What can be done with a reduced budget film.

What can you do with a film? Excalibur is a good example of style to learn from and is showing in Australia at the moment. It was shot in the start of the 1980's, apparently quickly on a "shoe string budget". It's unique style shows that it's not about fancy cameras and equipment, but what you do with them. Along with good acting and script and charm, style can be one of the cheaper parts of a film. It was one of the first films to inspired me towards production. I think BM cameras picture quality is inducive to a picture like this.

Re-edit:
http://thenewbev.com/blog/2017/10/excalibur/

The news article I remembered said differently from the article here. Even in the interview the director says it was shoestring, which you would not describe that amount as. Is it adjusted for inflation and including post production costs? I was thinking about actual filming spend, and not inflated post production, distribution and marketing spend.

Sorry, this was not shoestring budget. This is what today is called a "mid-budget feature". After inflation calculation, that's $31 million today.

If you want to look at low budget Hollywood productions, look at Blumhouse Productions. They make features for $1mil to $5mil, and usually always make their money back (they mostly do horror). Also, some Hollywood dramas that end up on festivals and then direct to streaming, cost anywhere from $1mil to $10mil. Below these prices, are more indie productions that usually never see theatrical release, and they're usually on their own.

Now, what is truly a shoestring budget, look at this feature, budget was $8,000, shot on a BMPCC HD. They used cardboard as a matte box. They had a limited theatrical release via the Gravitas Ventures distributor:

Yeah, I saw it tonight accessing it's budget, amazing how much you forget was in there. But how much was filming costs, taking the amount is not adjusted for inflation?

Was just going delete the thread, but can't as long as there is a reply in it.

This is a pretty impressive short done on a relatively shoestring budget:




Just remember one thing, low budget simply means that hard cash is traded in for people's time. Also, there's nothing to be proud of in working for free with extremely limited resources. We can accept the crappy state of the film industry, and learn to function and be creative within its absurdity, but we shouldn't have to like it.

Here's something I did. Production budget was less than $1k. Only way I pulled it off is by basically handling all of the VFX and CG work myself:

El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez) was shot on a USD 7,225 budget. Creative uses of cameras and editing.... the Special Edition has extensive interviews with Rodriguez.

In today's money, El Mariachi cost $14k. Primer costs $10.5k, when adjusting for inflation. So while they're still dirt cheap, they're not as low as some of the films mentioned above. Personally, I feel that to make your money back today, your film must cost less than $12k. $25k if it's going to be a film with distributor already attached, and $50k only if you're guaranteed to get festival or otherwise press coverage. Otherwise, say goodbye to profit. Amazon Prime, is too low paying us $0.04/hour payment (they pay up to $0.25 for blockbusters, their paying rate is not the same throughout). And the rest of the streaming services require money to enter, as high as $1500 EACH. So it makes no sense to upload there IMHO.

Guys let's remember that those "budgets" are used as a marketing tool.
El Mariachi did cost Rodriguez around 7000$ to shoot but that didn't even includes a 16mm print. When Columbia bought the movie they had to pay for prints, negative matching, blow-ups, sound remix, subtitles/credits, etc.. So roughly an other 150K...

That's my point, how much to actually make (including equipment and film preferably). I think I know somebody here who will come along and point out what you said. Maybe it was Marc.

But the point for here, is how much can you spend to make good content. That was more important in the old days, as you would have something to sell to somebody who would complete the process, but now there is so much content and even good content, you would have a lot less chance of selling, but with streaming, you could at least do that.

What is fair for a streaming? (Sorry screening streaming ). How many cents might it actually be? So, is it really fair to give 0.04c, are they kidding, and you should get at least as much as a blockbuster, as they can get a thousand times more views, and profits. So COST+10% of the remaining profit seems good enough, with the filmaker getting the remaining 90% of net, which is checkable against tax records. But of course, they would rather get the unearned 90% than for the film maker to get it. The issue is Red was going to do an indie dear distribution channel and I advised them too, but it was lost. The data rates on their codec were so low, it had good potential to have a large distributatle profit margin left over. BBC had some sort of codec streamer too, likely for tamer drama programming.

The solution is a collective be streaming service for content filmmakers where front ends and play lists, and links could be put on websited, where the website hosters make a little from linking to the product through viewer link and store interfaces. These schemes include profit from advertise per part view platform (unlike YouTube) if the content provider wants instead. The user Google's it whatever, drops by the site, and selects with auto pay (or mobile approved) from a payment system, card system or credit points system you buy. They could just go click all-day long until it runs out. Super easier,super distributed, super word of mouth marketed by the websites and search engines.

So, where can we find something like that, and let great content rise, un-fettered by content pools? That's a real future getting rid of a lot of the middle people, and taking most of the profit for the content maker.

Very few people watch videos on their computers though, unless it's youtube. So going to a website that links you to another website to watch a video, won't work (neither most filmmakers want to have their movie seen in a small screen).

The reality is that most films under a couple of million dollars, suck. And people just don't care about them, because they expect either big names, or genre films with CGI. Yours and mine micro budget films don't get watched anymore. There's too much content for entertainment out there, too much saturation, and things are getting more saturated by the minute due to the streaming wars, computer games, social media, youtube. And people only have 1-2 hours per day maximum to watch or do something in their free time before they wake up the next day to go to work again.

So, it is my opinion that the low budget movie industry is dead. In the 1990s it was alive because there weren't many avenues for entertainment. Fewer movies were made back then. So Sundance could introduce new movies and directors, and people listened. Now, Sundance mostly pushes Hollywood productions, under "indie labels" disguise, and big A-list actors in them. Low budget films would never get picked in such a situation.

As I wrote elsewhere:
Keep the budget under $12,000. That's the amount of money you need to produce your film if you want to make it back later via streaming. You go to $25,000 if you already have a distributor. You go to $50,000 only if you have a distributor, a B-List name, large online following, and maybe good odds at a mid-tier festival.

Anything else between that budget and a few million, will probably end up on debt. Only genre films might have a good chance to be in that in-between budget tier.

