The Ultimate Question: Do I buy filmmaking gear or finance a low budget feature film?

The Ultimate Question: Do I buy filmmaking gear or finance a low budget feature film?

  • buy filmmaking gear

    Votes: 7 63.6%

  • finance a low budget feature film

    Votes: 4 36.4%
  • Total voters
    11
R

radiohead

New member
I've been really struggling to answer this question the last few weeks. I have $4,000 and a feature I can shoot for $4,000 that I wrote. It's a dialogue driven comedy. I've had two failed fundraising campaigns, had investors fall through on projects and it's just been a real struggle trying to make it as a writer/director. So here I have some money and I'm tempted to buy the new Black Magic 4K camera. I have another $4k coming in from a commercial client that I could use for lenses and other things. I already have the computer to edit it all. So everything is shaping up to get my commercial production business off the ground.

But I have that nagging feeling in the back of my head, that what I really want to do is make movies. But my better judgment says there is no way it would make its money back without celebrities in it. The best I could hope for is sell tickets to a screening at $10 a ticket, sell 400+ tickets and I could recoup the $4k I put into it. But that would take months after I cut it and it's ready. The sensible thing seems to be to buy gear so I can book gigs and make money doing commercials, etc.

But today I'm thinking when? When am I going to make the movie? It just keeps getting pushed. At the same time, I look around and everyone I know has gear. But nobody has money to shoot a movie. Everyone wants to shoot a movie, but nobody has the money or script to move it forward. Here I have the script and the money and I know everyone with all the gear I could possibly want. I have a huge network.

So what do I do? Take the safer path of buying gear, at least then I'll have something to show for it. Can book gigs and then maybe finance the movie from the gigs I book. Or just take the leap now and do the movie?
 
Well, if I were you I would purchase some gear...so that down the road you can shoot when ever you want. You could do short films and pieces, do the film you have the script for when ever you want and people are available...not being held to when other people's gear is available.
My bands in the past used to pay studios to record (equivalent to renting gear)...when the audio "revolution" happened, we were free. It was way better to make an album on our terms. We still rented the occasional mic or 2 (like renting lenses) but having the 16 track workstation....the main piece of gear, was awesome.

Also, just to throw a wrench into the decision...8 thousand with a GH3 set up would get you a HUGE arsenal of gear from audio to lenses and lighting. Something to think about. Even your initial 4 grand would go a long ways, then bank the other 4 for your film project.
 
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Do not shoot a low budget feature. Shoot a great short and do the festival circuit. It will become your calling card and you'd be surprised how many people in "The Business" have time to watch a well-received short who would otherwise never dedicate the time to watch a low budget feature.
 
Do you want to have a completed feature film in your hands or a camera in your hands?

Think about what success means to you. Is it money, acclaim, comfort? Or is it some sense of creative satisfaction? Do you have a story to tell that you believe is your social duty to share?

Do you want to be a director-for-hire, or a real independent?

These are questions you should answer. If you want to write and direct, it would be unwise to spend all of your operating funds on only one of the tools you need, leaving you without any money to actually make films.
 
radiohead said:
But today I'm thinking when? When am I going to make the movie? It just keeps getting pushed. At the same time, I look around and everyone I know has gear. But nobody has money to shoot a movie. Everyone wants to shoot a movie, but nobody has the money or script to move it forward. Here I have the script and the money and I know everyone with all the gear I could possibly want. I have a huge network.

So what do I do? Take the safer path of buying gear, at least then I'll have something to show for it. Can book gigs and then maybe finance the movie from the gigs I book. Or just take the leap now and do the movie?
Click to expand...

I just reread your post. You've answered the questions yourself. Here is some tough love coming up--read at your own risk.


Are you the type of person who takes the safer path? Not everybody should be risky, but I personally wouldn't want to look back on my life and say, "I'm glad I took the safe paths." You said yourself you have the script and money to make the film, and gear within your network you could borrow. Think back on all the safe paths you've chosen in your life. How do they make you feel? How about the risky ones?

Why do you need "something to show for it"? To dissect your statement, are you saying that if you spend your money on something, you want to make sure other people can see your value and respect you? Is this what is important to you?

