Trials and tribulations of distribution...

Question

Question

Jonathan,

Thanks for your contributions!

To help my learning, how would the 100k be broken down? Any deferred? I'd like to know how it might be spent to give a movie a chance of doing well.

Specifically, some comments about equipment (are we talking HVX 200 or Red One), daily crew pay etc.

I appreciate your willingness to share.

I do agree with 10k, you are making a movie just to say you made one unless you have a great unique angle. For example, Take Out was made for 3k and anyone that wants to try a low budget flick should watch that and turn on the director commentary. A lot of things need to roll your way to make a low budget film work.
 
I believe you could probably film a very experimental but still somewhat interesting piece for very cheap, given the right circumstances, but it may be a "hidden costs" situation. I don't want to give examples, you can think of them, but one that comes to mind is for instance I know these guys making what I think is going to be a pretty hilarious film and it's based on their travels together. It is this fictional story they are weaving throughout these various locations they knew they'd be, for instance Hawaii, Sundance (Park City, UT), Cannes, New York, etc. It's very funny and it's filmed like a documentary, but it's entirely fictional. I just think it's very clever and it cracks me up when I hear the plot.

But to make a traditional feature definitely costs money. If you're wanting to make it kind of the Hollywood way, with major crew positions represented at least, you'll probably want to keep it to 10 to 15 days of filming. On a smaller budget like $100K, you probably have to strip down the crew a lot to what you really need. Like no 2nd 2nd A.D., but you probably still need a 2nd AD, or for instance you may have to make some PAs work multiple departments, like set dressing and spare grip, things like that. You can shoot with the RED but it's difficult to do that unless you have someone coming aboard to help you as a package deal, like they own the RED, know the work flow, and will DP your project. Maybe they have a friend who can do the DIT, and maybe you have a system that will work for editing. Otherwise you're looking at a lot of extra costs or time because editing on a 3-year-old lower end Mac Pro is probably not a great idea.

I think the lower the budget, not only the more creative you have to be, but the more people you need doing you favors and the more time you need to arrange what you must have. For instance, we have a lot of people working on our film, doing different parts of the prep, trying to call in favors on everything from locations to equipment to crew. On a smaller budget of course you can't just throw money at a problem, you have to spend time on it instead.
 
Bump

Bump

I was hoping for the thread to start up again, this has been very educational for me. Someday I hope to have some valuable info to share. Right now just a total noob. Thanks.

Bueller, bueller...
 
Last edited:
Well I finished directing my first film, so now I know even better how it all works, haha. I can tell you that it's very tough to imagine making a professional film with less than what we had. It was a fantastic team, but everyone was busy with their jobs and indeed PAs did help with set dressing or art department stuff sometimes, even grips occasionally chipped in to move furniture or things like that. It was a true team effort. I felt we had the minimum crew required for making a film the right way. I'm sure there are other cheats that could have been done, but the sacrifice to quality would have been significant.

Now on to the post process, which is a lot of fun, I just love seeing things come together. Our editor is working now on an editor's assembly and then I get to dive in to the director's cut. It's already really looking good, it's so funny I can't wait to get it polished.
 
JonathanLB said:
Well I finished directing my first film....I can't wait to get it polished.
Click to expand...

Congrats on getting it in the can.

Is there another post or website for us to follow the progress?

You know I'm always giving out mine www.battle-movie.com

We've locked picture and are working furiously on the score and soundtrack while it's being color corrected.

Then it'll be down to the sound.

Good luck with your post-production.

-M
 
Hmm

Hmm

Yeah I had thought about somehow documenting the process, it would have been fun to keep a journal every day but yeah right, when I was in production I could barely sleep 4-5 hours if I was lucky, it was like going off to war. I know some people might take offense to that, and I know it's not the same level of importance and your life isn't threatened, but to you at that moment when your funds are invested in a film and it's your professional life on the line, you really do feel that way. The stress, the extreme lack of sleep, the stimulants to keep you awake, the sense of camaraderie with the crew, and having to make decisions on a split-second sometimes, it's very intense. I enjoy it because I find it very satisfying but I don't always find it fun. It depends on the day. Some days you have fun and you know you're not extremely crunched for time, or that you can pull off what you need, but other days you know you're up against a wall all day trying to knock out 10 pages, which is just insane!

