No Budget Feature Advice

The original question was in relation to the fact that you want to make a film and are thinking about it...there in lies your biggest obstacle...don't think about it....do it...too many people talk about doing something and all they ever end up with is ideas in their head or on their computer...some even love to criticize others work (not meaning you...just in general) Finishing something, in itself, is an achievement...whether it is a script a movie or simply a poem...most people that work for me do so because they know I am a doer. If I say I am going to do something, it always gets done...God knows what it will reap but at least it will get done...finish something...don't just talk about it...there is a lot of varied information on here already...not all that I agree with...but a good cross section...your turn now...

I recently wrote a book that was published by the Sundance Media Group www.vasst.com that illustrates how I made my first project and even includes the actually movie...it was a SAG feature shot for $5,000...won a bunch of awards based on the content and not the technical...it would probably really help you....you can also get it at Samuel French in Hollywood and I am doing a book signing at the Studio City branch on June 20th at 7pm... heres the link... www.igfdb.com for more info...I hope you do well

Cheers,
Stan Harrington
www.xristosproductions.com
www.igfdb.com
 
No need for name calling

No need for name calling

tommyinla said:
A lot of people around here seem to be absolutely clueless...
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When I say no-budget, I mean no budget. I also suggested that you know your actors and develop relationships with them. Primarily for story but also so that you know that you have their support and understanding. I also stated this is MY experience as was asked to share. If I suggest something I can back it up, you don't have to agree but that doesn't mean it's bad advice.
I've been an actor in studio and independent feature films on and off for twenty years, including five years as an acting teacher in NYC. Actors have never complained about this and are happy to have the opportunity to get experience in front of the camera. Perhaps I should have made it clear that we inform actors of this prior to casting them.
When I'm acting in an indie, I would rather go and have some time to myself and pay for something decent rather than eat a homemade family meal or pizza or any of the other typically meager offerings on indie sets.
We usually plan our days so that we wrap out of a shot prior to lunch. We break cast for lunch for an hour. The crew breaks for a half hour and then we start on the next set up. We even try to schedule actors for half days to avoid meal issues.
Frankly, I'm surprised that food is the thing we're discussing.

Happy Filmmaking Everybody
 
I'm not knocking you or most of your advice. Most of it makes sense. There are a few things that I personally don't agree with, but treating the crew better than the cast is flawed logic. If you tell the cast the bring their own food and then they see that the crew is getting food and water, they WON'T be happy. Then again, if the quality of actors that you're working with are willing to forego the food / drinks, then so be it. The reason that I'm bashing this particular point is I'm an actor. If I saw that sort of thing going on, I would walk off set and not return. But that's just me... No hard feelings intended. :)

And my "absolutely cluessless" remark wasn't directed at you, btw.
 
I saw an independent feature recently that was very amazing, good acting, good story, good production value. During the Q&A session after the screening the filmmakers revealed that it cost them less than $2000 and about eight months to finish. And these guys finished the feature in their last year of film school.

The key? They kept the crew small (basically three of them served as directors, writers, DP set designers etc.). The camera they already had, and dolly, lights, microphones they were able to check out from their school's film department. They told me before shooting even starts there they spent three months just planning, finding locations, figuring out what they can get for free and what they can fake etc. The end results shown as many of the locales chosen were breathtaking and adds to the production value of the film. Remember, nature is always free.

But what really made their film so good? It's the story and the acting that sold the movie. There were certains parts that betrayed the low budget nature of the film, but I quickly forgot about it because the story was so absorbing. You CAN do a good feature with almost no money (as I am planning on doing in a few years), but you have to start with a good story and get good actors, or else it's DOA for sure.
 
jade8472 said:
I saw an independent feature recently that was very amazing, good acting, good story, good production value. During the Q&A session after the screening the filmmakers revealed that it cost them less than $2000 and about eight months to finish. And these guys finished the feature in their last year of film school.

