For a no budged film) -- You can only hope to get really good actors that are engaging enough to hold peoples attention for a feature length film and a story that is worth watching.

I have tried this very thing, and failed.

Technically you wont be able to compete with Hollywood, so don't try that approach. Do the best you can but be practical. And Get as much help as you can. Worry most about the actors and the story and try to get other people on the technical side if possible. This is your best approach.

The two biggest rules I'd say about making micro-budgeted films is to have a great script, and to be extremely organized before, during and after the shoot. Discipline is key.

I can tell you, while I did hang out with friends, I was the one guy who would be at home working on his script on his days off, while everyone else was having a good time. Do I regret it? No, but I do wish I'd spent more of my free time relaxing.

Filmmaking is hard no matter what, esp. at the low budget level. But the rewards are tremendous. A screenwriter friend of mine once commended my freedom while writing and shooting, while his scripts were getting butchered in re-writes by highly paid script doctors.

heath

For a no budged film) -- You can only hope to get really good actors that are engaging enough to hold peoples attention for a feature length film and a story that is worth watching.

I have tried this very thing, and failed.

Technically you wont be able to compete with Hollywood, so don't try that approach. Do the best you can but be practical. And Get as much help as you can. Worry most about the actors and the story and try to get other people on the technical side if possible. This is your best approach.

Thats a good point-- i know some people who can healp with the technical side of things. were probably shooting not this, but nex summer, which gives us allot of time to work on the script and secure actors.

One more thing: Great marketing skills, so you can sell your movie and yourself as a filmmaker.

Heath

Technically you wont be able to compete with Hollywood, so don't try that approach. Do the best you can but be practical. Worry most about the actors and the story and try to get other people on the technical side if possible. This is your best approach.

I just think this is really great advice, and maybe even a little understated. There are so many shorts where people have worked hard trying to create effects and heavily supported camera moves that just aren't going to compete with a Hollywood production.

Think of "Open Water". It wasn't as low budget as what you're doing, but the concept is along Tyson's line of thinking. No big crane shots, or "sky replacement" done in post. Just a straight forward story that managed to captivate viewers. That has to be one of the most successful indie films ever. One thing they did really well in "Open Water" is they used the setting totally to their advantage. The fact that almost all the action takes place out in the water meant no fancy lighting, massive cranes or dollies, just POV camera work (I thought it was a brilliant strategy, and almost drove myself crazy trying to think of a similar scenerio... lost in the desert, a snowstorm, trapped in a mine, pinned under the rubble of the Twin Towers...) Just thought it was very "outside the box" thinking, and it really paid off.

To see how a small budget film can work you should see "Once". OK it cost 150k Euros, but the important reason why it worked was the audience bought into the two main characters and I hear the leading man wasn't the first choice. By chance, (which can be the case) the casting worked.

If your budget is only $5,000, you're going to have to bring your actors into the creative process (because you can't pay them, so they'll be investors) and create an original piece with an on screen chemistry.

You can't really just clone something that has been successful, the audience will have moved on by the time your film is completed. To stand out, your film really has to be different.

I think a feature can be made for really any price, 5K included but it requires two things:
A) A great (not good, great) screenplay, that can get people excited about it and WANT to tell the story contained therein. Which leads to :

B) Instilling the day to day (or month to month depending on your availability to shoot) passion for the cast, crew, and most importantly yourself. What you may not have in the ways of Fischer dollies, 35mm packages and huge lights, you can replace with passion. That will make the story pop, and the audience can forgive it not looking glossy and big budget. Of course, to trained eyes, that pizzaz will be lacking, but again, have a great story.

Thanks, Great advice!

Keep working on the script until it's great.
Then sell the script.
Get permission to come visit the set during filming.

Ala Robert Rodriguez, shoot film but no sound. Have it be great. Get a studio to do the sound and bring the film to market for several hundered thousand dollars. But 8 mm probably won't go any where.

