No-Budget Movies Are Taking Over: Welcome to a New Era of Filmmaking

[IronFilm]

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a43358888/no-budget-movies-era/

Quote

An old friend called Tatum after seeing one of his shorts. He wanted to produce a feature, and had thirty grand to invest. Do you two have any ideas?

Now, here’s the thing about thirty grand: in the real world, it’ll buy you a dependable car, or cover a year’s rent. But in Hollywood? It gets you a pack of gum. It’s enough to finance one glorious motion-smoothed second of Avatar: The Way of Water, an accounting error on a Marvel movie’s cape budget, a lowball offer for rights to a Led Zeppelin song. In 1996, before inflation made eggs luxury goods, Swingers was made for $250,000 (about $470,000 today), and that was considered a feat of low-budget filmmaking.

But the bet Tatum and Thomas were willing to make—and they were playing with house money now, so why not?—was that they could make something with thirty grand that rivals the quality of a multi-million dollar movie. And not, mind you, by neglecting to pay their cast and crew. No. Their producers had access to basic equipment. And having spent years making short films and acting in some bigger budget fare, Tatum and Thomas saw ways to strip away the excesses of moviemaking: trailers, trucks, walkie-talkies, makeup tents, and so forth. “We keep saying [to other filmmakers], 'Why do you think you need all these things to make a movie?'” Thomas says.

The film they made is a supernatural buddy comedy called The Civil Dead, and it makes their case convincingly. When I first saw it, through last year’s virtual Slamdance (where it won the Audience Award), it brought to mind revered auteurs like Robert Altman and Albert Brooks. But it also felt like the product of a distinct new voice, a clear reflection of Tatum and Thomas’s offbeat sense of humor, brotherly chemistry, and veritable filmmaking prowess. As for the production value? If I’d stumbled across it on a streaming platform, I probably wouldn’t pick up on it having been made for 100 or 1,000 times less than most other content.

Tatum and Thomas, mind you, aren’t the only filmmakers who have pulled off this feat. The Civil Dead is the latest in a wave of microbudget features that are pushing what’s possible with no money. Over the past few years, as the “movies are dead” chorus has grown louder, tiny indies like Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby, Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink have shown that a dire industry landscape couldn’t suppress a rising swell of weird, wacky, and creative voices.

 

[BTM_Pix]

Bobby Bowfinger had it spot on twenty years ago 

Something that has always puzzled me is when you consider something like Downton Abbey which costs roughly $1-2M per hour as a TV programme yet was somewhere between $7-10M per hour for the film version without too much demonstrable difference in production values.

The final season of Game Of Thrones was supposed to be around $15M per hour, its hard to imagine that if it was a movie then they'd be getting much change out of triple or even quadruple that amount.

I suppose the trick is to pretend you are making a TV programme and hope no one finds out it is a film.

A bit like wedding cakes.

 

[TomTheDP]

I work on mostly low budget feature films in the 30k realm. They can actually be incredibly profitable if you know what you are doing.

[MrSMW]

In many businesses, it is so often the case to operate in one of the extreme ends as it’s too easy to get lost in the middle.

[fuzzynormal]

You can't tell me that most of us here have the technical skill to make an Academy Award Winning film like Nomadland.  It's brain-dead simple if you have an inkling of video production craft.

Storytelling maybe not so much, but that film could've been shot on a 5DII and no one would care or notice.

[TomTheDP]

1 hour ago, fuzzynormal said:

You can't tell me that most of us here have the technical skill to make an Academy Award Winning film like Nomadland.  It's brain-dead simple if you have an inkling of video production craft.

Storytelling maybe not so much, but that film could've been shot on a 5DII and no one would care or notice.

To me winning at an Oscar is more politics than talent. Sure your film won't get nominated if it is crap but it also won't get nominated just because it is really good.

The people that care on a $5 mil budget indie like Nomadland are the producers, director, and DP. None of which want to be seen working with anything besides a camera that costs over 30k

[fuzzynormal]

9 minutes ago, TomTheDP said:

winning at an Oscar is more politics

You're right.  Helps prove the point, really. 

They shot Nomadland on more expensive gear because they like the prestige of it.  (among the technical niceness of an Arri, no doubt) 

In theory, I'm pretty confident that they absolutely could've shot Nomadland on a hacked 10 year old 5DII, claimed they used an Arri, and then were "stylistic" in the color-grade. 

Not too many in the Academy would doubt it, if anyone.

[IronFilm]

22 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Something that has always puzzled me is when you consider something like Downton Abbey which costs roughly $1-2M per hour as a TV programme yet was somewhere between $7-10M per hour for the film version without too much demonstrable difference in production values.

I think if you look at the content of the scenes they're perhaps on average a little more ambitious? 