To me, it would be terribly embarrassing to have lots of gear that I never used. It's like buying a Ferrari that you're afraid to drive. If you keep pushing back shooting this film because you're afraid of failure right now, then believe me, you're not going to magically find the courage to do it later. You'll be in the same boat you're in now, except with a history of taking safe routes. The decision to shoot a feature is never a safe route. You will always have to "take the leap now."

I don't want to watch a movie by a filmmaker who was safe. People try to do these easy one-location movies because they think they're safe. It's guaranteed failure in reality. I only want to watch a movie that had the potential to fail miserably. That's good to watch.
 
Congratulations on having a script. You didn't say why your funding campaign failed, there might be a clue there. Generally, dialog driven comedies are done better as stage plays. Having A list names doesn't guarantee success either. I think commercial success is at least at the back of most of our minds, and its the hardest thing there is. Buying a camera is the easiest. That's why so many people buy cameras and never use them. Then upgrade. My suggestion: borrow a camera and do a few gigs. Buy your own gear when you need it and can show a return. Make a few shorts, enter lots of film comps and get some credits, experience and direction. Having a reel will help your funding prospects.
 
Go for it. The only problem with your way of thinking right now is that you're hoping/expecting to get anything back from your first film. You can't count on that. But for $4,000, what have you got to lose? I mean, come on, man. You can spend $4k on gear and shoot wedding videos if that's what you want, but I don't think it is. And if what you really want is to shoot big, then go for it. Your first film's going to suck. Very few debuts don't. My advice is to either do short films (WITHOUT wasting money on gear, only rentals if absolutely necessary, but you shouldn't need even that if you have a network of friends with gear), or do your feature. Gear you purchase now is an upgrade you'll purchase later. It costs more than it's worth unless you're REALLY using it for filmmaking, but almost no-one ever does. I've got a camera sitting back home that I'd love to be out shooting with.

Do some short films. Keep your money in the bank, keep working whatever gigs you've got to work to pay the rent, but work with your friends, make some shorts, and then once you've got some experience under your belt, give your feature a go. Spend the time between now and then revising it. Send it off to people who know what makes a good screenplay (you can find at least a few on this board alone), get notes and take them seriously, but remember at the end of the day, you're not making this to make money. You're making this for the experience. When you're dog tired halfway through the shoot, dollar signs at the end of the some mythical tunnel aren't going to motivate you to make the best film you can.

Best of luck.

-EMB
 
Eric Boellner said:
When you're dog tired halfway through the shoot, dollar signs at the end of the some mythical tunnel aren't going to motivate you to make the best film you can.
Click to expand...

I like this quote. I find that dollar signs are a cheap motivator for just about everything. Money is a terrible end goal, because it is, by definition, an intermediary. Money isn't even a real thing, just a representation of value that you can use for something else.

People are probably getting tired of me constantly spewing this rhetoric, but very few folks on DVXuser agree with me, so I'll keep sharing it to represent the "good angel" whispering from one shoulder, "Don't sell out! Don't sell out!"


What is your former username? I remember your sig.
 
How would you go about to even get anyone to watch a $4000 film?
How many $4000 films have you watched? How often does anyone watch a new $4000 movie?
 
Drew Ott said:
People are probably getting tired of me constantly spewing this rhetoric, but very few folks on DVXuser agree with me, so I'll keep sharing it to represent the "good angel" whispering from one shoulder, "Don't sell out! Don't sell out!"
Click to expand...

Yes, I've been somewhat disturbed by the increasing trend of topics like this being flooded with "play it safe" kind of answers. I absolutely understand if the end goal for some people is to shoot commercials, or to do wedding videos, or simply make a living doing any video work. But I think if you have any kind of aspiration to make narrative or documentary feature films, you should absolutely pursue that.

-EMB

Went by a pen name (Michael Traven) for a while. Went back to using my birth name when I enlisted in the USMC.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
How would you go about to even get anyone to watch a $4000 film?
How many $4000 films have you watched? How often does anyone watch a new $4000 movie?
Click to expand...