In late 2017 I did a short film that got release to various festivals in 2018. We won some awards both for screenplay and directing. Our budget was around $3K USD (more if you consider the volunteering of time and equipment). It was shot entirely using a couple of URSA 4K/URSA Mini 4K and the BMPCC original that my friend and I owned. We had it streaming on Vimeo On Demand and just broke even to date. It's a short so we were not expecting to get a good ROI on it. It was more to get exposure at the festivals which had a good turn out. Here's the promo clip.

Congrats! Looks great!
BTW, did you make most of your money back via Vimeo, or some way via the festivals?

Very few people watch videos on their computers though, unless it's youtube. So going to a website that links you to another website to watch a video, won't work (neither most filmmakers want to have their movie seen in a small screen).

The reality is that most films under a couple of million dollars, suck. And people just don't care about them, because they expect either big names, or genre films with CGI. Yours and mine micro budget films don't get watched anymore. There's too much content for entertainment out there, too much saturation, and things are getting more saturated by the minute due to the streaming wars, computer games, social media, youtube. And people only have 1-2 hours per day maximum to watch or do something in their free time before they wake up the next day to go to work again.

So, it is my opinion that the low budget movie industry is dead. In the 1990s it was alive because there weren't many avenues for entertainment. Fewer movies were made back then. So Sundance could introduce new movies and directors, and people listened. Now, Sundance mostly pushes Hollywood productions, under "indie labels" disguise, and big A-list actors in them. Low budget films would never get picked in such a situation.

As I wrote elsewhere:
Keep the budget under $12,000. That's the amount of money you need to produce your film if you want to make it back later via streaming. You go to $25,000 if you already have a distributor. You go to $50,000 only if you have a distributor, a B-List name, large online following, and maybe good odds at a mid-tier festival.

Anything else between that budget and a few million, will probably end up on debt. Only genre films might have a good chance to be in that in-between budget tier.

We are talking paradigm shifts here, and I am talking TV viewing through a service, which you can view as a service from your TV manufacturer, or other web service page which use other webpages as content title pages. A democratised distributed content experience, that can look better then present services. But, you can just go through a search engine instead.

The hope is that review and promotion sites will put up front ends and lists, you follow the recommended lists or search through the front end. But promotion sites can look for and promote the bed content, or favourite genre or fan.bssed content. Or you just go through the main page. But in content promotion your content website address hosts viewing, without waiting for a movie session, which for most content is desirable. You might do stuff directly on TV, but pass off to your TV is a thing that is already done primitively Chromecast, but really needs an pass watch to TV function where TV takes over independently from mobile, and pass browsing tab history function where TV takes a browsers tab history over independently for viewers to look for things on mobile or tablet continue on TV. This only requires a message to be sent to a TV, rather than the complicatimg Chromecast function, even just proximity tapping the remote or TV, wiyjiut any pairing, simply.

About the saturation. That's true, but the whole idea of this mechanism, is word of mouth "referal" rather than "promotion site" I should have said. So, it is there so something good enough can rise through the ranks ( individual related scoring system included). Most users might just normally interact through the system on the basis of hearing something is great or good, others can search for their genre etc. But as for the rubbish, sure enough it might not get watched. But all the A list stuff can be hosted too. The whole idea is it is a way to break lockout. So, dynamically can be viewed virtually how the users want.

I believe that you're trying to optimize for the wrong thing. You're thinking only half of the equation.

I think what you suggest already exists, and it's Youtube itself. Word of mouth is simply the youtube system recommending your trailer, and that happens more as more people watch and like. Youtube is a natural siphon for that. Then, there should be links to your Amazon Prime and Vimeo On Demand sites to rent/buy. I don't think anything more complicated is needed, just good online marketing from the side of the producer via social media. I personally don't have trouble putting my film on Vimeo/Prime and collect rent money. Reaching the average movie goer is not a huge problem if you have a built-in audience.

What I have trouble with, is entering the industry's licensing system. THAT'S where the good money really is.

As I explained above, most people don't rent movies anymore, or buy DVDs. They just stream. So you need to get to the streamers, and only rent to the odd ones who still want to do it the old fashioned way of accessing the film on their own and buying/renting.

What is needed is an international licensing system. No more distributors. Instead, a website/store with a large database of films from all countries, where you license on demand, non-exclusively, and exclusively per country. Different prices if it's going to be on vod, or avod, or TV, or theatrical etc, and for how long, and if it will have dubbing, or this or that. You set your own prices, while the web site also has suggestions about how much your film might worth (similar to Zillow's Zestimate for real estate). The purchaser can watch your movie via the site, securely and with a watermark with the account number of the purchaser, to decide if they will buy or not. They sign the electronic agreement, and then they can then download a high quality version with English/Spanish subtitles. The site should get a 3% commission per purchase.

This removes the BIGGEST obstacle that filmmakers face today: industry distribution, rather than self-distribution.

You seem to be covering mostly what I said just in a different way. But you miss the point, this is a more complete answer to the question. It is about a content provider orientated service at higher profit return to filmmakers, which YouTube and Amazon is failing in. But this offers referral fees and front ends for them to offer lists and gevrral access to market the content, from which good referers can make money to refer good content. It is not complicated, just keep going to your favorite referral (filter) site or go to the main site. It is also on the content providers demand, and more flexible than YouTube. The complexity is more flexibility. It is not something to argue against, but a good option in the mix. YouTube and Amazon and are killing themselves as far as Indies. More return in return equals more coverage, no distributors and unwarranted limitations.. You are about to see the streaming situation bust. Streaming content pools are dividing into smaller pools, taking attractive content out of major players, requiring too many subscriptions. I look forwards to the inevitable end future of things, which people don't agree with, but what I present is distribution with maximum profit by the content owner for the content owner, that means is. If you want to view such a content producer back end infrastructure service provider, as a better YouTube or Vimeo, that would also be accurate. A better Netflix or Amazon, that would be accurate.

All playback comes through the infrastructure provider in a central location as well, websites only offer a link or portal, not other control, and they can purchase and download securely as well. So, is it really that much different?