With 8mm make a short and impress somebody with it. Don't spend any money. If you can't convince people to give you all the money you need to make an 8mm short, you probably can't tell enough "stories" to make it in the movie business.

Out of curiosity, how much does film and processing cost to shoot enough for an 8mm feature? Are you going to cut the film yourself?

Over and out.

tri-ex B/W Reversal stock 2.5 minutes (50 ft/18 fps)
Stock: $15
Developing: $15
Telecine: ~$10-$15

So, $45 for every 2 1/2 minutes of film shot and developed. Shooting Reversal to save the cost of a positive print. Edited in the computer...otherwise there's more development and stock costs.

Feature film = 90 minutes
Shooting ratio 1:1 (not probable)
36 Reels, $1620

Shooting ratio of 4:1 (more realistic)
144 Reels, $6480

If you go through Pro 8mm, it's around $12,000 to do a feature. Stick with digital.

Heath

tri-ex B/W Reversal stock 2.5 minutes (50 ft/18 fps)
Stock: $15
Developing: $15
Telecine: ~$10-$15

So, $45 for every 2 1/2 minutes of film shot and developed. Shooting Reversal to save the cost of a positive print. Edited in the computer...otherwise there's more development and stock costs.

Feature film = 90 minutes
Shooting ratio 1:1 (not probable)
36 Reels, $1620

Shooting ratio of 4:1 (more realistic)
144 Reels, $6480

Blimey, for that kind of money you could start to consider shooting on 16mm!

8mm isn't a production mediumWhat? Why not? Since when? There is absolutely no reason why Daniel can't shoot on Super-8, and it might in fact be a very good idea, depending on the content and/or Daniel's comfort level with that particular medium. Whether he can afford to do so for $5,000 is a slightly different issue.

Daniel, as for your original question, it's going to be very hard for anyone here to answer it unless we have a much more clear idea of what you're trying to accomplish and how you hope to accomplish it. It's probably just too big a question for anyone to answer on an internet forum.

That said, there's no reason why you can't make a very good movie for $5,000--or less--if you're determined to find creative solutions to your problems, if you have good ideas, and find ways to express them well. It sounds like a cheesy Mr. Rogers self-esteem pep talk to say this, but it's true: you can do anything you want if you do it the right way. What the "right way" for you personally might be is something you have to figure out for yourself. You may not figure out what it is on this project--it takes a long time to "find your own path" sometimes--but if you stay determined and stick to it, you'll find it.

What? Why not? Since when? There is absolutely no reason why Daniel can't shoot on Super-8, and it might in fact be a very good idea, depending on the content and/or Daniel's comfort level with that particular medium. Whether he can afford to do so for $5,000 is a slightly different issue.

Daniel, as for your original question, it's going to be very hard for anyone here to answer it unless we have a much more clear idea of what you're trying to accomplish and how you hope to accomplish it. It's probably just too big a question for anyone to answer on an internet forum.

That said, there's no reason why you can't make a very good movie for $5,000--or less--if you're determined to find creative solutions to your problems, if you have good ideas, and find ways to express them well. It sounds like a cheesy Mr. Rogers self-esteem pep talk to say this, but it's true: you can do anything you want if you do it the right way. What the "right way" for you personally might be is something you have to figure out for yourself. You may not figure out what it is on this project--it takes a long time to "find your own path" sometimes--but if you stay determined and stick to it, you'll find it.

My name is Corwin, not Daniel, but no worries, not a big deal. I think were pretty convinced that we will be shooting on hd, maybe with some key scenes on 16mm. I definitly agree with you on the good ideas thing. Were going to spend most of this comming year developing and re-writing our script, and getting people interested. then from that december untill summer, we will get all of the resorces together. Thanks for the responce,

-Corwin

mixing 16mm into the HD footage will generally be dissapointing. better to shoot HD and use the filters to match the look in post, or just do the same thing in AE with stacking the clip over itself in AE with apply modes and built in AE filters. you can get some great looks this way.

as for the budget, you'll spent $5k just feeding and transporting people. have bad food and its the fastest way to lose you crew because it shows total disrespect to them and lack of value. always have good food for the crew.

don't use cheap tape stock or you'll get burned ! get prograde tape, but get it online at a better price.

