Why do filmmakers insist on claiming no budget?

Chris Santucci

Chris Santucci

Veteran
I'm not saying it's impossible, but why do some filmmakers claim they produced a feature length film with no budget? How is this even possible and why would anyone think it's a good idea to claim such a thing?

I mean, come on! Just use of a cell phone, computer, and a vehicle pretty much means you ARE spending money, right?

If you run your computer and monitors for 6 months post producing the film, you're paying for electricity. If you make calls, you're paying for cellular phone airtime. If you drive to locations, you're paying for gas/tolls/parking. If you feed even just yourself on shoot days, you're paying for that. If you invested in equipment, well, that's money spent, right? Copies of scripts? Sides? Water? Props? Wardrobe? Makeup? Isn't your own time and the cast and crew's time worth something?

I'd expect that if a significant return was realized then the unpaid cast and crew might expect some kind of compensation, right?

If I built a house with donated labor and materials, could I really say the house was made for zero dollars?

Is this a viable marketing trick? Did it do anything for Marc Price? Wouldn't making such a claim have a negative affect on potential offers for distribution?

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most filmmakers I know who operate at a low-budget level AND have had their film picked up for distribution do not reveal their budgets beyond saying something like "under a million". another thing they share in common, across the board, is that they hire publicists and producer's reps to act on their behalf at festivals.

I imagine Marc started the $70 thing when he found out he got into Cannes and needed a hook to separate himself from the pack, publicity-wise. to that end, yeah, I'd say it works.

anyway, when it comes to distribution, the smart money is not looking at what a film cost. it's looking at what its worth.
 
Yeah, there is no such thing as a "No Budget" movie, in my opinion. I personally like the term "Micro-budget" film. I think that the "No Budget" moniker comes from the fact that a lot of these kind of flicks are made with the available disposable funds, or credit limit of the filmmaker, and are paid for as they go. If the filmmaker chooses this kind of business model to make a movie, they should, at least, keep receipts and add them up at the end of production to know exactly what was spent.

I have a friend that I have shot a couple of projects for who claims to be a "No budget" filmmaker, and he has made a lot of films, including around 15 features, for very low budgets, but I know that this crafty f*cker knows exactly how much a project is going to cost before he starts to shot.

Yeah, "No Budget" is BS.
 
A lot of those films do not apply a cost for the equity of time and talent when doing so, but just hard costs. I know exactly the amount of cash I spent on my last film and easily falls into the micro-budget bucket, but the amount of time I spent on it, plus favors from others who worked on it, would be a lot more - easily a factor of 10. When it can to distribution/sales agent, I did not give the actual budget, but the "real" budget if fully funded. Although, it should not affect the decision of how good the movie it is or not - it can influence how much they think will be a break even or profit to you when it comes time to make a deal.

It was a long, challenging process - and while enjoyable in many ways, I will not do a film that way again - it is more work than it needs to be.

Michael
 
Probably some think of "budget" as necessarily meaning a specifically pre-planned lump-sum amount, and since they didn't do that, but rather put out little expense 'fires' as they occurred (gear rentals here, crew food there, airfare here, software there, E-I-E-I-O), it never "felt" like a budgeted process. It was an ongoing expense, quite possibly a pretty darn big one by the end, but not part of a 'budget plan'. So much for semantics...

Otherwise, it sure makes a snappy headline: "I made a feature film for ZERO dollars!". Which is of course untrue in 99.9999% of all cases, and I can't think of any functional exceptions right now (and OPM, aka "Other People's Money" doesn't count). So it actually makes the claim more like one or more of the following:

-Hubris
-Smoke & Mirrors
-BS
-Bragging

...you get the idea.

So yeah, Chris, people really ought to knock this kind of crap off. But of course they never will... : )
 
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I think people like to say that they spent no money on a movie for two reasons. The first reason is some sort of indie-badge of honor, the other reason is quite different....