We actually are not talking about the same thing exactly. What you're suggesting is an idealistic situation that will never happen. You are advocating for a single streaming provider with a convoluted reputation system. In today's world, it can't be a single provider, both for monopolistic reasons, and also because Hollywood will never allow it to be so. They prefer an open market and they want what they lost in 1949 with the Supreme Court decision: controlling vertically their content, not subscribing to a website where everyone else is equal. Don't forget that on Amazon Prime blockbusters don't make the same $0.04/hour we make, they make as high as $0.25/hour.

As for streaming, it will start consolidating in 3 years time, some bigger players will buy smaller ones. Overall, there might be 5-6 left out of the current 10 big ones.

What I suggested instead is licensing. You still want to control your direct views via Prime/Vimeo, but also you want to license things out. This is not the same as simply renting out a movie that someone else suggested online. Most people don't buy/rent that way.

I come from the illustration world, and Society6, the world's largest art retailer (where artists can upload their artwork for sale) does have such a referral program. Less than 1% of the sales are coming from referrals.

In all of my years as illustrator, 50% of what I made came from sales, and another 50% of it came from licensing. It was that same 50-50 for years, quite interesting so! Indie filmmaking is missing that second 50%. You can sell your movie on vimeo/prime, so that part is taken care of. The part that is not taken care of, is the licensing part.

Magazines would come to me when they wanted their articles illustrated, so I could make a custom piece. But for most of their articles, they would just get a company account on GettyImages.com, and license stock photographs. That's the part that's missing with indie filmmaking. The big studios have their own big distributors to do that job, but the indies are getting taken advantage by the distributors. And that's why such distributors need to go, and replaced with a better system.

In the equivalent world of illustration, the distributor is your agent. I avoided both agents, and galleries. I did all the marketing myself (I have 300k followers overall on various social media), and I used Society6 for sales (the equivalent of vimeo/prime/itunes), and I self-licensed. After so many years, only a few weeks ago I found someone to do the licensing for me. Only now such services start happening for illustrators. I hope filmmaking catches on too.

We actually are not talking about the same thing exactly. What you're suggesting is an idealistic situation that will never happen. You are advocating for a single streaming provider with a convoluted reputation system. In today's world, it can't be a single provider, both for monopolistic reasons, and also because Hollywood will never allow it to be so. They prefer an open market and they want what they lost in 1949 with the Supreme Court decision: controlling vertically their content, not subscribing to a website where everyone else is equal. Don't forget that on Amazon Prime blockbusters don't make the same $0.04/hour we make, they make as high as $0.25/hour.

As for streaming, it will start consolidating in 3 years time, some bigger players will buy smaller ones. Overall, there might be 5-6 left out of the current 10 big ones.

What I suggested instead is licensing. You still want to control your direct views via Prime/Vimeo, but also you want to license things out. This is not the same as simply renting out a movie that someone else suggested online. Most people don't buy/rent that way.

I come from the illustration world, and Society6, the world's largest art retailer (where artists can upload their artwork for sale) does have such a referral program. Less than 1% of the sales are coming from referrals.

In all of my years as illustrator, 50% of what I made came from sales, and another 50% of it came from licensing. It was that same 50-50 for years, quite interesting so! Indie filmmaking is missing that second 50%. You can sell your movie on vimeo/prime, so that part is taken care of. The part that is not taken care of, is the licensing part.

Magazines would come to me when they wanted their articles illustrated, so I could make a custom piece. But for most of their articles, they would just get a company account on GettyImages.com, and license stock photographs. That's the part that's missing with indie filmmaking. The big studios have their own big distributors to do that job, but the indies are getting taken advantage by the distributors. And that's why such distributors need to go, and replaced with a better system.

In the equivalent world of illustration, the distributor is your agent. I avoided both agents, and galleries. I did all the marketing myself (I have 300k followers overall on various social media), and I used Society6 for sales (the equivalent of vimeo/prime/itunes), and I self-licensed. After so many years, only a few weeks ago I found someone to do the licensing for me. Only now such services start happening for illustrators. I hope filmmaking catches on too.

The idea of licensing is a noble one. I like it. I have worked in software before and licensing was lucrative. It use to be 80% of that business is made from licensing and 20% were subscription. But overtime, that switch as subscription got to be more popular. It dawn on everyone that subscription became costly for the occasional user so we are seeing a switch back to the licensing model. Content licensing would be great if there is a warehousing system that can handle the licensing and get the profits to the content developer (filmmaker). They can retain a percentage as the middleman. I like it!

The reality is that most films under a couple of million dollars, suck.

The reality is that most films with big budgets suck. But yes, with marketing/stars/business connections stand a better chance of making their budget back.

The reality is that most films under a couple of million dollars, suck.

The reality is that most films with big budgets suck. But yes, with marketing/stars/business connections stand a better chance of making their budget back.

Is the reality not that most films suck?

Is the reality not that most films suck?

Yeah they do, but this discussion is still 30 years too late. The whole no-budget film thing emerged, peaked and crashed years ago. In the U.S., almost nothing of value came out of it, despite a few career successes. But not one of those filmmakers went on to become a major talent, either commercial or art-house.

Unfortunately, there's no gainsaying the value of money in the movie business. Francis Ford Coppola was a mediocre director of shlock house exploitation movies full of film-school mannerisms, until Paramount needed a young Italian director for this odd project called "The Godfather" and set him up with Gordon Willis and a few million dollars.

There are certainly many cheaper films that I like. But most of what I actually entertain myself with are more expensive productions that can marry deep messages and the expensive sets/vfx. The Matrix is my favorite film of all time. I also like Primer, Coherence, Cosmos that were shot for a few thousand. But then there's a whole slew of films at around $500k (mostly boring, European art house films that I can't stand -- note: I'm Greek originally), or $1mil boring US dramas or terrible sci-fi/horror B-movies. So basically either I like something that's done with enough money to be good (and of course, a lot of the expensive movies can be terrible), but if it was done on the cheap, it'd have to be brilliant in some unique way. Very rarely movies in the middle of that scale are noteworthy to me.