2 Tota lights ? I don't think so. they are fine for kicking open a background, especially at night, or behind a silk or in a chimera, but they are really flat hard lights. nothing you want to use on foreground elements like actors unless you **really** know lighting, placement, and light modifiers otherwise it will look pretty bad.

realistically, you need 15-20K to do what you want, and thats being super cheap.I've spent 10-20K in a single day of shooting, and that was keeping it bare for the size of the project, so really, good luck, but I hope you have an additional $10k in reserve you can spend, because you will

What kinds of Tapes, Spesificly?

I'm shooting my first feature for (hopfully) $5000, and i need some help on were i should spend my money. I have acsess to a canon xha1, and a conon 814 xls (8mm film), and i was hoping on making it all or mostly on 8mm. i own a sennhiser me66 so a microphone is not an issue. i can borrow 2 totas, how much more light do you think i would need? if anybody has some good experience on making super low-budget features, that would be a real help!

Thanks,

--Corwin (15)

Corwin: I'd consider shooting entirely on the Canon XH A1 - film processing is EXPENSIVE.

I know this post is old, but for the sake of archiving it for newbies I'll answer it:

The question posed really can't be answered because recording equipment is usually only a fraction of the total budget. What kind of props do you have, do you need to buy any costumes, do you need to pay for any locations, what kind of catering will you have, what are your fuel cost, is there a special effects budget? All of these production related questions are so important that they will actually dictate which camera (and therefore format) that you can shoot with.

True about the last post. My feature was originally estimated for $8000.00 (I have the equipment and was going to shoot it myself). It ended up costing us close to $70,000 (money paid for by myself and some investors) because we increased the production value (SAG feature, professional DP and crew, cranes, dolly's, paid everyone, etc) and we still had an extremely small crew. The film looks far better than I could have done by myself and the entire experience was great (we had a total of 29 shooting days during the course of the year). I'm really glad I ended up going this route. Sure, it cost a heck of a lot more than I thought but the end product is what it's all about.

Definitely don't shoot the whole thing on 8mm as film is not economical at this scale; the money is much better spent elsewhere. However, shooting one scene or two on film, such as the opener, is a great way to be exposed to the medium.

I don't care what anyone says, you can shoot a feature for $5 if you are creative enough and have proximity to other talented individuals. Of course, the quality and more importantly, consistency, of your final product is much less guaranteed when you rely on volunteers.

For this level of budget, audio is far more important than video. Get a boom pole, a decent mic, and a good set of headphones. Make sure there is sufficient light in each scene, but do not worry about what most people would call cinematography. Stick to talking heads and keep the experimental shots few and far between.

Ask people to work for free, ask places to donate food and supplies, and play your student card as much as possible. Dress in slacks and be clean-shaven when you do this.

There's a lot that you won't learn from a book, so my best advice is to overprepare and adapt. And have one vision.

Good points, thanks.

Corwin, I admire your tenacity on this. I find folks in the Indie world chip in and help one another, and I bet you might scrounge up some pretty good equipment and folks to help use it for parts of your shoot. HDV media is cheap, but film (super16 for example) could add some wow factor in some scenes if they needed the stuff film has over HDV at the moment. You would not need a lot of Super16 telecine used that way.

I hope you have storyboarded your film and are having some luck, finding actors. I could give you a couple names depending on your needs. Let us know your schedule, you might find more hands and free equipment that you imagine here in Northern Ca.

See www.spectre-movie.com for an example of what I am talking about. All shot in HDV using borrowed equipment with volunteer labor.