If you say your film costs no money you set the bar pretty low in people's mind, so that if the movie sucks you can hide behind the lack of budget and if it does well there's the pride of having done it on twinkies and cigarettes (which still cost some money) :)

I'm not saying this is wrong. My first feature ended up costing me about $130k and it was pretty bad. I would have loved to have said, "yeah, it sucks, but it only cost $12 to make", but I can't. I spent $130k on a crappy movie :) Nowadays, I could have made 10 "zero-budget" films for the same budget of that one film (read:no such thing as a zero budget film).

J.
 
Yeah, I get that "zero" and "none" is a lot easier to deal with than a number or a range, but it just seems a bit dishonest to me. I suppose it could be useful as a rallying cry when approaching potential cast, crew, and etc. and I would imagine some who claim "no budget" might be attempting to also draw attention to their ability as filmmakers ("Hey look what I did with NO money!")

Seems to me though, if you did the math it might end up making more sense to either spend your time finding investors, partners, securing a loan, or just saving money to finance with (or all of those, ha), rather than spending the time doing everything yourself and thereby taking yourself offline with regard to doing paying work.

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Ted Spencer said:
Probably some think of "budget" as necessarily meaning a specifically pre-planned lump-sum amount, and since they didn't do that, but rather put out little expense 'fires' as they occurred (gear rentals here, crew food there, airfare here, software there, E-I-E-I-O), it never "felt" like a budgeted process. It was an ongoing expense, quite possibly a pretty darn big one by the end, but not part of a 'budget plan'. So much for semantics...
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Yep. And I'd imagine even a "no budget" filmmaker would be forking over a box full of film production related receipts to their accountant at the end of the year.


insanityfw said:
If you say your film costs no money you set the bar pretty low in people's mind, so that if the movie sucks you can hide behind the lack of budget and if it does well there's the pride of having done it on twinkies and cigarettes (which still cost some money) :)
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That's probably the psychology behind it most of the time. I'd think that a noob filmmaker taking on the monumental task of producing a first feature would be scared to death of using other people's money, or even their own when they are unproven as a filmmaker. When will people stop thinking of filmmaking as a form of the lottery?

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When I hear "no budget" I always think of the movies that Hollywood puts out that cost 40, 50, 60 million dollars. That is no budget. If you have three dollars to spend on your film, you have to budget that three dollars. But if it was supposed to cost 40 million, and you spent 50 million, then you have "no budget"
 
I think no budget is also used to warn the crew that they will not be paid for their services.:evil:

So is "I'm shooting with the RED camera". :grin:
 
I consider anything under $20,000 a microbudget film. My book "Action Filmmaking" is aimed at this audience.

-Nate
 
Here in Germany 3 to 4 Million Euros is considered a big budget. Not so in the US.

Having said that, I shot 2 short films without spending a dime but I used what was already there. I own the gear, had free actors, free location, free props and I was able to do all the production jobs myself - camera, light, sound, directing, editing, makeup, VFX ..you name it.

We can get picky here and say how about food and gas - so, yeah, but you get the idea.
It is doable, but it´s a PITA and the quality suffers.

I coined the term Smart Budget.

Make a 3 million film that looks like a 30 million film by using (almost) free resources that are already there.

For a period film, look out for reeanactor groups.
Most of them will be proud to be in your film for catering and free coffee.

They have all the period correct props, vehicles andwhatnot and they know more about "their" period than any Hollywood pro.

Use practical locations. Talk to the owners, elate them for your project. You often get the location for free.

Use VFX only when absolute necessary - not just for the sake of it.
Crappy VFX pulls any good film down.

Only motivated camera moves driven by scene dramaturgy. Don´t overuse that crane/dolly/steadycam just because you paid so much for it that day. Good camera moves add a ton of production value. Investing in a - under 200 bucks - ZaZaSlider is the best thing you can do.

Ask for sponsoring.

Believe it or not. Lot´s of companies are happy to sponsor your film - just because they are in the credits or can do some product placement.

You can get free gear rental, catering, posters and even accommodation that way.

Frank
 
Zak Forsman said:
most filmmakers I know who operate at a low-budget level AND have had their film picked up for distribution do not reveal their budgets beyond saying something like "under a million". another thing they share in common, across the board, is that they hire publicists and producer's reps to act on their behalf at festivals.