.The whole no-budget film thing emerged, peaked and crashed years ago. In the U.S., almost nothing of value came out of it, despite a few career successes.

I'd have to agree with that. As I wrote before, in the '90s, entertainment was limited, so art house low budget stuff would get attention. As the internet started peaking, these kinds of films became diminishing returns. People had new things to play with. The vast majority of viewers don't care about these festival-type films.

So if all low budget film suck, I'm wondering how you folks think of your own films? This is a serious question. If it suck too, what do you think can be done to elevate and make it worthwhile?

. . . what do you think can be done to elevate and make it worthwhile?

The high and mid-budget productions set a quality standard in their genre for their respective audience.
So if you try to imitate that with a low/no-budget production it will most likely suck, a lot.

If you make an effort to be original by choosing your specific content matter and use your technical skills to make it look and sound as good as you can, you will connect to your target, niche?, audience in an authentic way, giving them content they do not get via mainstream.
This way your lack of high production value and technical perfection will be much less of an issue because of your unique perspectives and content matter.

Look at the careers of Spike Lee and Ang Lee etc. or choose your most interesting documentary content that nobody has covered yet.

As for reaching your audience and getting payed, see the very interesting discussion of this thread.

So if all low budget film suck

Not all do (look at the subsequent replies where some exceptions to the rule are mentioned). But most do suck. I can't stand your run of the mill festival drama. Amazon Prime is FULL of them too. Filmmakers shooting low budget dramas that they're as boring as needles getting under your hoof.

So if you try to imitate that with a low/no-budget production it will most likely suck, a lot.

If I make a feature film next year, it will most certainly suck compared to a production that can do the same with a lot more money. So yes, even my own film would suck. The bar I have both for myself and others, is high.

Not only that, but the feature film that I'll be able to do with the $12000 budget that I currently have, is NOT the film I WANT to make. It's only what I can afford. What I truly want to make, the story I really want to tell, is a TV series that would probably cost $8+ mil per episode (both due to the complex story, and also because of the psychedelic VFX involved, that have never been done before). And would probably be anywhere from 16-20 episodes. So yes, there are unique ideas, but they usually don't cost $12k to realize them. Not everyone is interested to tell a story shot on a single location, or to 2-3 speaking parts to keep costs down.

So if all low budget film suck

Not all do (look at the subsequent replies where some exceptions to the rule are mentioned). But most do suck. I can't stand your run of the mill festival drama. Amazon Prime is FULL of them too. Filmmakers shooting low budget dramas that they're as boring as needles getting under your hoof.

So if you try to imitate that with a low/no-budget production it will most likely suck, a lot.

If I make a feature film next year, it will most certainly suck compared to a production that can do the same with a lot more money. So yes, even my own film would suck. The bar I have both for myself and others, is high.

Not only that, but the feature film that I'll be able to do with the $12000 budget that I currently have, is NOT the film I WANT to make. It's only what I can afford. What I truly want to make, the story I really want to tell, is a TV series that would probably cost $8+ mil per episode (both due to the complex story, and also because of the psychedelic VFX involved, that have never been done before). And would probably be anywhere from 16-20 episodes. So yes, there are unique ideas, but they usually don't cost $12k to realize them. Not everyone is interested to tell a story shot on a single location, or to 2-3 speaking parts to keep costs down.

Hi Eugenia,

Reading your posts with great interest. I'd love to know a rough breakdown on how you would budget your $12000 feature.

Hi Eugenia. Sorry about the delay, but as I was writing below, somebody came along yesterday, so I had to save it in draft, and try to finish it latter.

We actually are not talking about the same thing exactly. What you're suggesting is an idealistic situation that will never happen. You are advocating for a single streaming provider with a convoluted reputation system. In today's world, it can't be a single provider, both for monopolistic reasons, and also because Hollywood will never allow it to be so. They prefer an open market and they want what they lost in 1949 with the Supreme Court decision: controlling vertically their content, not subscribing to a website where everyone else is equal. Don't forget that on Amazon Prime blockbusters don't make the same $0.04/hour we make, they make as high as $0.25/hour.

As for streaming, it will start consolidating in 3 years time, some bigger players will buy smaller ones. Overall, there might be 5-6 left out of the current 10 big ones.

What I suggested instead is licensing. You still want to control your direct views via Prime/Vimeo, but also you want to license things out. This is not the same as simply renting out a movie that someone else suggested online. Most people don't buy/rent that way.

I come from the illustration world, and Society6, the world's largest art retailer (where artists can upload their artwork for sale) does have such a referral program. Less than 1% of the sales are coming from referrals.

In all of my years as illustrator, 50% of what I made came from sales, and another 50% of it came from licensing. It was that same 50-50 for years, quite interesting so! Indie filmmaking is missing that second 50%. You can sell your movie on vimeo/prime, so that part is taken care of. The part that is not taken care of, is the licensing part.

Magazines would come to me when they wanted their articles illustrated, so I could make a custom piece. But for most of their articles, they would just get a company account on GettyImages.com, and license stock photographs. That's the part that's missing with indie filmmaking. The big studios have their own big distributors to do that job, but the indies are getting taken advantage by the distributors. And that's why such distributors need to go, and replaced with a better system.

In the equivalent world of illustration, the distributor is your agent. I avoided both agents, and galleries. I did all the marketing myself (I have 300k followers overall on various social media), and I used Society6 for sales (the equivalent of vimeo/prime/itunes), and I self-licensed. After so many years, only a few weeks ago I found someone to do the licensing for me. Only now such services start happening for illustrators. I hope filmmaking catches on too.