I briefly responded on this before but as its been on my mind ...I made 2 attempts on a micro budget feature.
I tried doing a B&W silent movie around 91(shot some stop motion test footage for it) and in 2004 started work on a very very ambitious project that I had budgeted around $20 000-30 000 CAN.
I had a prop fx background so I saved a huge amount of money but after 3 years worked myself to near insanity without even having shot anything. I had it storyboarded in colour, shot list, script breakdown--planned to shoot a 3 scene demo. Very simple recruitment failures ultimately forced me to shelve it although I continue to work on it as a CG based project.

But-I cant give up on the micro budget feature idea. I KNOW it can be done. It has been done. For me the major attraction is to see how high i can get production values and make it watchable on a shoestring.


Now I am thinking in terms of crafting a story based around a single location or two and seeing how dramatic or suspenseful I can make the scenario, and budgeting it around the most important aspects(including paying the actors as someone else mentioned).

Improvising and being creative with little resources can be rewarding in itself-even if you dont get to make it(but its better when you do :) , as it is an amazing creative brain challenge. Edit: I remember seeing a setup someone had done where he made the passenger section of an airplane in his living room-f***ing brilliant! Very inspiring.

When I started out in 16mm it was ultimate rush to load up some animation footage that I had just had processed and run it on my rickety projector. I once did a Harryhausen-like skeleton with animated fire around it--took me a month to do a three second shot but it was worth it when I got the film back.


I am leaning towards buying my first digi camera next year(although I just bought my first still digi cam-A Canon Powershot SX100-havent tried the video yet) and being a one man crew if I have to(although along the way of my last attempt someone told me that if i didnt have help by the time I got to shooting I would hate it and it was very true-I really did come to hate it, now I have warm feelings towards it again).

I am stubborn and would probably attempt to rig a one man band type of set up before I died of exhaustion.

I speak as an ultra low-budget producer and offer these thoughts for you to consider.

1. Watch your back and protect yourself. The larger your production gets, the more you NEED production insurance. In fact, if you are filming a feature you need insurance. Period. It is not expensive and might save you a lifetime of troubles. Producing and directing is rewarding, but remember YOU will be the one responsible for the misdeeds or accidents of your cast and crew.

Ditto for putting the proper paperwork, releases and clearances in place. If nothing else, going through the "right" technique here prepares you for a bigger projects, perhaps eventually ones with serious money put up by serious people. Doing the rigging right now, means you will be ready later.

2. Be clear about your personal objectives. Why are you doing this? What do you want to accomplish? In my opinion, it is quite appropriate to do a movie for practice or for "fun." The more of these you do, the better you will get. Better that you do ten $5,000 features than one at $50,000. Further, you may find that different features will have different objectives.

3. Part of the fun in producing is learning how the Hollywood pros do it, but also having the confidence to reject their methods when they are inappropriate for a micro budget picture. It is a topic for another time, but the traditionally formatted script is wholly inappropriate for low-budget shooting: It obscures story beats, camera angles and timing. Scripts have other faults, too but I won't go into that now. But you may well find that much filmmaking orthodoxy is best examined in light of your objectives--even your choice of SD vs HD vs 8mm vs ?

4. I have budgeted many times and here is what I have found. Ultimately, the budget is driven by production days. And production days are a function principally of two variables: number of locations and the square of crew+cast size. In other words cutting cast and crew by 50% cuts your cost by 75%. Cutting the number of locations by 50% yields a 50% reduction. The reason for this is that increasing the size of the cast and crew slows production, impedes communication, and adds to the mouths to feed. Past about 15 or 20 people, you need to add people just to feed and manage them.

Locations involve travel time, mix ups, and scheduling problems. This means you should write/rewrite the script to use as few locations as possible. One way to make this artistically practical is to select one or more "super locations" that provide you with multiple sets. If the company move is from the barn to the patio, that is easy and fast to accomplish, whereas driving across town might take half a day to get the team going again.

5. Have a good Assistant Director. In my process, this person stays by my side and helps me with the shot list and helps with organizational things as necessary. I can't imagine functioning on a feature or short without an A/D.

Good Luck

great stuff man, thanks!