I imagine Marc started the $70 thing when he found out he got into Cannes and needed a hook to separate himself from the pack, publicity-wise. to that end, yeah, I'd say it works.

anyway, when it comes to distribution, the smart money is not looking at what a film cost. it's looking at what its worth.
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Brilliant as usual Zak. Exactly -- it's what it is worth, not what it cost. As I understand, most people do not offer up an actual "what we spent," because any good sales agent is going to say that's irrelevant. Did it matter that Blair Witch cost $60K? I mean it made $315,000,000, I think if they really saw the potential of that film they would have spent $35 million to make it, lol. Of course that wasn't necessary. But you start throwing out, "Yeah we spent $135,000 on this film," then a distributor starts to say to themselves, well I won't pay more than twice that then, screw this, he spent that, I want this for $100K to $270K max. I'd throw that back at them, "Well what do you think we spent on it? Let me ask you that." "Uhh, well, oh, well it looks very nice, so I'm guessing maybe $300K to $400K?" "Yeah, you are right, it was in that range." Why am I going to tell them my number up front? Forget that. You're going to pay me what my film is worth, not what it cost to make.

That applies both ways, too. If you spent $300K for a lousy film with no-name actors, sorry, but who cares, the distributor still isn't going to want to give you more than $25K lol, because that's what they deem the film to be worth.
 
I used the term no budget when I described my project a few times.. but I've since changed to low/micro budget.

I've spent over 2000.00 already just on gear. Not to mention the internet connection to do all the research and promotions. I just found out there is going to be a fee to rent the location I wanted to do auditions at. I'll have to feed the cast and crew. The thing is, I haven't really "budgeted" and saved up the required amount, as I don't know what things I can get for free or little to nothing. I've gotten alot of stuff free so far, but I have spent a good amount of money already and we aren't even shooting yet. The thing is, Its in increments so it doesn't feel like alot. It only feels like a large amount, when it IS. By the end of this, there is no telling how much I will have spent.
 
JonathanLB said:
... it's what it is worth, not what it cost. As I understand, most people do not offer up an actual "what we spent," because any good sales agent is going to say that's irrelevant.
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No kidding. My point was that claiming to produce a feature length film for zero dollars is most likely a fairy tale in almost every case. Filmmaking is not like painting, where you smear some paint on a canvas and then with the help of a gallery owner you put a few hundred thousand dollar price tag on it. With respect to filmmaking, when you're using considerable technology and months and months of time and the labor of multiple people, I'd say it's near impossible to claim you spent nothing in dollars on a film.

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insanityfw said:
If you say your film costs no money you set the bar pretty low in people's mind, so that if the movie sucks you can hide behind the lack of budget and if it does well there's the pride of having done it on twinkies and cigarettes (which still cost some money) :)
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I think you've hit the nail on the head with this one.
 
Chris Santucci said:
No kidding. My point was that claiming to produce a feature length film for zero dollars is most likely a fairy tale in almost every case. Filmmaking is not like painting, where you smear some paint on a canvas and then with the help of a gallery owner you put a few hundred thousand dollar price tag on it. With respect to filmmaking, when you're using considerable technology and months and months of time and the labor of multiple people, I'd say it's near impossible to claim you spent nothing in dollars on a film.

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and even then, the paper and paint still had to be bought from somewhere..or the easel.. and funny painting hat.
 
Interesting discussion. Person "A" in Ryan's post almost fits me to a tee. I already owned about 20K in equipment and decided to make a feature. You can bet when tax time comes along I will be allocating some of the equipment cost to the movie.

Originally I planned on a larger crew but ended up typically with a crew of 2. Crew was paid $12-$25 hr depending on experience and core actors (those filming for more than one day) were paid $12 hr. Even with all those being paid, the movie will come in well under 10K even with post production. I'm doing as much post as possible myself, then will have the color and audio fine tuned by a pro.


I consider the movie micro budget, not no budget. There is not really any such thing, making any movie costs money in one way or another.
 
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