Today we did some exterior pickups, just the DP and I, really fun, laid back day, haha. I had a good time. I really like the DP and hope to work together again on future projects. I've been through a number of DPs and really never found the one I'd want to work with continually but now I know this is a guy who is great to hang out with and fun, but so talented and amazing, it'd be fun to grow our careers together. Not that he needs me, though, he's a rock star, haha.

I'm about to take a mini-vacation for about 5 days, then when I get back the editor's assembly will be ready and I'll be diving into post hardcore. So that will be a fun part of the process, seeing it come together. I have to say I think we have a really good movie on our hands, it's just very funny but smart and clever, well acted and well shot, it's a great combination of elements on a low budget.

I haven't started any sort of documentation of the film really though besides production. We have about 4,000 still photos, my friend who is a really good photographer flew down to take stills, and we have BTS video on the HVX200 for every day but one of the shoot. Tons of footage, will be useful for featurettes later and also for my personal reasons I really wanted my first film to be documented.
 
Believe me, I understand what you mean in terms of the symptoms of a feature film shoot seeming like combat duty. I even call great crew members warriors when recommending them to others. I do avoid comparing it to War though...wouldn't feel right for me to say being that my dad is a Veteran of 2 wars...but I don't take offense to it.

Sounds like you got a great amount of BTS stuff. We didn't cover the bts as much as you but we do have a "making of..." featurette in the works and a lot of stills. I just need a decent reliable web person to help me create more content for the site.

Have fun on your vacation and definitely create a thread about your movie when you get a chance and direct us to the content when it's available.

-M
 
Yeah

Yeah

Yeah, definitely I'm not saying it's WAR, haha, but only that it's the nearest thing I can compare to because nothing else I've done, no matter how hard the work, really compares to that level of stress where sometimes you just don't feel like yourself. I snapped once on the shoot, it was late in the production, and after I went off set for about 10 minutes to cool down and just got away from it, then talked to that person, I felt bad about the situation because it shouldn't have happened. It just did. It wasn't like me and it wasn't necessary, and I couldn't really explain why I reacted that way, it was just massive amounts of caffeine mixed with sleep deprivation made me edgier than usual and react in funny ways.

I am very even keel and easy going most of the time, I'm not laid back when it comes to work though, I am on the ball and focused, but rarely ever edgy / argumentative / hostile, etc. But enough days of not getting enough sleep and emotionally I feel compromised, where it's tougher to maintain the usual calm that I have. The best preparation I had for that was actually a few 24 credit terms in college, where I really had no off time for 10 weeks in a row, and it gave me that constant stress where I was able to manage my time and deal with it in a healthy way. A film shoot is even more intense.

The BTS stuff was more of a vanity for me, I admit, but it wasn't a lot of money to spend for how I feel about it. I know little moments caught on film that in 20 years, I'd probably pay a million dollars to go back and have, if I didn't have them, but I got those moments on the BTS now and I know they will be with me forever. Like when we wrapped, going into the room with the monitor (I was on a closed set, in a room) and the producers are there, the rest of the crew, being handed a beer and getting a big hug from the producers, "You did it buddy! You directed your first movie." Those are the kind of moments that stay with you forever and to have that on the BTS footage is just so neat. I know even if it's just for personal use, even if we did nothing else with the footage (which we will), it would still be worth having.

I'm sure probably some heated discussions were caught on the BTS too, haha, that should be funny to see. I have to look through the footage, which I guarantee I won't get to until at least sometime in August if not September. We have to finish the movie first.