While I am saying an indie representative, which can dominate the industry as much as possible, I'm not limiting it there, anybody could start such a service. But you get part of what you aim for. The ideal situation is that the studios control and dictate the market and let everybody else wilt, preferably one studio, preferably one person, but that's not ideal for other people suffering the behaviour. That is similar to the ideal happening at the moment with studio owners each opening up their own streaming business, but that is their idealism to trash the consumer wallet, because they can't do the dominator monopoly thing. You talk about small players being swallowed up, I'm talking about these big players, and they are not likely to be doing the being swallowed up unless the who company goes. I'm talking about how to make the best of the practical endpoint of this, disintegration. Users are going have problems signing up to stream a movie here, and a move there, complicated. My very old rating system, is very simple to use, and probably works similar to recent systems (I tend to work towards practical solutions, which means optimised, where you take into account the problems, where ideal solutions are without problems normally. But what is happening under this streaming islands paradigm, is that they are making even more content, exclusive to their platforms, to compensate for lack of the content that disapeared, making it harder for the rest of us again, leaving us drown in the sea between the islands. Meanwhile the Netflix landmass is shrinking into the sea due to market warming. But these island economies here rely on people coming to visit to spend their money.

Now, there is nothing to stop such a organisation from offering a subscription streaming service, but are you going to watch trash on a subscription service in the island chain, or pay a low rate to see a movie. In the subscription, there is a fair distribution of income to content prodviders, but which are you going go for if you have something good that people are going pay for to see, and as a content provider, which do you want, the streaming everything ideal, or practically better money on the pay to view. Now, one of the big problems with pay per view, is they want as much as going to old block buster for a new release, for not such a great experience. No wonder people go to streaming. But on a divided streaming world, that's difficult and costly. But by offering lower priced pay per view, it's worth it, and the content provider is still doing better. So, they set their prices competitively, and freemarket competition affects how much the content is going for. Things that stand out can go pay per view in new release then maybe go streaming. Maybe Netflix could try that.

Content.

As Apple are about to find out.

Content is really hard.

Aka most films (and shows) suck.

Lots of content is really really hard, even when you have the largest bank balance in the world.

YouTube already shows you that the democratic revolution of digital filmmaking, what used to be considered a barrier to entry for creatives isn’t really the full story.

YouTube is filled with content. Most of the larger “channels” are re-packaged content from another source like a broadcaster or something that’s specific and niche.

But it’s interesting that considering the huge amount of content that’s made, there’s not exactly this huge new talent pool that’s now feeding the entertainment machine.

Making a film (storytelling) has never been about the cost of access.

Good stories end up getting heard one way or another.

I worked on a very successful low budget horror film that was the most downloaded / pirated film of Australians in 2013.

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/mo ... 2x11q.html

That’s because the film had terrible distribution in Australia. The easiest way to see it was to pirate.

The film was still seen by tens of thousands of Australians. Even if they’d “paid” for the film we, the filmmakers and the storytellers wouldn’t have seen anything because like the Champaign fountain at a wedding, the filmmakers tend to be at the bottom of that glass tree.

I was the producer and DP of another low budget film that is now a cult film, showing up on many lists around Halloween. I’m one of four producers. The company that distributes it in the US doesn’t even exist anymore and yet it’s still on iTunes. I have no idea where the money goes, it sure doesn’t come back to the filmmakers.

Good storytellers are what’s hard. They’re just not that many of them.

JB

Nigerian teens make sci-fi films with smartphones.

Content.
...

Making a film (storytelling) has never been about the cost of access.

Good stories end up getting heard one way or another.
...

Good storytellers are what’s hard. They’re just not that many of them.

Come on, now. Without connections, access to resources and people, and years of persistence, films don't get made. And these resources are least likely to be available to the introverted types who actually *can* create "content". You know, the ones temperamentally suited to sitting alone in a room, 8 hours a day.

Consider the the Lees, mentioned above -- Spike and Ang. Whatever you think of them as filmmakers, both enjoyed unusual resources. "She's Gotta Have it" cost a few hundred thousand in current dollars, not including a lot of free labor (and it was preceded by an abandoned $30K movie, which didn't deter Spike in the least) and "The Wedding Banquet" would run well over a million today, funded at the time by a Taiwanese government grant that Ang was rewarded nearly straight out of film school.

It won't help that "She's Gotta Have it" would never get a theatrical release today, and the extraordinary success of 'The Wedding Banquet' was unaccountable at the time (at least this for this viewer), and probably wouldn't happen twice.

In the end, movies are a producers' (and financiers') medium - not a writer's medium. This is another reason why most movies "suck".

Nigerian teens make sci-fi films with smartphones.

And so does Steven Soderbergh, for $3 million. It ain't the camera which is the impediment.

And so does Steven Soderbergh, for $3 million. It ain't the camera which is the impediment.

$300 vs. $3,000,000 is a big gap.

Nigerian teens make sci-fi films with smartphones.

Yeah, Nollywood!

There stuff is low budget, nice enough (depends) and sells

It's really about impediment to good content. Sure a nice BM mini G2 instead of the 8mm camera of the 60's or something is going hopefully make the bad a bit more watchable, instead of wanting to leave because of the washed out shakey cam of yesteryear. At some point the acceptable is going be a little more acceptable, but somebody who can do the stuff can use a future pocket to do nice enough stuff early on. That's where your democrisation is. The terrible will maybe still be terrible, but so..

Anyway, this notion that high budget is terrible, is not my experience. But in this country the market is so constrained, they tend to show the best ones in the cinemas. So, Avengers, half the batman movies a classic, half the starwars or so, Matrix etc etc, that didn't sick, did suck? Nope! Big budget can get you people who know what they are doing, and despite if it is to your taste or not, release great stuff. They know the formulas these days in the big studio end, it seems. Yet, I still find gens, like Jupiter Ascending, and what's his name (it's late) and the city of a thousand planets, or whatever that was (on Netflix ATM, get the mostly blindingly colourful but bright high contrast big screen and watch it).

There are certainly many cheaper films that I like. But most of what I actually entertain myself with are more expensive productions that can marry deep messages and the expensive sets/vfx. The Matrix is my favorite film of all time. I also like Primer, Coherence, Cosmos that were shot for a few thousand. But then there's a whole slew of films at around $500k (mostly boring, European art house films that I can't stand -- note: I'm Greek originally), or $1mil boring US dramas or terrible sci-fi/horror B-movies. So basically either I like something that's done with enough money to be good (and of course, a lot of the expensive movies can be terrible), but if it was done on the cheap, it'd have to be brilliant in some unique way. Very rarely movies in the middle of that scale are noteworthy to me.