This is a great thread. Thank you to all who contributed.

Great advice, Scott. I hired an AD two years ago, on the first day of production, and was very happy I did so. I just wish I hired her much sooner, during pre-production. I made sure she was onboard during pre-pro on a film I just co-produced.

heath

Hey Corwin,
Since this thread has been kept alive for over a year, I was curious, where are you currently standing with the project?

Well the guy I was planing to do this film with kindof fell out, so i didnt follow through with the drafts of the scrips. Over the year i have worked on a couple film sets, and made many short films. I have been exploring all aspects of filmmaking, and found that cinematography resonates the most with me. I have abandoned that original project, and am currently looking for a good script and someone at my school willing to direct, and help me construct a film!

Corwin,

Glad you found your niche in the industry, and I'm sure you're going to shoot some killer films! Good luck!

heath

True about the last post. My feature was originally estimated for $8000.00 (I have the equipment and was going to shoot it myself). It ended up costing us close to $70,000 (money paid for by myself and some investors) because we increased the production value (SAG feature, professional DP and crew, cranes, dolly's, paid everyone, etc) and we still had an extremely small crew. The film looks far better than I could have done by myself and the entire experience was great (we had a total of 29 shooting days during the course of the year). I'm really glad I ended up going this route. Sure, it cost a heck of a lot more than I thought but the end product is what it's all about.

Todd, I hope your still around. You went from $8K to 70K. What did you do with the final product? Did you make the 70K back?
As a matter of fact all of you folks giving him advice are spending $20k plus. What are you folks doing to get this money back?

It's easy to get the budget to go up, up, up. We increased our production values quite a bit, including hiring a semi-name actor (Jeff MacKay from JAG and Magnum PI, who died shortly after we wrapped, RIP), better gear, great crew, etc., and our budget more than doubled.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to the script. No amount of money in the world can save a bad script. It may look high quality, but if the script stinks, it's high quality garbage.

heath

Todd, I hope your still around. You went from $8K to 70K. What did you do with the final product? Did you make the 70K back?
As a matter of fact all of you folks giving him advice are spending $20k plus. What are you folks doing to get this money back?

Hey G. Lee Gordon,

Yes, I'm still around. We've just finished post production and have been sending out copies for festivals, so no... we haven't made any money back. Yet.

Heath is right that once you up your production with better equipment and a great crew, expect the budget to jump. And as Heath says, a great script can save a film with bad production quality, but great production quality cannot save a film with a bad script.

And ironically, the over all budget for my film ended up being closer to $116,000 (keep in mind this includes the total cost of all the equipment I bought for the film; the budget minus purchasing the equipment was closer to $50,000).

For tax purposes, I recommend not counting the money spent on equipment towards the budget. You can write off the equipment for years. Check with your Accountant.

Good luck! Keep us up-to-date on everything!

heath

For tax purposes, I recommend not counting the money spent on equipment towards the budget. You can write off the equipment for years. Check with your Accountant.

Good luck! Keep us up-to-date on everything!

heath

Thanks for the info Heath. So would you suggest adding a 'rental' fee to the budget to include some expense for equipment or not to include any equipment cost/fees at all?

I will revise my budget as I have written off my equipment in previous tax years.

Thanks again.

Todd

You could do that--talk to an accountant! Are you incorporated? I have an s-corporation (MPS Digital Studios), then I do an LLC company for the specific movie, ie, 9:04 AM Productions, LLC for my film, 9:04 AM.

But we rented gear that wasn't owned by me. However, I know plenty of companies that do it.

heath

You could do that--talk to an accountant! Are you incorporated? I have an s-corporation (MPS Digital Studios), then I do an LLC company for the specific movie, ie, 9:04 AM Productions, LLC for my film, 9:04 AM.

But we rented gear that wasn't owned by me. However, I know plenty of companies that do it.

heath

We have an LLC so I'll call my accountant this week. We didn't setup a Corp. since this film was/is our only project. Our LLC is called Drawing Chalk Pictures LLC for the film 'Drawing With Chalk'.

