Zero budget film released on iTunes and turns a significant profit.

Forgive me before hand:

Zero budget my ass. They're purposely ignoring the cost of food in a statement made by them.

And what? It has NAMES. The brothers aren't exactly foreign to this industry, far from it. And the lead actress is from Castle.

BISHOP! (polite way of saying BS)
 
I just found the article, don't shoot the messenger! :P

Their argument against claiming the food is sound (to me), as they didn't purchase food for the crew they simply bought meals they would've bought anyway. That said, they did say they already had all the equipment to both shoot and edit in their possession.

I think it's cool that they used Twitter reviews of their film in the promotional material though.
 
My question is...how? The trailer is boring.

Not to mention that the night scenes look terrible with all the noise in the blacks.
 
Gary Huff said:
My question is...how? The trailer is boring.Not to mention that the night scenes look terrible with all the noise in the blacks.
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Oh that's simple: the directors and the actress are both known. The actress tweeted her huge fan base spammer style. They bought it. It's pretty awesome in that respect. And just exactly what people should take note of.
 
You are right, Kholi...my question was kind of rhetorical.

You need to "shop" in some famous celebrity with a Twitter account for your film! :thumbsup:
 
Kholi said:
Oh that's simple: the directors and the actress are both known. The actress tweeted her huge fan base spammer style. They bought it. It's pretty awesome in that respect. And just exactly what people should take note of.
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That's why building an audience is so important. That's why Kevin Smith has made the budget back (and then some) on Red State...he's got an audience...If you build it, they will come. Period.

-M
 
Martay said:
That's why building an audience is so important. That's why Kevin Smith has made the budget back (and then some) on Red State...he's got an audience...If you build it, they will come. Period.

-M
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Indeed. It just sucks that today's audience building is harder than yesterdays. With so much information moving so fast on the internet, the mainstay is in proliferation and prolfics. But, how does one that seeks to produce top-quality works do it without a steady, and significant, cash flow do that?

All of Kevin Smith's fans are older, he's probably NOT resonating with today's ultra-fast-paced young audience. I could be wrong, though. THat's just guessing.

Blarg.
 
Make one that is truly top quality, with a name actor who will tweet it to her 68,000+ followers, and sell it on itunes for $200,000.

Then do it again.
 
Has anyone here actually seen the film? I'm curious about it. I've seen I think two Polish bros films, and they were plodding, but certainly watchable.

I also think this is a possible new trend. Though it may be a bit of a Dogme like gimmick a few try, but dont' stick with. We discussed Ed Burns and his upcoming film that was similarly shot on a 5D with two actors wearing lav mics. I'm not a big Burns fan, but he had "no budget" as well.

But as others have said, you and I can't do this, as only a couple hundred people know who we are (a few more for Barry :)), so that won't fly. If we can't get name talent, we need to identify and target an audience that matches our content, and market to them properly.
 
snowleopard said:
Has anyone here actually seen the film? I'm curious about it. I've seen I think two Polish bros films, and they were plodding, but certainly watchable.
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"Plodding" and odd to say the least.

snowleopard said:
But as others have said, you and I can't do this, as only a couple hundred people know who we are (a few more for Barry :)), so that won't fly. If we can't get name talent, we need to identify and target an audience that matches our content, and market to them properly.
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It's like Prince deciding to go it alone without a record label. He's Prince, so he no longer needs a label. Same thing here. It's about cache and a built in fanbase. So it's not some major achievement when you have hundreds of thousands of fans already who will buy whatever it is you're selling. I mean, yeah, you have to have something at least watchable, but I'd guess this model would work for literally any A-list talent.

And, I'd add - it makes me wonder about how many marginal films that did very well with A list talent in their casts, would have been ignored with no name casts made by unknown filmmakers.
 
Chris Santucci said:
It's like Prince deciding to go it alone without a record label. He's Prince, so he no longer needs a label. Same thing here.
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This is exactly what it's like. Those guys may not be Christopher Nolan or Stephen Spielberg, but they've been making theatrical films for at least 13 years with A-list actors and decent indie budgets of $5 million to $10 million.I

And, I'd add - it makes me wonder about how many marginal films that did very well with A list talent in their casts, would have been ignored with no name casts made by unknown filmmakers.
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No real way to know, of course, but the Japanese Horror trend gives us a little bit of a way to compare. If you saw the original "Ringu" and then the Hollywood A-list version "The Ring", they were very very very very similar films. I mean, not 100% shot-for-shot remake, and obviously with better effects in the Hollywood version, but -- you'll rarely see a more identical film to compare with. The A-list Hollywood version grossed $129 million. The same film with a no-name cast and no-name director, Ringu, grossed $1.7 Singapore dollars.
 
Martay said:
That's why building an audience is so important. That's why Kevin Smith has made the budget back (and then some) on Red State...he's got an audience...If you build it, they will come. Period.

-M
Click to expand...

An audience he gained mostly through the Miramax promotion machine. The same one he now ridicules in public.

Reminds me of NIN.
 
I hate to sound like an old fuddy lecturing, and repeating myself, especially as there are many people on this forum that know way more than I do, but this is not really that new of an idea. John Cassavetes shot films in a similar manner some 40 years ago. He, George O'Halloran, Al Ruben, Don Pike and a handful of helpers would take a 16mm camera, whatever B&W film they could scrape together, several of John's acting friends, and shoot a very raw movie for very little money.

I guess the difference is that Cassavets films actually changed cinema, and were anything but plodding experiments. They were meaningful, true, and contain some of the greatest acting in film history.

Understand that this is John's house where this takes place.


That's actually Part II. If you wish to watch it all, Part 1 is here.
 
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