You bring up a valid point. And I know you've always been a big proponent of making films with legitimate budgets (in the SAG ULB to MLB range, if I remember correctly?). But at the same time, I have to say, I don't think the point is even that anyone sees your film (and I know this is a massive can of worms to be opening): I think the point is just making it. Make it GOOD. Make the best damn film you can. Yes, play the game; don't go in blind. I wouldn't start production on a feature unless I already had an absolutely solid idea of how I could distribute the picture myself in a worst-case scenario or specific names and addresses/contact info of people who could get me an in with a distributor. Even something as simple as "I'm going to cut a screener and take it to AFM" is too vague for my taste. (the last feature I worked on has spent 2 years "in post," because the end-game wasn't as solid as the production phase).

But I don't think that should deter someone, and I certainly don't think it should cause someone to blow $4,000 on gear when they know deep down that they want to make a film, and better yet, have a script they can shoot for that amount. You don't jump in head-first and blow all your money only to find out in the end that you don't have a salable product. But worse than that, I think, is not trying because you don't have $150,000. If the OP thinks he could make a better film with $150k, then it's all but a sin for him not to doggedly pursue that money as intently and passionately as he would direct his film. FWIW, I wrote a script for a fairly high-concept thriller with the director of the above-mentioned film just a few months after we moved into editing on that film. We've had financing deals come together and fall through over and over for the past 2 years. Granted, it's not the top project on his priority list, and I'm not there to dog for it, but I think about how useless those 92 pages of paper are compared to what could have been a great production experience had we shot the thing ourselves for a few grand... Just a thought.

-EMB

If you wait on the perfect conditions to make your film, you'll never make your film...
 
Eric Boellner said:
You bring up a valid point. And I know you've always been a big proponent of making films with legitimate budgets (in the SAG ULB to MLB range, if I remember correctly?). But at the same time, I have to say, I don't think the point is even that anyone sees your film (and I know this is a massive can of worms to be opening): I think the point is just making it. Make it GOOD. Make the best damn film you can. Yes, play the game; don't go in blind. I wouldn't start production on a feature unless I already had an absolutely solid idea of how I could distribute the picture myself in a worst-case scenario or specific names and addresses/contact info of people who could get me an in with a distributor. Even something as simple as "I'm going to cut a screener and take it to AFM" is too vague for my taste. (the last feature I worked on has spent 2 years "in post," because the end-game wasn't as solid as the production phase).

But I don't think that should deter someone, and I certainly don't think it should cause someone to blow $4,000 on gear when they know deep down that they want to make a film, and better yet, have a script they can shoot for that amount. You don't jump in head-first and blow all your money only to find out in the end that you don't have a salable product. But worse than that, I think, is not trying because you don't have $150,000. If the OP thinks he could make a better film with $150k, then it's all but a sin for him not to doggedly pursue that money as intently and passionately as he would direct his film. FWIW, I wrote a script for a fairly high-concept thriller with the director of the above-mentioned film just a few months after we moved into editing on that film. We've had financing deals come together and fall through over and over for the past 2 years. Granted, it's not the top project on his priority list, and I'm not there to dog for it, but I think about how useless those 92 pages of paper are compared to what could have been a great production experience had we shot the thing ourselves for a few grand... Just a thought.

-EMB

If you wait on the perfect conditions to make your film, you'll never make your film...
Click to expand...
I'm a big proponent of spending time, money, energy and resources on projects that does what they're meant to do.

If your goal is to make a feature length film that will do anything for your career, $4000 is not going to be nearly enough.

That amount of money doesn't buy you control over the things you need to control in order to make a project as ambitious as a feature length film, on a level that makes anyone want to see it.
The amount of people already making films on that budget level is so high right now, that even if it was possible, it would get lost in the crowd of similar projects.
The amount of films made on that budget level that are made by people who don't know or don't care what they're doing, eclipses the amount of films made by people who do so greatly, that people are more than likely to not care about it because they will confuse your film with the type that is usually made for $4000. You know, the type of films that a lot of people on this forum laughs at in threads like this and this.


Okay, let's play around with this idea for a while.

You're going to need a lot of brand new external hard drives. Let's say three identical just for storing the footage, because if one breaks otherwise you'd lose your only backup.
On top of that you're going to need hard drives for editing, backup, sending footage, making DCPs, extra drives when others break.