Thanks for the info and heads up.

Todd

I don't think you'll be able to get any rental fees from the LLC making the movie, since you don't have a separate corporation. If you bought the equipment under the LLC, you might be able to sell it, so to speak, to a newly formed production. Ask the accountant and let us know the answer.

I know a little bit about corporate accounting, but I really rely on my accountant. She tells me what I need to do, and I take care of things on my end. Heck, I haven't done my taxes myself since 2001 (for 2000), because I incorporated soon after. My accountant handles everything.

She may not know the movie/TV/video production community like a film accountant would (and those can cost a lot more than a regular accountant), but she understands the laws and what a piece of equipment means to a corporation. She also showed me stuff in accounting books about the film biz.

Heath

LA is an incredible mixed bag. There are so many businesses that will simply say "no" to you without any thought whatsoever.

I would have thought that L.A., being what it is, would have a lot more places willing to be part of movie-making. But as someone else said, maybe it's because they have an inflated idea of the money they can get...

The Biodome here in Montreal has a gorgeous rainforest environment, and will let film crews shoot for about $300/hr (plus security, plus electrician, etc.). I wanted to go in during regular business hours with a camcorder and a monopod to get stock footage for a future project and they said no. I told them I would be just like a tourist taking footage, no lights or sound or actors, just me and my small camcorder. They said no. I said ok, maybe I can swing a little money, how much would that cost me, without the need for security, electrician, etc.? They said no.

Their answer was that they did not do "those kinds" of projects. I asked what "those kinds" of projects are that they refuse to do, since I never even told them about mine and they refused to look at a script; again, they only replied no, without giving an explanation.

I was joking with a partner that I must have failed to present my request with the required manila envelope filled with small bills. But I was only half-joking.


J.

I'm shooting my first feature for (hopfully) $5000, and i need some help on were i should spend my money. I have acsess to a canon xha1, and a conon 814 xls (8mm film), and i was hoping on making it all or mostly on 8mm. i own a sennhiser me66 so a microphone is not an issue. i can borrow 2 totas, how much more light do you think i would need? if anybody has some good experience on making super low-budget features, that would be a real help!

I've bought just enough equipment to get by on a small shoot, and that cost me over $20,000. My philosophy is: don't buy; rent or borrow. On my last shoot the sound guy who volunteered had his own professional sound equipment. It's only slightly more to hire someone who has his own gear, than it is to rent - and definitely cheaper than buying.


J.

The problem with renting is that if your actors/locations free up tomorrow at 4am, you can't just drop and go... you have to take the time to rent (impossible where I live on a weekend as the nearest rental house is a 4 hour round trip)... or clear the time with the pro sound guy.

At the budgets being discussed in this thread, time=money. You need to be much more flexible with time to get locations and talent who have to keep money coming into their businesses/pockets....so you need to be able to work around their schedules. Having the equipment on hand and ready at all times is the only viable option for me personally.

----------------------
response to an earlier posting:
With non-actors, you can get convincing and compelling performances, it just takes a goodly time longer than it would with a trained professional actor. Lots of takes, lots of time, lots of tape which means lots of footage to go through.

To paraphrase Robert Rodriguez, write around what you have readily available, props-wise, locations-wise, etc. Whenever I've had a lack of money, I got really creative. Heck, some of my greatest ideas came to me when I was trying to go to sleep, or about to wake up, and I had a story, production, editing, etc., problem to solve, and it would hit me.

I recommend these two books to help you out:

Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices, by Rick Schmidt (http://www.amazon.com/Feature-Filmmaking-Used-Car-Prices-Revised/dp/0140291849)

Rodriguez's Rebel Without a Crew (http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-without-Crew-23-Year-Old-Filmmaker/dp/0452271878)

heath

TAt the budgets being discussed in this thread, time=money. You need to be much more flexible with time to get locations and talent who have to keep money coming into their businesses/pockets....so you need to be able to work around their schedules. Having the equipment on hand and ready at all times is the only viable option for me personally.

