Hell, most 100K features aren't even competent. These are also the same people that will tell you it can't be done, just be sure to ask them for a trailer when they start talking. Perspective.
Do you think it's possible to shoot an AMAZING feature for under $10,000?
- Thread starter filmmakerguy
- Start date
Hell, most 100K features aren't even competent. These are also the same people that will tell you it can't be done, just be sure to ask them for a trailer when they start talking. Perspective.
Jawa Ex Machina
Veteran
Absolutely. Marketing is important as hell. That's something that needs to be planned from pre-production and the absolute best thing would be to have a person who's working on that aspect full time and that's all he does.
I wish I had that.
1. You probably didn't have enough money to do that. Because, good marketing costs money. Don't beat yourself up too much.
2. This is also the reason why little 10K features don't get sold. It may cost 10K for the filmmaker, but it costs the distribution company sometimes millions to make it move. So, yeah, it's not exactly an "easy buy" at all unless it's got the right stuff built into it from the get go. I mean, if I were a distributor/acquisitions exec... here's what I imagine a meeting to entertain the acquisition of a 10K feature film would sound like...
Exec: Congrats! Finishing a feature is tough stuff.
Filmmaker: yeah, I can't wait to show it to people. So how much can I get for this puppy?
Exec: What's the concept?
Filmmaker: Amanda is stuck in between boyfriends and can't figure out what job she wants to do for the rest of her life.
Exec: Do either of the boyfriends shapeshift into a dinosaur at some point?
Filmmaker: .... what?
Exec: I'll take that as a no. Is Amanda played by Jessica Alba?
Filmmaker: No, by Nina Garland!!! She's an amazing actress.
Exec: Who?
Filmmaker: This actress that works down the street at a diner, she's sick!
Exec: So you want me to spend 1 million dollars marketing your 10K feature film with no real hook, which I'll probably go in the hole for?
Filmmaker: It costs 1 Million dollars to market a film!?!?!?!?!
Exec: You should try netflix or hulu, but feel free to come back to me with your next feature!
Jawa Ex Machina
Veteran
Exactly!
And said film may be the most amazing thing ever, but if you can't sell it you can't sell it.
Couldn't agree more. That's why I think 10K is too little to spend on a feature. A mediocre 100K movie with production value should be a much easier sell than a 10K movie with no production value.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
Yeah, the kind of marketing I'm talking about is of the self-distro variety. Are you self-distributing Marianne?
I could see putting together a nationwide genre film marketing platform for self distributors. You wouldn't be able to afford a single person to do your marketing, but if you just grabbed someone from each major US city and gave them promo cards of your film that would probably suffice IMO.
You'd have to set something up, though, so that the coupon codes on their promo cards = percentages of sales or something.
That's probably what I'd do.
ullanta
Veteran
Cool! Where ho you get this number, and age? Are you or many people you know on this path?
filmmakerguy
Member
You shot Marianne for $150k, do you have stars, what is your hook?
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
50K average. Gave enough post-college years for them to have gotten a job.
All of the people who I know who invest don't make less than this annually. Most average married couples I know are closer to 90K. If you're not investing (and so don't have money to stop investing) that's a whole other issue that needs to be dealt with, though. Chances are you're living beyond your means. If you work full time anywhere you should be investing, regardless of the amount.
My figures were just averages, though, for an adult working person(s).
Jawa Ex Machina
Veteran
Yeah the total production cost was 150K.
Thomas Hedengran who plays the lead is a familiar face domestically. He's done a lot of small parts in a lot of major domestic productions, as well as a lot of theater and commercials. Tintin Anderzon is a household name and Guldbagge (the highest film award in Sweden) winner, she's been doing film and television her whole life. She and Peter Stormare play supporting characters.
We also got a lot of stuff like helicopter footage and a car crash on a bridge.
The hook is that it's a drama horror / ghost story and the USP is that it's about Swedish folklore. This particular monster has never been portrayed on film before (although the story is structured as a ghost story so it could be easily translated to another culture or language and still work, in case anyone's interested in optioning the remake rights.)
