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
I think it's possible for someone to create a great indie drama for less than $10K, but you would have to own all of your own equipment already or find up-and-coming crew members who are willing to work for free as well as lend you their equipment for free. Most of that $10K is going to food, expendables, wardrobe, gas etc.

And you would have to troll community / university theaters to find the right cast members who are willing to work for credit alone.

I think it can be done, but it would take a genius filmmaker who is producer, writer, director, editor, leader of men...
 
agcohn said:
I think it's possible for someone to create a great indie drama for less than $10K, but you would have to own all of your own equipment already or find up-and-coming crew members who are willing to work for free as well as lend you their equipment for free. Most of that $10K is going to food, expendables, wardrobe, gas etc.
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Food is important, and it's important to have coffee, breakfast, drinks, water, lunch, and maybe dinner (depending on how long your daily shoots are), but I don't think it's difficult to get great food without spending a ton of money, especially in L.A. I'm not talking pizza here, but I'm also not talking catering. Also taking into consideration a probable smaller cast and crew size.

I think if there are extended exterior shots, you owe it to your crew to rent a port-a-potty. It's not really fair to local businesses to have your people running in and out for a pee, besides in many areas in L.A. you'll be hard pressed to find an easily accessible public bathroom (probably to dissuade indie filmmakers just as much as the homeless).

Wardrobe is important, but there are many cool vintage and thrift stores with great prices around here, especially in Magnolia Village. There's even a place that sells wardrobe from films and television shows at good prices. Again, if your cast size is manageable, this shouldn't be an overly extravagant expense.

What's more important, and more costly, are art department expenses. You want to dress your sets, especially if they're particular to your character's mindset. Something very off-putting to me in micro budget productions is when a character's living space isn't set in accordance with that character's mindset, but rather was used as is for convenience sake.

An important component to lighting your talent, but significantly overlooked IMO, is make-up. It's in your best interest to hire a make-up artist for at least the beginning of each day and then learn to touch-up your talent yourself. I suppose it's possible to do it completely yourself, but don't overlook doing it. Maybe you can kill two birds with one stone by taking care of rehearsals at the same time since you'll want to apply make-up in scene lighting.

Gas is important and it ain't getting any cheaper. Better to limit your locations at the script level. But be aware that limited location films can become very tedious to an audience.

I agree that it's better to own your means of production in this day and age of indie filmmaking. You'll also have to try and be an auteur.

But I think ideally the majority of that money should be going to location (if you can't get away with it) and cast and crew.
 
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Jawa Ex Machina said:
Did you just tell people to throw caution to the wind and risk their financial future by spending their last savings and two years of their life on something?

It can so be done? What do you base this on? People's right to dream?

You can make a feature length film for $10,000 but it won''t be amazing. It's hard as hell to make an amazing film for ten or fifteen times that amount.

It should also be noted that none of the films that are usually mentioned as low budget career starters (Bad Taste, Evil Dead, El Mariachi, Following, Clerks etc) were made digitally. That means the independent scene wasn't flooded with microbudget films that never gets seen and competition wasnt as high.
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Lol

I make no claim as to presume to know a persons financial situation. $10,000 doesn't strike me as an amazing amount of money, especially for a feature.

Hell yes, I DO base this on a persons right to dream. TO take a risk, to follow their path. That's why we do this, right ? It's our dream. Sacrifice is a part of the deal. Blood and tears.

WHO SAYS it won't be amazing ? YOU ? Why ? Why won't it ? Why can't it ? It that absolute? A generalization of course, but a rule ?

=

Bad Taste was S16, Clerks was 16mm, Evil Dead (HELL, the original EVEIL DEAD before they made the feature was S8) was 16mm et al ....)

Todays digital is S16. You know ?

The competition isn't higher. UNlike music or literature or art (painting), no one is walking around with a kick ass film in their pocket that NO ONE WANTS too see.

If you have AN AMAZING FILM in the can, it will be seen and it will get attention. It is the only art form out there that will recognize amazing.

-

28 Days Later, although with a nice budget could have been made under 10K I think. And I mean that carefully. Not with Danny Boyle and the talent and the crew etc .... I mean, loook at that film, and tell me anyone of us could have made something like that (AS ALWAYS WITH ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL)
 
Hudson, I don't think I've interacted with you on here before, but I like what you have to say and I appreciate your encouragement in a day and age that sorely needs more of it.
 