Not when you're talking about $5,000 wireless lav mics, it isn't. It doesn't make sense to buy all the equipment you could possible need, not unless you intend to recoup that investment by renting it out. That is why I said that you need to get people (hired or volunteered) who have their own equipment, or have access to cheap rentals. The sound guy for my last short works at an equipment rental place and could either borrow equipment "to test it out" or rent it cheap.


J.

you can always rent from out of state and have it shipped. A friend of mine did that recently, and saved a bundle, even with shipping costs.

Heath

The point of ultra-low budget filmmaking is not technical perfection. The point is great storytelling, that a studio would never produce, that is technically reasonable. A big part of making a well-made ultra-low budget film that will get through the quality control protocols for distribution, is know when, where and how to compromise.

Well said, Lori! I don't think I'll ever do another dogme 95-style film, like I did on my flick Skye Falling, but I will always look to saving money.

Beg or borrow gear, and make sure you have at least 3-4 good lights. I like Arri a lot. Don't forget diffusion; DV and HD cameras hate harsh light, unless that's what you're aiming for.

heath

Not when you're talking about $5,000 wireless lav mics, it isn't. It doesn't make sense to buy all the equipment you could possible need, not unless you intend to recoup that investment by renting it out. That is why I said that you need to get people (hired or volunteered) who have their own equipment, or have access to cheap rentals. The sound guy for my last short works at an equipment rental place and could either borrow equipment "to test it out" or rent it cheap.


J.

It took me 2 years of intermittent weekends to shoot a feature with a volunteer cast/crew (based on their schedules) who were in it just for something creative to do. These are the same people that would have built something or done community theater just to fill their time anyway had they not been doing this project. All were friends and as we were starting pre-production, we weighed our budgetary needs.

If this were the only project I'd ever planned on doing, I'd have considered renting every weekend for 2 years to have the equipment available, but the decision was that we wanted to start doing more and learning the craft. So we approached it as hobbyists. I jumped at a chance to get a better camera than I was going to use for alot cheaper than it would have been normally, but it wasn't for the production, it was for me. I got a $25 clearance/open-box microphone I randomly camera across at Best Buy. I made everything else I needed for the project.

We learned as we went knowing that we wouldn't make one project, fail because of our lack of knowledge (which we assumed would be the case), and give up. Our approach to scheduling and making sure that everything we got for the production would be free (I was the camera operator who volunteered my personal cameras to the production...and my audio equipment). We purchased the equipment as we could along the way while doing research for the technical aspects of making a feature. Buy what you can and upgrade as you go. Know that you will be making dozens of shorts at the no-budget price point. Learn from your mistakes!

If you go into this expecting to make a big budget thing first time out the gate ("I'm going to be the next Kevin Smith/Rodriguez/Whomever"), you set yourself up for failure. This is an ongoing learning experience that will pay off eventually if treated like any other job with skills being fostered and expanded and lessons being learned. You can pay to go to film school, rent equipment or just buy your own. Which ever works for you, but I don't think you need a $5k sound system to make a feature film. If you buy your pieces/parts with the intention of them working together, your $100 Microphone will plug into your $2k camera with the rest of the $$$ going to insurance and food for the cast/crew. Make the rest from scraps and found locations. Get donations from local businesses in exchange for full card billing a the end of the movie. Find a way to guarantee their ads/cards will be seen by people sitting in the audience (i.e. show the film places). Everything is open for negotiation. Contact the local newspaper and let them know you're attempting to make a film with no budget (make sure the script and your attention to detail warrants the attention). Local newspapers are starved for local interest content...all they put in the paper is AP newswire stories this day and age.

Run your advertising like a punk band in the 70's. Fliers on campuses, take the door fee and give concessions to the theater. Keep the seats cheap. Make a break in the middle of the movie for people to get up and go to the concession stand. Figure out how to market this product. At these prices, the standard, film festival entry will not get you the success you're looking for, you have to go out and make it yourself, just like you are doing with the movie!