Another thing about it is that all the locations in the film are real. All the places exist and we didn't "cheat" our way through it. Because of that you could follow the events as the story unfolds either if you travel up here or on google maps. It's all real. That's why it was so important to shoot the film using only existing lighting and all practical effects with no CGI.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
The trailer shows one "name" actor and it looks like a horror flick about a werewolf maybe? It's not in English so the trailer couldn't be as informative as would be per usual. No speaking, just some visual pans, etc. Looks completely solid, though. I don't know why he'd have any issues selling it to distributors in the film's native country. US is a different story, though. The trailer doesn't have anything that would "hook" me as you said. Unlike Don't Let the Wrong One In which is from the same region (maybe even a similar budget), but obviously had a very distinctive hook -- distinctive enough to get it remade into an american flick.
Wait, there's a monster in Marianne? Like, an actual monster/demon or is it a person that's possessed? That's what I got from the trailer.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
Huh. I didn't get any of that from the trailer. But, like I said, it couldn't really do much without any dialog or taglines.
You should probably have some of what you just explained in a US trailer. If your hook is some kind of Chupacabra/Bigfoot Swedish ghost story, there are enough people interested in that sort of thing that they'd probably give it a go. As the trailer stands now, honestly, I wouldn't even Netflix Watch It Now except for that I know you so I would.
You should give your film to Zak or someone here who can put together a sweet American-ized trailer for you. I can't imagine that one of the better filmmaker folks here would have a problem helping you out. You could even ask a few different people and then take a poll to see what trailer "hooked" users here best. That's what I would do if I were trying to sell an American film to a Swedish audience.
DVXUSER: Sweden.
Hey, where's Kholi?
heh
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
Well, I only spend money on the equipment that I would be using that would get you to offer me $150 per day to come out and shoot said feature. So where exactly is this 20k going to come from?
Remember, that's 20k aside from all other expenses that you have to pay for, that you can afford to lose. I don't know what trust-fund baby world you're from, but I find this to be incredibly unrealistic, and that's coming from someone who is over 28, lives in a very cheap apartment, and has no children, pets, PS3, Xbox, ect. ect.
Haha. The trust-fund baby thing was funny. Let's definitely keep it civil-going. Not disagreeing with you, either: I'm not sure if I know a single mid-twenty-something who didn't already come from money that has that kind of bread stacked. I got lucky with the ten grand I had to start the feature, but it came from the unfortunate circumstance of having a lot of stuff stolen from me!
I would've had to sell off all of my ownings/posessions to get that kind of money, and yeah, I live in a room, not an apartment. I don't have a kitchen, I have like a closet, bathroom... and a nook.
Not complaining, but like Gary, I'm twenty-eight and I that sounds unrealistic to me. Especially if you're only doing the industry thing for a living.
Brian_Rice
Carbonite Member
Yeah, I wouldn't know anything about cost of maintaining a business (which is what you guys are talking about?).
But I'm saying for an average working person making 50K per year, 20K saved should not be an issue. I know at least 4 people right now who are living on less than 30K per year living in Chicago. Two people making 90K combined, 20K is even less of an issue. Most married people I know don't make a whole lot less than 90K per year and, honestly, most married people I know don't make less than 150K per year combined.
Of course if you're running your own business, that's a different thing entirely. That 20K of potential investing dollars is probably being eaten up by costs.
But I'm saying for an average working person making 50K per year, 20K saved should not be an issue. I know at least 4 people right now who are living on less than 30K per year living in Chicago. Two people making 90K combined, 20K is even less of an issue. Most married people I know don't make a whole lot less than 90K per year and, honestly, most married people I know don't make less than 150K per year combined.
Of course if you're running your own business, that's a different thing entirely. That 20K of potential investing dollars is probably being eaten up by costs.