The key? They kept the crew small (basically three of them served as directors, writers, DP set designers etc.). The camera they already had, and dolly, lights, microphones they were able to check out from their school's film department. They told me before shooting even starts there they spent three months just planning, finding locations, figuring out what they can get for free and what they can fake etc. The end results shown as many of the locales chosen were breathtaking and adds to the production value of the film. Remember, nature is always free.

But what really made their film so good? It's the story and the acting that sold the movie. There were certains parts that betrayed the low budget nature of the film, but I quickly forgot about it because the story was so absorbing. You CAN do a good feature with almost no money (as I am planning on doing in a few years), but you have to start with a good story and get good actors, or else it's DOA for sure.
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As this have been said many times before around the boards here, it never gets old though. Good post.
 
tommyinla said:
I'm not knocking you or most of your advice. Most of it makes sense. There are a few things that I personally don't agree with, but treating the crew better than the cast is flawed logic. If you tell the cast the bring their own food and then they see that the crew is getting food and water, they WON'T be happy. Then again, if the quality of actors that you're working with are willing to forego the food / drinks, then so be it. The reason that I'm bashing this particular point is I'm an actor. If I saw that sort of thing going on, I would walk off set and not return. But that's just me... No hard feelings intended. :)

And my "absolutely cluessless" remark wasn't directed at you, btw.
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tommy, strictly as an actor, would you be insulted in anyway if i was directing a short film and had a small crew and said everybody needed to bring their lunch? what would be your first thought if you had just got finished working on a short film where they basically pampered you?

a lot of actors i've worked with seem to be 'wowed' by how well they are treated and it seems to keep their motivation for the film up.

i like the idea of having everybody bring their own lunch, but i fear some actors even the ones that have no real credits will feel a certain way about it. i think it's very important issue after having worked with a few premadonnas - male and female. i can afford to buy everybody lunch and if i couldnt i'd probably save for it, but having them bring their own would certainly free up cash do do other things with like buy props or whatever.
 
Well, if you're shooting a certain amount of hours a day and during certain time, for example, from 9am to 3 pm, then you should provide lunch for everyone. Doesn't have to be pizza or anything - it can be sandwiches or whatever. And water / sodas is a good thing. If you're shooting something, that needs to be part of the budget. If everyone knows you don't have the budget and they all agree to bring their own lunch, then that's fine - I just take offense to having to bring a lunch when the crew is provided lunch and drinks. That just isn't really fair, which is why I took offense to the suggestion.

Honestly, if someone is a premadonna and hard to deal with at this level, then they're going to have a real hard time getting started in this business... :)
 
tommyinla said:
Honestly, if someone is a premadonna and hard to deal with at this level, then they're going to have a real hard time getting started in this business... :)
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oh they're out there trust me. :)
 
Yeah, I know they are... lol

On the last short that I did, I had one. One of the actors was walking away while the other one was yelling back to him, "Yeah, go back to your trailer, Marlon Brando!" All I could do was shake my head...
 
haha...that's funny but i think i might out trump you:

situation #1 - i have 2 guys on the crew helping me for free and all the actors are working for free. everybody was exactly on time (9am) but when the girl got there she brought a friend to help with her makeup. an hour after she arrived she was still doing makeup and realized she needed some glue for her eyelashes. i told her she was hot without that and we could just start. she and her friend gave me a look and said she couldnt go on without it. so they left and went to the store to get some then came back.

situation #2 - they get back from the store and after another hourshe finally has her face done but is not dressed yet. at this point its about 12pm. around 12:30 she's finally ready and pulls me to the side and says she doesnt know her lines and could i help. i didnt panic because i'm using one camera and would have to stop constantly to reposition anyway so i have a guy feeding her the lines. but....

situation #3 - she has a hard time delivering the lines. we had a rehearsal in december and she was pretty decent. forwahtever reason now she is completely scrambling. there was a line of hers that was like 10 words long and we had to do 23 takes of it because she couldnt get it right. at this point my boom op guy is getting pissed and mumbling things under his breath.