.The whole no-budget film thing emerged, peaked and crashed years ago. In the U.S., almost nothing of value came out of it, despite a few career successes.

I'd have to agree with that. As I wrote before, in the '90s, entertainment was limited, so art house low budget stuff would get attention. As the internet started peaking, these kinds of films became diminishing returns. People had new things to play with. The vast majority of viewers don't care about these festival-type films.

Eugenia, you have got taste. Matrix is about my favourite too, and a number of things you said. I hate a lot of low art house film. Don't these people got anything better to do? But even something bad in the hands of a capable person, can shine. But boy, there is so much bad content, as John was pointing out.

There was a low cost film in Mississippi I think, filmed by a community collective, which I had heard briefly existed, but despite trying I couldn't find it. Maybe 6 or more years back. Anybody know the name of it? I was r to study what they did.

Now, I'm going to point you to two different things I think are good for quality low cost productions, ironically one of them comes from a studio known for producing the most costly SciFi series to that day. One is what the British use in their sitcoms, and is on one of the features on the DVD of the English edition of the Coupling tv series. A single person, or two, spends heaps of time on a script, the hand picked talented talent send three months rehearsing and blocking out the script with fake set furniture Inna room somewhere, and deliver the entire series in a week or so production, it takes another week in post, and it's on air, fur some of the best comedy. Sure, most of the time it is just 6 episodes in a series, but that's a feature films worth of enjoyable quality shoot in a week or so. Another one was Faulty Towers, done by John Cleese and his wife over many months of writing.

The other example is from Startrek Enterprise, on one of their features, where they delivery higher end movie quality, even blocking and rehearsing constantly between resets of takes. Sure, it's big budget, but the techniques there transfer to low budget (I'm talking acting here, the stuff people watch) for extra quality. Worth checking out to see how the others do.

There was a low cost film in Mississippi I think, filmed by a community collective, which I had heard briefly existed, but despite trying I couldn't find it. Maybe 6 or more years back. Anybody know the name of it?

You probably mean 'Beasts of the Southern Wild', with a budget close to $2 million and exhibiting the familiar pandering twee traits of the American indie/Sundance world, which got nominated for an Oscar and sold about $20 million in tickets worldwide. There are some others which also came out of Louisiana, including one made by a teenager staring Wendell Pierce of "The Wire", which is as hapless as you'd expect, for a teenager.

In a word, it's all been done before and there's no need to reinvent anything. The occasional fluke commercial success only proves that there's no model for doing it and that success doesn't mean the movie was actually any good.

It would probably help to do some research. People have been thinking for many years about how or whether to make movies with no money, and there are rich case histories, from all over the world.

Come on, now. Without connections, access to resources and people, and years of persistence, films don't get made.

Sure. That's largely true.

I'm saying that you if you wrote an absolute killer script it would get made eventually.

I read many scripts in the course of a year that I'm shooting and for consideration of jobs to pursue and interview for.

The good scripts are so screamingly obvious.

I'm working on a series right now with an Oscar nominated writer, whom I've worked with before.

His episodes are outstanding compared to the others in the series. They couldn't be any different.

The good stuff comes to the fore. That's what show business is good at.

And these resources are least likely to be available to the introverted types who actually *can* create "content". You know, the ones temperamentally suited to sitting alone in a room, 8 hours a day.

But....

If they can write their stuff will get made. I'm not sure again what your point is. Plenty of difficult "writers" out there who get work made.

If they can direct (introverted) then they will enjoy recognition. That's how this works....?

Have a look at what Nicolas Winding Refn wears when he directs....

https://www.vice.com/sv/article/ex77we/ ... sling-cars

and

https://pitchfork.com/features/intervie ... -martinez/

An AD friend of mine worked on Drive and said he was totally shy an reclusive and a bit loony. Near the wrap of drive the entire crew dressed up like him and wore a "blanket" and he says he didn't even seem to ntoice his own crew were lovingly mocking him.

Consider the the Lees, mentioned above -- Spike and Ang. Whatever you think of them as filmmakers, both enjoyed unusual resources. "She's Gotta Have it" cost a few hundred thousand in current dollars, not including a lot of free labor (and it was preceded by an abandoned $30K movie, which didn't deter Spike in the least) and "The Wedding Banquet" would run well over a million today, funded at the time by a Taiwanese government grant that Ang was rewarded nearly straight out of film school.

They are both outstanding storytellers.

And they came to the fore. I'm not sure what your point is. The rest of Spikes class didn't do so well.

Because Spike is Spike. His films got made.

I also have DP'd with his old regular DP (who shot both the Spike films you cited and did got to school with him) and is now director in his own right Ernest Dickerson ASC on several occasions and we talked a lot about his early days with Spike.

They were also doing a lot of music clips together, they were in New York and he was very much also a product of his time, and that at THAT time HIS VOICE was the right one to be heard.

Spike is arguably NOT successful commercially. His films are well known and iconic but he has struggled to make films since that era. I've enjoyed his films though very much when he goes for more "straight" commercial films like Inside Man. It also sounded like Old Boy was a total disaster, interesting considering the original is so strong and that Lee's not really known for re-making other's work...

In the end, movies are a producers' (and financiers') medium - not a writer's medium. This is another reason why most movies "suck".

Oh cmon.

TV is the same. There's a massive amount of dreck made as TV drama that is just as rubbish, and made in a medium that has a very different financing model.

It's freaking hard to make good content and tell stories that others want to hear, nay...pay to hear...

JB

I'm saying that you if you wrote an absolute killer script it would get made eventually.