Part of the problem in communicating here, is that slightly different rules apply in different countries. So what you say may be valid in Sweden, but is not necessarily valid in the U.S. Maybe in Sweden it would be insane to try to do a feature for $10K, but it's not the same here. I happen to know a bit about independent production in Europe, and let me tell you, the culture of independent production is not as developed in Europe as it is here - though to be fair, it's gotten a heck of a lot better in the last few years. Still, you can call upon many, many, many more people in Los Angeles, who have some kind of experience, or just an understanding that you don't charge much or anything for totally tiny indie productions compared to that situation, in, f.ex., Stockholm. It's just numbers, history and cultural expectations. So I'm not sure how applicable your experiences are to someone here in the U.S. - I'm not saying irrelevant, but also not 100%.
Helicopter and car crash - not relevant. A film does not need that to succeed.
Irrelevant, I suspect even in Sweden. Blair Witch is a bit of folklore from Maryland, but if it was 100% fictitious, it would be just as successful or not. I don't think it being based on a real piece of folklore brought in a single person into the theater. It was all about the film.
Completely irrelevant. There are tons of monsters in all sorts of national or regional mythologies, stories, folklore that have never been depicted before. Just because you can say about a particular one - "never been shown before!" is not necessarily an asset. It can even be a detriment, because it has less recognition and branding. Note how many Zombie or vampire or werewolf movies there are - for a reason... branding, they are recognizable. If anything, your point argues against your case, certainly not for.
Completely irrelevant. Unless there are special advantages to shooting in real locations, you get zero bounce from this. Nobody cares. I mean, it makes a difference if you shoot in the Eiffel Tower, or Mount Rushmore or a handful of high profile locations, but otherwise, it's all a total wash to the audience. Just because "the myth refers to this very forest", the audience doesn't care, unless the said forest is particularly visually interesting, moody, or otherwise enhances the film, otherwise it's just another meadow, just another forest, just another road. Nobody is sitting there with google maps in the theater following the locations, that's just insane.
Helicopter and car crash - not relevant. A film does not need that to succeed.
Irrelevant, I suspect even in Sweden. Blair Witch is a bit of folklore from Maryland, but if it was 100% fictitious, it would be just as successful or not. I don't think it being based on a real piece of folklore brought in a single person into the theater. It was all about the film.
Completely irrelevant. There are tons of monsters in all sorts of national or regional mythologies, stories, folklore that have never been depicted before. Just because you can say about a particular one - "never been shown before!" is not necessarily an asset. It can even be a detriment, because it has less recognition and branding. Note how many Zombie or vampire or werewolf movies there are - for a reason... branding, they are recognizable. If anything, your point argues against your case, certainly not for.
Completely irrelevant. Unless there are special advantages to shooting in real locations, you get zero bounce from this. Nobody cares. I mean, it makes a difference if you shoot in the Eiffel Tower, or Mount Rushmore or a handful of high profile locations, but otherwise, it's all a total wash to the audience. Just because "the myth refers to this very forest", the audience doesn't care, unless the said forest is particularly visually interesting, moody, or otherwise enhances the film, otherwise it's just another meadow, just another forest, just another road. Nobody is sitting there with google maps in the theater following the locations, that's just insane.
The way to make a $10K feature is to write a story that's:
1)Engaging
2)Can be shot for $10K
And that means it's in the script. The script. That's why Jawa Ex Machine could not shoot his feature for $10K, because the script didn't allow for it - and that's just addressing point (2) above. I haven't seen Marianne, so I can't speak to (1).
But that's the secret folks. A $10K feature starts with a script that's written to be shot for $10K. Don't go on to the next step, until you've nailed this one. That takes care of 99% of the discussion right there. Everything else is details.
1)Engaging
2)Can be shot for $10K
And that means it's in the script. The script. That's why Jawa Ex Machine could not shoot his feature for $10K, because the script didn't allow for it - and that's just addressing point (2) above. I haven't seen Marianne, so I can't speak to (1).
But that's the secret folks. A $10K feature starts with a script that's written to be shot for $10K. Don't go on to the next step, until you've nailed this one. That takes care of 99% of the discussion right there. Everything else is details.