situation #4 - fast forward past several bloopers and a coupla hours and now we're all pretty hungry. so i order pizzas. the pizzas arrive and on the shot list i notice we have only gotten 6 shots complete out of 40. i ask if everybody is okay to work a little longer to get like 4 more shots before we eat and the actress is already walking out the door saying lets eat first. at this point both crew guys are like "man wtf???" on a funnier note, she cut in front of the crew guys as they were getting pizza by saying "excuse me guys" and getting ahead of them and taking her food to share with her friend she had brought. i try to make light of the situation to them by cracking omse jokes about it and they find it funny and are lightened up now instead of completely pissed.

situation #5 - we get back to the shoot and after 20 mins her friend (who doesnt speak english) says in spanish she has to leave and my Latina star has to take her home. The guy who's house we were using speaks fluent spanish and mentioned that he could taker her home instead so we could keep shooting but the friend says no because it is disrespectful to her husband. so now the diva has to leave for another 45 minutes to take care of that.
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this was so funny now that i look back on it. we all laugh about it. :)
 
Yeah, that is a great story... where did this happen?? If it was in Los Angeles, some people might be willing to put up with it, but somewhere else, forget about it... then again, if she can't act and screws up the lines then... yeah... :)
 
i guess i agree with the "bad acting..." comment by BLAINE but i also heard someone once say that bad acting is bad directing. this is also something that i truly believe, if people know exactly what they should be doing they tend to do what you want a lot more then if you just give them creative freedom and they're not very creative or just crappy actors. so i guess i mean to make a point to knowing what you want to do in every aspect, i haven't really recorded much but the little that i have done has been with creative people for the most part so it's come out ok.
 
If you're going to provide lunch for your crew and cast, ask them if they have any sort of dietary restrictions. I know being vegetarian and showing up to a shoot only to find out they just got meat sandwiches filled with meat bread, covered in meat sauce, that this is something people often times forget.

The two things I notice that get peoples spirits down while shooting though are bad planning, and bad craft services. Often times people won't complain about the craft services part, but when you got it, you can keep people much much happier, for much longer. The other key thing to remember is always to overcompensate for your scheduling. People feel great when they realize you guys finished an hour or two AHEAD of schedule instead of behind.

So spend your money on food and your time on pre-production. I think that's the wisest thing you can do, other than of course make a good movie.
 
Hey,

My advice go for it. I never shot anything before not even a short. A lot of people will tell you here you need to do shorts first. In the end it is up to you. Short films seldom make money. From my perspective it is cash in the trash. It depends what your motivation and goals are. Again you have to decide.

As for my experience overall a good one. We had the usual problems. A lot of inconsistent weather. Rained most of the time. Lighting was not as good as it could be due to the weather. We had a small budget. Things were tight. Locations fell threw. We all had to think on our feet at times. Not all of out crew were avaialble all of the time.

There is tons I could share with you if you have specific questions please let me know. You can reach me here at: chris@alifemovie.com

Good luck!

Chris
 
too many people call shorts trash...

shorts are homework for your study, a feature is your test.

most of us shoot on video (no lab costs), so how are any shorts that help us plan for a feature, test looks, pick locations, etc. cash in the trash? I call that money in the bank, Cochise. If you are gonna shoot no budget and you have access to the camera, film a short and entice your actors with your expansive, genius vision. Practice framing and other techniques that will convey your story with out special effects and save yourself some money. Everyone is right, shorts do not make money, but I really don't think that's what they're purposed to do.

Sorry to be a d*ck, but shorts are cool, man. They really help, especially if you can just run tape and try stuff out.
 
Practice makes perfect, and a short would be excellent practice. Use it to try things out and learn from your mistakes. You'll undoubtedly make lots of them. Then apply what you've learned to make a much better feature than you would have if you'd skipped the "practicing" stage.

And I'll add my voice to the chorus about script first, acting second, and everything else third. No matter how great the technical side is, if the story and acting are weak you're just polishing a turd...
 
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