No insult intended, but this is what everyone in the business -- who doesn't write -- insists (screenwriters will tell you different!). It pretty much comes down to the meaning of "killer script". The industry defines it tautologically -- meaning material with seemingly obvious commercial value, an easy read, suspenseful, involving on the page for general readers without any special training (drama, literature, etc.), who think the material will appeal to mass audiences. If that apparent commercial value and instant appeal aren't present, then it's not a "killer".

The trouble here is, there are too many examples of scripts that the industry considered anything but "killer" which made for highly successful movies, and killer scripts ('killer' according to somebody, anyway) which ended as lousy money-losing movies. And of course just about nothing in the art-house realm would ever be deemed "killer". So say goodbye to everything from "The Crime of Monsieur Lange" to "The Conformist" to "In the Mood for Love" to "High Life". Not to mention, "She's Gotta Have it" and "The Wedding Banquet". Without private resources, neither would have gotten made.

There's actually a great counter-example in the theaters right now -- "Joker". At least one viewer was shocked that it's grossed over $1 billion (it's one very depressive slog). And I'm apparently not the only one, because Warner Bros. did everything but shoot Todd Phillip's dog, to persuade him not to do it. But he had the clout, coming off box office hits. Whatever else it is, this movie affirms William Goldman's famous dictum: "nobody knows anything". This includes Todd Phillips, who's made some pretty terrible movies himself (which nonetheless made a lot of money).

The other way I'd tried to refute your claim is empirically: if the best rises to the top, why are commercial movies so mediocre?

Reading your posts with great interest. I'd love to know a rough breakdown on how you would budget your $12000 feature.

Genre: sci-fi puzzle (the likes of Primer/Coherence)

Writer: myself, but since I'm not a native English speaker, a couple of the actors said they'll participate to clean it up and offer feedback.

4 local, non-union actors, $1500 each for 12 days of shooting

2 crew members (gaffer/dp + audio recordist), $1500 each

Insurance, (mostly homemade, due to allergies/vegan) food, props, etc: $2k

Me directing (which I don't particularly like, I'm more of the business/producer type), and pulling focus wirelessly

My husband as an all around help (script supervisor, food etc)

1 location: my own house and yard

Post production: myself, using Resolve. For foley I have a free library, and I might be writing part of the music myself.

VFX: none, except for a couple of shots with sky replacement, which is easy to do (I don't know how to use Blender/Fusion and there's no time to learn to do complex things with them -- it takes years to master them)

Equipment: already own a BMPCC 4k and many lenses, along other things needed. Only need to buy some newer lights under advice from the gaffer: ~$1k.

All that, comes to about $12k.

Nigerian teens make sci-fi films with smartphones.

Key detail from the video you linked: "the team of 8".

In my film, there's going be 6 people beside myself and my husband, which I'll have to pay for. Maybe I could get cousins to do the job for me for little or for free, but they're all back in Greece, while I'm in Spokane, WA (which I moved to just last month from California, so except a few actors that I've met online and were interested to participate under a fee, I don't know *anyone else* in the area).

[Nigerian boys vs Soderberg] $300 vs. $3,000,000 is a big gap.

Exactly my point above. Although, Soderberg could have done that basketball film for cheaper. There was nothing super-difficult about it. He probably wanted a fatter check for himself.

Thanks Eugenia! Appreciate the run down!

[Nigerian boys vs Soderberg] $300 vs. $3,000,000 is a big gap.

Exactly my point above. Although, Soderberg could have done that basketball film for cheaper. There was nothing super-difficult about it. He probably wanted a fatter check for himself.

And those kids had to pay for their broken smartphone, Soderberg got paid to use the camera.

I'm saying that you if you wrote an absolute killer script it would get made eventually.

I agree with John Paines' reply. But again from the illustration world, I will give you another example.

From 2015 to 2017 I was quite probably the most well known collagist in the world (I kind of given up since then, I'm bored out of my mind with it now). I amassed many thousands of followers, and sold rather well for an independent artist without a gallery/agent. Most of my work is commercial. I do follow Hollywood's mindset to make a living.

However, also being a true artist when I feel like it, I made some of the art that *I* wanted to make. These were the less commercial, more artsy-fartsy abstract pieces. Every time I'd post these, the other *artists* themselves would comment how great this was (while they wouldn't do that for the more commercial pieces).

But the abstract pieces, the ones that other artists like, never sold anything. From all the things I've sold, these pieces only made 1% to 2% of profit.

At the same time, there were collagists that were making better art than I did. While they did have magic hands to create something that was artistically superior, they never managed to get more than 3k followers, and never made a dime out of it. Both because these artworks were not culturally as significant (because the masses could not identify with them), and because they sucked at marketing (while that's my forte).

What actually was selling like hot cakes, was the easy-to-understand, flashy, in-your-face kind of art, that lacked most subtlety. Kind of like a Marvel movie. It's "nice" to look at, but it's not as deep.

So what's a killer script? The one that gets made, and makes lots of money.

Anything else is like jazz: music for musicians.

Hi Eugenia,

What would be your strategy for marketing your next film?

The other way I'd tried to refute your claim is empirically: if the best rises to the top, why are commercial movies so mediocre?

I don't think I ever equated a successful film with commercial success.

Plenty of great films get made without making money. Most of them loose money. And I said "get made", not wind up being box office gold. There's a vast difference in those terms. As I mentioned Spike Lee isn't a marketable film maker. Kubrick's films aren't making huge money. Lynch doesn't make money. A huge number of what we revere as filmmakers struggle to get films financed. Ang Lee won't be given a huge cheque anytime soon. It's half the reason Soderbergh makes films on iPhones. He doesn't have to justify or answer to anyone but himself.

It's way too reductionist to say that good storytelling is only possible with a "killer script". Many things have to fall into place for the result to be "good".

I have a friend who wrote what he calls the "last" draft of a 150 million dollar studio movie that's shooting right now. There were eight other writers before him on a property that is well known to everyone.

This is really a kind of fast food. There's no recipe, you just know that with enough set-piece action, enough cast that are likeable then people will show up. Most of the time. Because fast food is convenient and in the right situations it's functionally satisfying. Lot's of people even like it.