I'm changing from 'no' to a solid 'maybe'. I think it's possible but that's if the person already owns the equipment to film and for post.

I'm sure if some good people from this site got together and were shooting on Reds then it would look like a real movie.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
You can make a feature length film for $10,000 but it won''t be amazing. It's hard as hell to make an amazing film for ten or fifteen times that amount.
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Maybe not amazing, but for 10 to 30K the right team can make something good or decent.

It should also be noted that none of the films that are usually mentioned as low budget career starters (Bad Taste, Evil Dead, El Mariachi, Following, Clerks etc) were made digitally. That means the independent scene wasn't flooded with microbudget films that never gets seen and competition wasnt as high.
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I agree with Giriki, from what I've seen... nah... competition is the same. Having a DSLR doesn't immediately boost anyone's ability to compete outside of having thin focal planes... how many of those people bother to stabilize the camera so that the image isn't quaking every shot?

Nah, the competition isn't up there at all, man. Not if you're competing with a product people actually want to pay for.

Barry already said it though. Whoever thinks it can be done even sub 50K, go and do it. Whomever thinks you need more than that, show us what you can do with 100K+ or whatever budget that may be.

Until we get some people doing AND showing what they're doing, the results, etc... then it's just conversation. However, this convo's better than DSLR versus threads! MUCH BETTER.
 
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Kholi said:
Whomever thinks you need more than that, show us what you can do with 100K+ or whatever budget that may be.
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You can't prove a negative, so the only viable action from this thread is to show us your amazing film for under $10k.

Oh, and all those friends and family members who tell you your film is amazing? They don't count.
 
Gary Huff said:
You can't prove a negative, so the only viable action from this thread is to show us your amazing film for under $10k.

Oh, and all those friends and family members who tell you your film is amazing? They don't count.
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You can't actually prove anything wrong in this discussion. We could definitely go 'round about a Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's pointless.

As far as I am concerned, however, I wouldn't try a feature unless I had 30-50K, and I'd say it'll be decent at best, where decent represents--for me--a feature film like MONSTERS. Either way, at least I'd be doing something.
 
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ullanta said:
I definitely prefer threads to DSLRs...
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seewhat-wonka.jpg
 
tmnt said:
I'm sure if some good people from this site got together and were shooting on Reds then it would look like a real movie.
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I think that if good people from THIS site got together and were shooting on T2is, then it would look like a real movie!

Of course, if you know me from dang near any of my post in multiple other threads, then you know that I don't think that the goal of your amazing $10, 000.00 feature should not necessarily be making it look like a "Real Movie". F**k me.... look at the technology that we have at our disposal now! There has never been a time in history in which such powerful tools for manipulating moving images and sound has been available to so many. Of course that means that there will be a lot of crap being made , but that also means that those with incredible vision can express themselves in ways that have never been done before. Now, I am not saying that I am one of those with that incredible vision to do that (but I am working to give it a shot), but I do, as a film aficionado, continue to keep up hope of seeing those types of movies. Barry is absolutely right, if you think it can be done, go do it. Just remember, if you are making a $10, 000.00 feature, you are not playing by the rules, soooo... F**K 'EM!!! Show us something different. That is what is going to make your ultra low budget film worth watching.
 
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J.R. Hudson said:
Lol

I make no claim as to presume to know a persons financial situation. $10,000 doesn't strike me as an amazing amount of money, especially for a feature.

Hell yes, I DO base this on a persons right to dream. TO take a risk, to follow their path. That's why we do this, right ? It's our dream. Sacrifice is a part of the deal. Blood and tears.

WHO SAYS it won't be amazing ? YOU ? Why ? Why won't it ? Why can't it ? It that absolute? A generalization of course, but a rule ?

=

Bad Taste was S16, Clerks was 16mm, Evil Dead (HELL, the original EVEIL DEAD before they made the feature was S8) was 16mm et al ....)

Todays digital is S16. You know ?

The competition isn't higher. UNlike music or literature or art (painting), no one is walking around with a kick ass film in their pocket that NO ONE WANTS too see.