I have seen your trailer before, I must have been on that site previously, good stuff! It's fun to follow the journey of indie films, see where they end up.
 
JonathanLB said:
I have seen your trailer before, I must have been on that site previously, good stuff! It's fun to follow the journey of indie films, see where they end up.
Click to expand...

Thanks. And I definitely enjoy watching other folks progress too so anxious to see your film's journey as well.

I definitely understand why a BTS would be valuable for personal reasons.

I really would love to have one for each project that is intensive but it's really tough to make that a priority on our budget level and time crunch in terms of how we shoot.

I have a short film that we did that won some audience awards and minor recognition but we did have a BTS crew follow that production and the "making of..." is like a feature documentary (80 mins) on the special features of this 8 minute short film...I watch it every now and then because it did such a fantastic job of capturing my crew and cast and the spirit of our productions and what makes them so rewarding an experience at least on the production side.

-Martin
 
Dammit, I wish I would have saw this post a month ago. We went through a lot getting all of the stuff that the distribution company wanted. We did get it all done. But it was NOT cheap.
 
JonathanLB,

Have you ever seen Primer? Or El Mariachi? Both were shot for around $7000 on 16mm film and won awards at Sundance.

I'm not saying everyone with a low budget is going to make a great film, but both of these were good movies, were well received by fans and the industry, and cost under $10,000. And almost all of the money in both cases went straight to film stock and processing.

What they both had in common was good scripts and directors who knew how to tell a story.
 
arniepix said:
It's a myth that "el Mariachi" cost $7k. The sound work alone was several times more than that.
Click to expand...
It's not a myth that "el Mariachi" cost $7k. It did.

The version that Rodriguez made, which got him the Audience Award at Sundance and got him a distribution deal, cost $7,000.

But the version that people saw in the theaters, all cleaned up for theatrical release, yes that cost much more. Not only in sound work, but also going back and cutting the negative, re-editing the entire thing on film, blowing up to 35mm, making release prints, yes that all cost money, of course.
 
And let's not forget that that $7000 was in 1993 dollars...17 years ago.

(of course, on the other side of the coin, if RR was starting and making it today with today's technology, who knows what it would cost him)
 
According to The Inflation Calculator, $7,000 in 1993 would be worth about $10,263 today.

But today, he could shoot digital and avoid the cost of stock, processing, and transfer. I think that ate up at least half of his budget. So, making the exact same film today, maybe $5,000?
 
It's not a myth that El Mariachi cost $7,000, but it's also a very tongue-in-cheek fact. I mean if you want to say that, I could tell you my movie cost a lot less because we have a viewable rough cut now. But we still have to spend money to finish the music, sound effects, ADR, a few pickups, etc. If a distributor saw it now and loved it, and wanted to help pay to finish it for presentation, would I say it cost X amount instead of Y, the true finishing cost? Not really.

El Mariachi cost more like $75,000 when all was said and done, if not more. The movie wasn't finished when it was made for $7,000 and nobody in the public saw it, so I don't agree that it cost $7,000 to "make." I agree that it cost $7,000 to film, though.
 
JonathanLB said:
It's not a myth that El Mariachi cost $7,000, but it's also a very tongue-in-cheek fact. I mean if you want to say that, I could tell you my movie cost a lot less because we have a viewable rough cut now. But we still have to spend money to finish the music, sound effects, ADR, a few pickups, etc. If a distributor saw it now and loved it, and wanted to help pay to finish it for presentation, would I say it cost X amount instead of Y, the true finishing cost? Not really.

El Mariachi cost more like $75,000 when all was said and done, if not more. The movie wasn't finished when it was made for $7,000 and nobody in the public saw it, so I don't agree that it cost $7,000 to "make." I agree that it cost $7,000 to film, though.
Click to expand...

Jonathan,

Someday will you give us the full scoop on your project? I get bits and pieces through your various posts but would love to know how it all worked out, etc. Thanks!

Keep up the good work!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top