great advantages of new technologies, but then go into other threads and hold the line on established ways and methods of doing things. I can't help but think that this thread is an example of that. Come on now, how many of us could even fantasize about a camera like the AF100 3 years ago, and what it means to low budget filmmaking?

If we all, in our heart of hearts, were not looking for (or believe it was possible to make) that amazing (to our definition) ultra low budget film, then we would not spend as much time as we do here. HELLO.... this is DVXUSER! The dream of the amazing ultra low budget film is the reason for this board!.

So, YES, it is possible to make an amazing feature film for an ultra low budget, $10,000.00, give or take. The rest is details.
 
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David G. Smith said:
If we all, in our heart of hearts, were not looking for (or believe it was possible to make) that amazing (to our definition) ultra low budget film, then we would not spend as much time as we do here. HELLO.... this is DVXUSER! The dream of the amazing ultra low budget film is the reason for this board!.
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This gets to me as well, especially in the screenwriting forum. I go into every conversation there under the impression that the writer is also looking to direct their script, and so I regularly circumvent the talking down of "this is never going to sell written like this!" I guess in some ways this site has outgrown its humble intentions.
 
vcassel said:
This gets to me as well, especially in the screenwriting forum. I go into every conversation there under the impression that the writer is also looking to direct their script, and so I regularly circumvent the talking down of "this is never going to sell written like this!" I guess in some ways this site has outgrown its humble intentions.
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I hope not.
 
Michael Traven said:
I personally consider it a bit egotistical to think that my project is so insanely awesome and amazing that actors and grips and gaffers should feel blessed that I'm even allowing them to work on it. When you remove any promise of pay if and when the film makes a profit, I'm not sure how to consider that anything but what it is. It's just downright wrong.
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Ugh, but you're still saying it's your film. If everyone is working for peanuts (or, in this case, just the shells) isn't it "A Film By..." and not "A So and So's Film"?

Paying crew and talent after a film makes a profit isn't what's in question. All I'm saying is that you can't count defers in the 10K budget question. Just because you pay X amount post-sale doesn't mean that it actually cost that much to make the film (other than for tax purposes).
 
Brian_Rice said:
Just because you pay X amount post-sale doesn't mean that it actually cost that much to make the film (other than for tax purposes).
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How can you deduct those post-sale payments (a.k.a. deferred expenses) from earnings for tax purposes, and not deduct them from a "how much it cost to make the film" purpose? All of this is basic accounting 101.

I'm just... dumbfounded.

I need to go engage in some reality based discussions.

I give up.

Really.
 
ullanta said:
Of course... spend the time and effort to make yourself amazing, and then just make a film.
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So, all I need to do now is to make a film. Yes!!!!! Oh, BTW......I need a crew, and a cast. Anyone interested?:grin:

I will ducking over in the corner now.
 
Doc Bernard said:
So, all I need to do now is to make a film. Yes!!!!! Oh, BTW......I need a crew, and a cast. Anyone interested?:grin:

I will ducking over in the corner now.
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I think if we got a handful of DVXUsers in the L.A. area together, we could make an amazing movie.
 
Brian_Rice said:
Paying crew and talent after a film makes a profit isn't what's in question. All I'm saying is that you can't count defers in the 10K budget question. Just because you pay X amount post-sale doesn't mean that it actually cost that much to make the film (other than for tax purposes).
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Okay, I see what you're saying. The post I originally replied to said something like "On a $10k budget, are deferrals even a part of your vocabulary?" and then you followed that with a comment about how it's volunteer work and there's nothing more to it. I don't know if I misread or if you misspoke, but I'll leave it be. Cheers!

Regarding "my film"/"our film," I don't see it that way. If I write, direct or produce it's my film. I worked for deferrals on CynRd, I don't consider it "my film." An actor could potentially call something they starred in "their film," but as far as getting people to work on something goes, you're asking them to help you make something you want to make, not offering to make something they want to make.
 
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Ah, the annual "Get a bunch of DVXusers best together to make a movie" thread. It'll happen one day.
 
Giriki said:
Why is making a feature film for low-to-no budget so different from making a short film for low-to-no budget? No one explodes if someone makes a short film for under 1k, never pays anyone including the guy himself, even though the short film will never make any kind of profit so nobody who worked on the short will get any kind of compensation before or after the film is made. That's acceptable, it seems, maybe because shorts are generally calling cards to get a feature film going. But what makes it so different from making a feature film and not paying anyone?
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I would say its acceptable for shorts because shorts don't take up your crew's entire month. How can you expect them to pay their bills or afford food or gas if you don't pay them for a month? Short films generally take a week or less, I can do that. What I canNOT do is work 12 hour days for 6 days a week for minimum 3 weeks for free. There's a lot to be said for "the art" but if I'm starving, that art don't mean sh**.

And you can take that same $10,000 that you would use to make a mediocre feature, and can make an amazing short film. Just sayin'.
 
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