If you have AN AMAZING FILM in the can, it will be seen and it will get attention. It is the only art form out there that will recognize amazing.

-

28 Days Later, although with a nice budget could have been made under 10K I think. And I mean that carefully. Not with Danny Boyle and the talent and the crew etc .... I mean, loook at that film, and tell me anyone of us could have made something like that (AS ALWAYS WITH ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL)
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I do know a little something about making feature films on micro budget, and I would not advice ANYONE to try to do this for less than $150,000. Personally, next time I make a feature I'll make sure to have at least two or three times that amount.

It can be done for $10,000, in the sense that the end product can be finished, but you're more than likely to spend the bulk of that amount on post production and trying to sell the film at festivals and it won't be an amazing film.
The reason it won't be amazing is that what you can accomplish with free workers and already owned equipment is not enough to make an amazing film for that price.
You could have Christopher Walken and Al Pacino locked in a room acting their asses off if the best screenplay ever, but in the end it'll be two people in a room talking and that's never an amazing movie. That's theater or television.

Hell, we've spent at least 10-15% of the 10,000 amount on crashed external hard drives in post production.

My advice is, if you can't raise that amount, make an amazing short instead.
 
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Jawa Ex Machina said:
I do know a little something about making feature films on micro budget, and I would not advice ANYONE to try to do this for less than $150,000.
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Why? And do you know or anyone that made an amazing movie for 150K and didn't have any trouble selling it?
 
Kholi said:
Why?
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Because I've done this since the late 90's. The first time I worked on the set of a no-budget feature length film was not this decade, or the last decade, but the decade before THAT. It wasnt my film, it was written and directed by a couple of friends of mine, but after that Ive done both the film school thing, the guerilla filming on no-budget thing myself (short films and a 90 minute no-budget web-TV series back in 2007) and I've also worked professionally in TV and done some internships on "real" films.
Unfortunately I'm at a point right now when I can't really speak openly on a public forum about the business end of my own film so I can't really answer your questions properly.
Kholi said:
And do you know or anyone that made an amazing movie for 150K and didn't have any trouble selling it?
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No.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
Because I've done this since the late 90's. The first time I worked on the set of a no-budget feature length film was not this decade, or the last decade, but the decade before THAT. It wasnt my film, it was written and directed by a couple of friends of mine, but after that Ive done both the film school thing, the guerilla filming on no-budget thing myself (short films and a 90 minute no-budget web-TV series back in 2007) and I've also worked professionally in TV and done some internships on "real" films.
Unfortunately I'm at a point right now when I can't really speak openly on a public forum about the business end of my own film so I can't really answer your questions properly.

No.
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So you're basically saying that from your experience and your own connections etc, you advise people not to do it for less than 150K in spending funds.

This is all well and good, my only problem with it is that for all of the people saying you CAN do it sub 150K and not showing examples there are others on the opposing side not showing examples of 150K movies they tried to sell. Examples of what 150K gets you.

As its already been said: one persons budget doesn't necessarily look the same as the others. It's great to have people sharing experience, without examples it's take it or leave it to me.
 
Kholi said:
So you're basically saying that from your experience and your own connections etc, you advise people not to do it for less than 150K in spending funds.

This is all well and good, my only problem with it is that for all of the people saying you CAN do it sub 150K and not showing examples there are others on the opposing side not showing examples of 150K movies they tried to sell. Examples of what 150K gets you.

As its already been said: one persons budget doesn't necessarily look the same as the others. It's great to have people sharing experience, without examples it's take it or leave it to me.
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I would never be able to make any type of feature length film for that amount. Judging purely on the stuff you actually NEED to purchase (like external hard drives that break, sound license, gas, memory cards, DVD-Rs etc, I don't see how it could be done.

Just look at El Mariachi. According to IMDb, $7000 was spent making it (which would be $10740 today if you count inflation), but then another $220,000 was added to the post production. I don't find that hard to believe at all.
So now we're looking at a film that cost $348283, and I assume that's not counting the marketing. I'd love to show you Marianne, but at the moment I can't.

I can't even upload it to a secure location so you can stream it on your computer, because of the subtitles.
 
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