A $5k movie budget doesn't allow for a $5k microphone, set your sights lower. Adapt, think through the process. Get your cast/crew/produciton company to help pitch in with $$$ if they are into getting into this through non-traditional methods. You'd be shocked how many creative people live near you who are looking for an outlet for their creative urges! They would normally spend their monies on stuff for their hobbies, just have them redirect it to a common goal.

Cole,

Great stuff, man, great advice, too. When you're movie's done, don't give up on it and jump into the next film. Get it out there, put it online, screen it, submit it to some fests (good luck, because features are hard to get in, but not impossible), etc. DON'T LET IT DIE! I let one film die years ago, and I'll never do that again.

Films are made to be seen, even if you think they stink.

heath

Cole,

Great stuff, man, great advice, too. When you're movie's done, don't give up on it and jump into the next film. Get it out there, put it online, screen it, submit it to some fests (good luck, because features are hard to get in, but not impossible), etc. DON'T LET IT DIE! I let one film die years ago, and I'll never do that again.

Films are made to be seen, even if you think they stink.

heath

Yep! It currently stinks. I ended up with 47 hours of footage (movie's budget so far - $250 for tapes... that's it).

I'm re-editing, it'll end up about 30 minutes rather than the original 75-90mins we were shooting for (remember, dialogue only scenes in a script usually mean the script needs work :) - how's that for brutal honesty). I've got a 45 minute cut now that's about 3/4 of the scenes edited (the rest are just placeholder cards)... and I burned out (time = money, it was all my time in post production... oy vay!). So 2 years have passed and I'm starting to look at it again after 4-8 shorts/year (we've come a long way baby) to improve our process, our writing and our story telling abilities. I've got so much dialogue to cut out it's not even funny.

Our initial goals were simple: Make a feature length movie that could be submitted to film festivals... that means permissions signed, an original story and finished... only the last bit isn't done right now. Once I've finished the edit and submitted it to a single festival, I'll have achieved my goal for the project. Everyone working on it had fun doing it and most have come back for the work on the shorts... the ones who haven't haven't because of the time investment it takes.

If you're interested, here's the current painful to watch cut of it... most of the conversations are cut together a line at a time because the actor's often hadn't even read the scene before showing up on set (day jobs etc... most of us were on call IT staff while shooting, so we had to be able to respond to support calls at all times as well)... So I tried to get them to read 2 lines at a time and react to the one form the other character appropriately so I'd be able to overlap the shots in editing. I encouraged them to just fix it in the singles and have the ability to go back on their own and redo their lines until both I and they were happy with them (lots of footage to go through, but it worked - to the extent we were able to with the skills we had at that time... I'd love to see what we could do now)

http://yafiunderground.com/Video/AJ-2007-05-25.mov (don't bother critiquing, it needs help the way it sits currently - but I'll take whatever you choose to dish out anyway, never know what'll end up in the final cut of it)

I recommend downloading and watching pieces and parts of it. There's nothing other than assembly editing done here (and it's only 3/4 done). It's certainly not Rush Hour 9, but it's in the can and cost $250 to do... so I see people scoffing at the $5k at the top of this thread and don't understand, because it's been done.

The argument could be that I should count the equipment I've purchased as part of the budget... but if you were to do that, the suggestions to hire/coerce people to help out who bring their own equipment bring the same cost assessments with them. This gear is mine, not line items. I still have it all and have used it on a dozen or so shorts... in addition to this feature and some student projects that I've helped out on... and numerous other events and gigs and borrowed it to trusted associates to use for their stuff too.

I'll check it out later, but yeah, if it's a short, make it SHORT. I have an unreleased, never-finished feature I did over 7 years ago that I turned into a 15 minute short. It works, but the film kinda stinks. Oh, well... I'll probably put it up online one day.

heath