But I still stand by the claim. If you can write an outstandingly good script, it will get made, somehow.

Look at something like the blacklist, which is inherently US centric Even many of those films often end up getting made, and are usually highly successful as films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_List_(survey)

Just like everyone thinks they could be a singer or write a novel, how many think they can be a filmmaker ?

It's an incredibly selfish choice in many ways to think that your story deserves to get made, that the way you tell a story is worth the investments of tens of thousands of man-hours of production and effort, that your "vision" is interesting, engaging or entertaining.

Most filmmakers fail to deliver on that obligation. I say this as a practitioner who counts many failures in my body of work as a filmmaker.

Yes I've written and had to write. I've even directed and am a member of the DGA.

But I would never call myself a director. For the same reason it took me years to be comfortable with giving myself the title of Director Of Photography. I haven't earned it.

Something that I've heard Grant say many times is that he started Blackmagic to take away the cost of production as a restriction on creativity. He's never understood why ownership or access of a piece of equipment should be what limits your creative expression. Why should lack of funds for equipment be what defines the work you can do.

It's certainly never been easier than right now to make a film.

It's never been easier to distribute a film that can live on it's own, surviving purely on word of mouth.

We've never been in a more connected, more accessible world stage where even American's will now watch content with subtitles.

I'm still unsure of the point you're trying to make. So how about you answer me this ?

Why aren't more good films being made ?

JB

PS and to the orginal topic..

Take a look at the film Boxing Day, made by Kriv Stenders, another director I've been lucky enough to work with and a fellow Cinematography ALumni from AFTRS. Made for nothing and yet a brilliant and compelling piece of UNSCRIPTED improvised cinema storytelling.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/d ... d-criminal

What would be your strategy for marketing your next film?

Social media. Instagram, FB, youtube. I have the first two doing well, I need to be more active on my Youtube channel (I need to be posting 2-3 times a month minimum about related to the movie things). Trailer linked from youtube's trailer channels a month before release, and some related forums. On release date, Reddit.

I avoid festivals because I don't believe in them. Their allure died 10 years ago. However, Spokane, WA has a rather large film festival once a year, which I might submit to, since it won't cost me any plane tickets, it's next door.

It's certainly never been easier than right now to make a film.

Which is part of the problem: saturation.

It's never been easier to distribute a film that can live on it's own, surviving purely on word of mouth.

Yes, but not for scripts that require a big budget. Word of mouth in not enough in that case. Case in point: "Under the Silver Lake". It cost $9mil, and it only made back $2mil, despite having a huge word of mouth, because of the puzzles in the storyline (it even has a dedicated subreddit for people to offer theories). The film didn't get any marketing, because A24 decided to not market it as is (they wanted the film cut down to ~110 mins, while the director wanted 139 mins). They had a huge fight with the director, he won, and then they punished him by not offering marketing. The film bombed, went directly to streaming pretty much (2 months later was for free on Prime), and the director deleted his twitter account, possibly because of depression/giving up. He basically has a cult hit on his hands, but only among a niche group which is not enough to recoup. https://www.reddit.com/r/underthesilverlake/top/?t=all

I'm still unsure of the point you're trying to make. So how about you answer me this ?
Why aren't more good films being made ?

'

"Good", by whose standards?

This is the Scorsese vs Marvel discussion all over again. "Good" and "bad" are very human constructs, that not every human agrees with anyway.

Everything is relative in the world, and everything is a point of view. I like movies that are deep but presented in a commercial way, others only like mindless commercial movies, and others only like art-house films that aren't commercial at all. And some are in-between. And some of them like all of these, depending on their mood. And others, like my husband, barely watch movies at all (they prefer reading and computer games).

But I still stand by the claim. If you can write an outstandingly good script, it will get made, somehow.

But "outstanding" in whose estimation? And on what basis? Literary? Perceived commercial potential? Mass-market storytelling conventions? Art-house masterpiece? I don't doubt that a certain kind of script could have great appeal to some or many in "the business". Does that make it an outstanding piece of writing or an outstanding piece of marketing? And who are these people? They're agents, investors, producers, MBAs. How much cred do you want to give them?

There *was* a golden age of screenwriting, the kind of stuff taught in MFA classes, from Preston Sturges to Robert Towne, but that kind of writing, cinematic though it is, wouldn't be produced today even if anyone was coming up with it. If anyone supports your thesis, I think it would have to be Charlie Kaufman. Who else with a distinctive writing voice has gotten produced on an industry scale in the last 20 years? But what this means now, is harder to say -- those movies are already "old".

As for what a script is worth, in the sense of what investment does it merit, the answer can only be, it's worth whatever money the investor thinks he can get out of it. Nothing is intrinsically "worth" the millions of dollars and thousand of man hours needed to make a mass-market movie. Any Marvel script or mindless action picture franchise is worth more than the complete works of Shakespeare, and add the Greek tragedians for good measure.

What would be your strategy for marketing your next film?

Social media. Instagram, FB, youtube. I have the first two doing well, I need to be more active on my Youtube channel (I need to be posting 2-3 times a month minimum about related to the movie things). Trailer linked from youtube's trailer channels a month before release, and some related forums. On release date, Reddit.

I avoid festivals because I don't believe in them. Their allure died 10 years ago. However, Spokane, WA has a rather large film festival once a year, which I might submit to, since it won't cost me any plane tickets, it's next door.

Thanks! How often posting on instagram and facebook? No Vimeo?

Vimeo is good for your portfolio, or getting known from other filmmakers, but not necessarily for gaining new followers. Instagram: you need 3 posts we week (same as on FB) to build a following. Use up to 25 tags (IG doesn't recognize more than that) and make sure your posts have a similar visual theme. You need to start working seriously with social media 2 years before you publish your movie in order to get enough traction to recoup. I'm on the lucky side, since I already have lots of followers from my collage business (which don't necessarily translate into movie buyers, but it helps).

Kickstarter/Indiegogo is also good to use, but in order to be really successful you need to already have a cut trailer to show. Which means that you'll be asking money for post production (or for your own time invested).