19 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

I work on mostly low budget feature films in the 30k realm. They can actually be incredibly profitable if you know what you are doing.

Got any tips and advice? 

 

[BTM_Pix]

8 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

I think if you look at the content of the scenes they're perhaps on average a little more ambitious? 

Well, after having to put up with a family obsession with the show for years, they would likely have to pay me a significant part of the budget difference to force me to sit through a full side by side comparison but, yeah, on a brief look you can see there is more lustre for want of a better word on the movie version.

Still can't see the justification in the extent of the multiplication factor though but I know zero about the nitty gritty of making movies or, indeed, the cost of walkie talkies 🙂

 

 

 

[TomTheDP]

3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Got any tips and advice? 

 

Hollywood can make a movie that appeals to a wide general audience without hitting as much of a niche. If you don't have a huge marketing budget you aren't going to be able  to do that. You have to find a niche. It is really that simple. I guess that is the same story for any small business.

For me it has been Detroit films on the streaming service Tubi. Only working as a cinematographer but I am about to direct/produce one and see some of the back end. Will be interesting.

[Kisaha]

5 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Well, after having to put up with a family obsession with the show for years, they would likely have to pay me a significant part of the budget difference to force me to sit through a full side by side comparison but, yeah, on a brief look you can see there is more lustre for want of a better word on the movie version.

Still can't see the justification in the extent of the multiplication factor though but I know zero about the nitty gritty of making movies or, indeed, the cost of walkie talkies 🙂

 

 

 

Example: they had to "disappear" the wolfs on many episodes because they didn't have the budget, and they had to make such decisions in most episodes..

The last seasons were so terrible though, even double the budget wouldn't help them deliver anything decent.

What do we learn from this?

the story is king! And a good story can be found really cheap, while digital direwolves are always expensive!

[BTM_Pix]

8 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

What do we learn from this?

That wolves are absolutely coining it and won't get out of the lair for less than £10K a day plus points?

[Tim Sewell]

On 3/22/2023 at 6:55 PM, fuzzynormal said:

You're right.  Helps prove the point, really. 

They shot Nomadland on more expensive gear because they like the prestige of it.  (among the technical niceness of an Arri, no doubt) 

In theory, I'm pretty confident that they absolutely could've shot Nomadland on a hacked 10 year old 5DII, claimed they used an Arri, and then were "stylistic" in the color-grade. 

Not too many in the Academy would doubt it, if anyone.

Hmmm. My understanding is that a major reason for the almost exclusive use of Arri for serious movie making is the fact that if the camera goes down the Arri network is so good that another will be delivered within hours. I should have thought that kind of protection against downtime would be just as important (if not more) on a low-budget production.

[Tim Sewell]

^^ 

Anyone responsible for paying the crew's wages probably wouldn't choose to shoot a feature on a...

On 3/22/2023 at 6:55 PM, fuzzynormal said:

hacked 10 year old 5DII

 

[TomTheDP]

3 hours ago, Tim Sewell said:

Hmmm. My understanding is that a major reason for the almost exclusive use of Arri for serious movie making is the fact that if the camera goes down the Arri network is so good that another will be delivered within hours. I should have thought that kind of protection against downtime would be just as important (if not more) on a low-budget production.

I mean you could just buy 10 DSLR's and have them on stand by and spend way less.

[rosco]

Hacked cameras are fine if you’re a hobbyist YouTube filmmaker and you like experimenting but on paid sets, things like Sdi, shutter angle, video assist tools, timecode, full hdmi, long battery life, reliability and a big screen definitely helps, especially on long 12hr days.  
 

[fuzzynormal]

15 hours ago, Tim Sewell said:

Anyone responsible for paying the crew's wages probably wouldn't choose to shoot a feature on a...

11 hours ago, rosco said:

Hacked cameras are fine if you’re a hobbyist

It's not a practical suggestion to actually do the thing.  Anyone with the means would choose Arri over a 12 year old hacked camera all day long.  This absurdist theory is just to illustrate that the separating degrees of IQ isn't the thing that makes or breaks a film.

[Chrad]

The Civil Dead is a really good film and I had no idea it cost that little.

[rosco]

8 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

It's not a practical suggestion to actually do the thing.  Anyone with the means would choose Arri over a 12 year old hacked camera all day long.  This absurdist theory is just to illustrate that the separating degrees of IQ isn't the thing that makes or breaks a film.

Ok, that’s your distinction then I agree 100%. 

[Chrille]

On 3/22/2023 at 4:00 PM, TomTheDP said:

I work on mostly low budget feature films in the 30k realm. They can actually be incredibly profitable if you know what you are doing.

Can you share some of the movies you have worked on in this preice region? Very interesting!