Funding a $10,000 Student Short Film?

A

Atras

What is the best way(s) for a student filmmaker with little money to fund a short film with a budget of about $10,000 in 2 months?
 
Last edited:
Sort by date Sort by votes
There have been many success stories about low-budget features, lets say under 10 000 dollars but I cannot think many similar results from the short films,

so is there really a point to spend so much in a short movie, but instead focus to create 10 000 dollars feature.

If you think about it, Bad Taste, Star Wreck and El Mariachi all gave they directors a career in Film Industry, one way or another. I cannot think any shorts do the same, except District 9 short film.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Atras said:
Yes, writing a screenplay that needs little money is preferable, but even the simplest of screenplays need a certain amount of money to maintain a professional look.
Click to expand...

That all depends on what you mean by "professional look". What is the primary purpose of your short film? Is it a learning experience and to put up on youtube, is it primarily for submission to minor film festivals, is it part of an entrance submission for a university course or are you aiming for more major film festivals? Being ruthlessly honest and objective in answering this question will dictate the budget required to achieve "a look" which will meet or exceed expectations. These expectations could just be the expectations of family, friends and colleagues, a panel at a university or an audience and judge/s at an international film festival, etc.

If learning is your primary purpose, by being ruthlessly honest and objective about your weaknesses (and the weaknesses of your equipment) and using ingenuity in the script, on set and in post to address those weaknesses, you can get a great learning experience and a reasonable "look", even with poor equipment and zero budget.

This is something that university film courses themselves don't generally teach well. They tend to teach the art and technique of filmmaking rather than the practicalities of planning and budgeting to meet specific audience and market expectations. There can also be a lot of hype and marketing BS in this area too. The classic example has already been mentioned, "El Mariachi" which was made with a budget of $7k. What isn't as widely publicised is that the final version the public got to see needed a further $300k spent on it to give it "a professional look" sufficient to meet commercial expectations!

G
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
AudioPostExpert said:
They tend to teach the art and technique of filmmaking rather than the practicalities of planning and budgeting to meet specific audience and market expectations. There can also be a lot of hype and marketing BS in this area too. The classic example has already been mentioned, "El Mariachi" which was made with a budget of $7k. What isn't as widely publicised is that the final version the public got to see needed a further $300k spent on it to give it "a professional look" sufficient to meet commercial expectations!
Click to expand...

I think it's more than just hype & marketing BS though - in fact it's a perfect lesson in the practicalities of planning for "specific audience and market expectations" if you look at the $7,000 figure in the context of his goals.

Rodriguez never intended for El Mariachi to see a widespread U.S. theatrical release. His plan from the start was to sell it to a distributor in the mexican home video market for around $25k and then use the money from that to fund the sequel, repeat for a third one and then shoot for a hollywood career based on the experience gained from the three films. The fact that it got studio interest at all was mostly luck and good timing, and the additional cost was to prep it for something it wasn't meant for in the first place.

For instance, he shot with no sync sound... thousands of dollars were spent later on a professional audio engineer working in a studio for weeks trying to re-sync dialogue to the print (who finally gave up and Rodriguez finished the re-sync himself). Now obviously the 'better' solution would have been to shoot sync in the first place - but that would have required a different camera, audio equipment, a sound guy, possibly even different locations, and would have slowed the whole shoot down. If he'd tried to do it the right way for a theatrical release it would have significantly impacted the budget and his ability to get the film shot - but he wasn't going for that, so he was able to work more efficiently based on the resources he had available at the time and the particular goals of the project.

Thus the fact that he was able to make the initial film for $7,000 was the result of exactly what you are suggesting - being honest about his goals and spending no more than necessary to achieve them. It's entirely possible that if he'd set out in the first place to make the next big indie action film it wouldn't have happened at all, and we wouldn't be talking about him now.

It's far easier now from a technical standpoint to produce a film for $7,000 and achieve something closer to a commercial release quality than it was back then. The $550/week rental package I listed earlier in the thread will get you better equipment than Rodriguez had when he made mariachi, and the cheap post production software available to anyone with a reasonably modern computer will get you far better results than the post resources he had available to him at the time. The part that hasn't become any easier is the need to hustle to get the most out of whatever resources you can lay your hands on, and then hustle to get the project done.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ItDonnedOnMe said:
I think it's more than just hype & marketing BS though - in fact it's a perfect lesson in the practicalities of planning for "specific audience and market expectations" if you look at the $7,000 figure in the context of his goals.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that El Mariachi is not a good lesson in how to make a film for $7,000, provided of course you are talking about the original version. The problem is that the widespread US theatrical release version is the version the public got to see, which cost about $325k. It's very disingenuous to suggest or imply that the version the public got to see cost $7,000 or that making a film to those standards is possible for $7,000. It's possible with today's technology to make a film like this for less than $325k but still nowhere near $7,000, around $100k - $200k might be possible.

ItDonnedOnMe said:
It's far easier now from a technical standpoint to produce a film for $7,000 and achieve something closer to a commercial release quality than it was back then.
Click to expand...

Of course that depends on what you mean by commercial release quality, maybe as far as the picture is concerned but as far as the sound is concerned, I don't agree.

G
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Not to mention discussing a film shot in the relative "steam powered" years if cinema.

El Mariachi was shot two decades ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mariachi
Look at the films being made and released in 1992: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_in_film

Think you could go up against those with a "house and car" budget film?

Look at the budgets of RECENT indie films that received distribution of any significant, sometimes just token, means:
2010, column V: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsBznn8D13zOdHh6cHJBMW5aQkZSMzZYR2V3VUxQVUE#gid=0
Average Production Budget Minus Hi-Lo Outliers: $7,741,667
2011, column Q: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsBznn8D13zOdGlCeDRmWTFCYXJRWjJ3SUphZDNzMGc#gid=0
Average Production Budget Minus Hi-Lo Outliers: $4,138,409


So... what can you do with a film that cost as much as your car?
Not much.
Do some more homework.
Maybe you'll find out that "Paranormal Activity" is the most profitable franchise ever, but... good luck repeating that.
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/budgets.php
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top