On my film we lost at least ten drives just making it. On top of that, I must have lost at least another 5-10 just sending material between me and the people who made the film, festivals, distributors.

But say you buy 10 drives, and ten drives is all you use. That's 25% of your budget right there.

You're also going to need posters.

The poster pressing costs on my film, for festivals, events, giveaways etc, was $1,500. That's for pressing 500 posters. There was a minimum of 100 posters, but the difference in cost between 100 and 500 was less than $50. The other option was to print posters, but most festivals require 5-10 posters and if I had printed 25 of them I had been up in $1,500 anyway.
I don't know what the poster creating costs are in the US, but even if they're 2/3 of over here, that's still another 25% of the budget.

So let's be realistic about this. Half the budget is spent and you've only got posters and empty hard drives so far.
If this isn't in the budget calculation, the budget isn't calculated right. These are realistic costs.
With a short film, you won't have any of these issues.

So why make a feature?
Supply and Demand is insane right now.
Show me where the demand is for a $4000 feature film.
 
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If you buy a camera, it will be obsolete in a year. Sad but true.
The only safe bet is to buy hard grip/light/sound equipment. Some of those purchases will last for 20+ years.
If you invest the 4k in a film then the film will suck and will be unwatchable but you will have gained experience that cannot be measured.

The choice is up to you.
 
Sounds like you have $4K burning a hole in your pocket, and the only two choices you have given yourself are either A: Start a business. And B: Make a feature film.

The truth of the matter is... $4K will not buy what you need to run a commercial production company. And likewise $4K will not go very far in producing a quality feature film.

Look this forum is full of wannabe film makers who are going to tell you to go for it, spend your last dime buying gear, live your dream, bla bla bla. My advice, take it or leave it.... Save your money, get the best education you possibly can, and put a master plan in place. Once you have the knowledge, funding, and plan in place, everything else will come together much easier.

All the best!

Dave
 
I say don't buy gear. Buy things that you can use in front of the lens. I know I can get whipped for this, but gear is meaning less and less and less. Every time I really do something for 'real' the gear completely leaves the equation.

On making a 4k$ movie, it's true what Jawa sez. Would you watch a 4000 buck movie? Prolly not.

Still, I think the real use you get at this stage is making the film not to be seen, but rather for the process of making it.

I say make a movie. Shoot it with whatever. If your dialogue is funny it can be interlaced for all anyone cares. There's a time and place for everything.

I would've much rather spent money on learning my mistakes so I don't do them again when I get 40,000.

But gear is meaningless after a certain point.
 
j said:
The only safe bet is to buy hard grip/light/sound equipment. Some of those purchases will last for 20+ years.


The choice is up to you.
Click to expand...

But proceed with caution, LED purchases made now may also be obsolete in a year time. Tungsten, HMI, grip equipment and other proven technologies have little room for upgrade and won't be obsolete soon, but LED and other new technologies are evolving at a pretty fast pace and it will be some time before they settle if they ever do.
 
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1. Gear is not obsolete in 1 year...that's something the manufacturers and tech heads WANT people to believe. People still use original REDS, t2is, FS100s, AF100s and MK2s (huge range of cameras)...lenses especially don't become obsolete.
2. Owning the gear puts you in a very good situation to film shorts/videos/projects when ever you want and have arranged to do so, not based on someone else's time frame.
3. $4000 for a feature will not go a long way
4. Film some good shorts with your gear, do test shots for ideas for a feature down the road. The only part of the gear that will become truly "obsolete" at some point down the line is the camera body...and that's only if you say it isn't good enough any more. Lenses, tri pods, lighting, audio..........all will be with you for 20 years.
 
radiohead said:
So everything is shaping up to get my commercial production business off the ground.
Click to expand...

If this is where your main income comes from, then this is what you need to focus on and grow your business. Success in the commercial world will bring in far more than $4,000.

radiohead said:
When am I going to make the movie?
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When you can afford to blow $4,000 ( or very likely a lot more than this ) and get no financial return at all ( most first features are financial disasters ), and be completely happy with the experience you gained from it.
 
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