If most films were made that cheap with that bad of picture and even worse, sound quality, and using ADR even, it would be rejected by most film festivals. However El Mariachi went big, and boosted off Robert Rodriguez's career? How is that his film was the exemption to the rules? Did the producers just have really good international connections to get it shown in theatrical releases all over the world or what?
How did El Mariachi get so big with such poor quality?
- Thread starter harmonica44
- Start date
Yeah, I could do that as well. Its important to recognize the importance of inflating budgets for various reasons. Nothing so far as conspiring, but simply for numbers games.
The Signals budget was erased from the Internet as well.
It was from Edwards own words much earlier that his budget was 24K Euro. It changed when press started rolling in.
Not entirely.
I subscribe to Variety. Their archives may not be publicly searchable, but
they still have the information released by the prodCo's, distributors and
theaters.
He explained it pretty well. He was paying himself, he was paying the crew and the actors. They had to eat, rent hotel rooms, buy plane tickets, etc... It probably cost closer to 200K to 300K then the people who bought it spent another 500K cleaning it up, doing the audio post, etc... which would come in at the estimated budget on IMDB.
I guess if you want to google it all before the big press hits, you can.
Cash vs Equity is different. I could easily say that our feature cost 300K-500K and no one would be able to argue. Just the hard costs of the lenses alone would've been 15K by the end of the 15 day shoot.
Fact is, we raised 17.5K cash and then what I had in my pockets to shoot it. But, if I want to say how much my time was worth, or how much the camera rentals were (1500/day x 2) then sure, it cost a lot more.
Anyway, it's all semantics.
Most days we shot two cameras. I wanted to use a zoom and a set of primes.
Cinema Primes or PL lenses arent cheap to purchase, so cost a fair amount to rent when you consider the number of days tallied.
So, if I were to registry and do costs for everything that I would have had to paid for, or the average Joe I guess, then you could estimate that a 15 day shoot, or 18 days with pick ups, and at least 12 of those days were two camera shoots, and we didn't have the luxury of somethig like 3 or 4 day weeks because we shot as locations came..
1650(2 x 12) + 1650(6)
49,500
Even a generous price on this setup? Maybe for an 18 dayshoot an incredibly well connected producer could pull it off for 20K
So, if we wanted to factor in how much things were worth, then I could definitely say 300K upwards and wouldn't hear any opposition.
In one respect, that's how much it truly cost, in a other there surely was not that much spending cash.
I think it’s fair to include all expenses in the “total” budget.
Everything it took to get the movie to the opening weekend in the
theaters.
“El Mariachi” reportedly cost Rodriquez $7,000. But that wasn’t
the film we saw. By the time it hit the theaters Columbia had put
in a reported $300,000 in post work and $600,000 in advertising.
I don’t think it’s unfair to say “El Mariachi” is a $907,000 movie.
Just as I don’t think it’s unfair to call it a $7,000 movie.
The huge and very expensive marketing campaign is what drove
“Paranormal Activity” from a 12 screen/$77,000 first week to a 33
screen/$532,000 second week. It might be fair to include that in
its overall budget. Without that huge campaign it may have ended
up like “The Providence Effect” which opened on the same day on
the same amount of screens.
We aren’t using that film in any examples.
Everything it took to get the movie to the opening weekend in the
theaters.
“El Mariachi” reportedly cost Rodriquez $7,000. But that wasn’t
the film we saw. By the time it hit the theaters Columbia had put
in a reported $300,000 in post work and $600,000 in advertising.
I don’t think it’s unfair to say “El Mariachi” is a $907,000 movie.
Just as I don’t think it’s unfair to call it a $7,000 movie.
The huge and very expensive marketing campaign is what drove
“Paranormal Activity” from a 12 screen/$77,000 first week to a 33
screen/$532,000 second week. It might be fair to include that in
its overall budget. Without that huge campaign it may have ended
up like “The Providence Effect” which opened on the same day on
the same amount of screens.
We aren’t using that film in any examples.
It just depends on what you're seeing it as. I've always seen it as the 7K cash feature thatgot this guy into larger budgets and noticed.
Whatever the studio did afterward, that was adifferent story. That part would matter more to me as a studio or distributor versus a no name no money filmmaker. But different eyes and ears for different people.
The budget thing is much hairier though because I keep hearing that revealing a cash budget may cause you to lose money when it comes time to sell. We may follow the path of those before and erase te budget from the net, then do one with what we would've paid for everything.
Whatever the studio did afterward, that was adifferent story. That part would matter more to me as a studio or distributor versus a no name no money filmmaker. But different eyes and ears for different people.
The budget thing is much hairier though because I keep hearing that revealing a cash budget may cause you to lose money when it comes time to sell. We may follow the path of those before and erase te budget from the net, then do one with what we would've paid for everything.
Agreed.
I see the budget issue as what it takes to get the movie
into the theaters - not as what a filmmaker spends. This
is the number beginning filmmakers fixate on. As if there
is a number that can be, or should be, spent in order to
get a film into a festival.
Again I agree. That part matters to me as a filmmaker because
I know a distributor looks at a movie I make with those numbers
in their head.
I have heard this and there may some truth to it. But I don't think
there is. Your example of “The Signal” is why I feel there is no truth
to it. I don’t think Magnolia would have paid more if the budget had
been $160,000 or less if it had been $6,000. No way to know for sure,
just a gut feeling I have based on decades of talking to distributors.
Magnolia liked the film, felt they could make money on it and had a
purchase range. And that range was based on what they believed
they could earn back and subject to negotiation with the sales agent
and not contingent on the budget.
Why budget info is removed from the web is a different matter. Is it
the filmmakers doing it - do they have that power? Or is it the distributor?
I don’t know. Why, after the sale, would the filmmakers have their
original budget removed from the web? Again, I don’t know. What I
do know is I have never been in a negotiation with a distributor that
included the budget of the movie. Except when it comes to the distributor
offering $10,000 and the filmmaker saying, “But we spent $25,000.”
If that really was the case wouldn’t Magnolia offer $200,000 for the
60k “The Signal”? That’s a pretty good payday for the filmmakers.
Where we are in agreement (again) is that no matter what the actual
out of pocket budget is and what the purchase price is, getting distribution
from a major distributor is likely to lead to another deal and more money.
So if a filmmaker makes a movie for 17k, sells it for 10k and then gets
a 2.5 million budget for their next movie, that's a good thing.
If my name were Robert Rodriguez and I was making my little film called El Mariachi I would have a $7000 budget to make a film that's good enough for studios/distributors to want to invest in post production and marketing.
I think what harmonica should be focusing on is the budget that it cost to make the film good.
The issue of expanding budgets is null and void for the filmmaker who just wants to make a good enough film to get that sort of backing. Like I have become famous for saying, it's a case of 'cross that bridge when you come to it'.
I think what harmonica should be focusing on is the budget that it cost to make the film good.
The issue of expanding budgets is null and void for the filmmaker who just wants to make a good enough film to get that sort of backing. Like I have become famous for saying, it's a case of 'cross that bridge when you come to it'.
Agreed. If you want to make the film, and have the budget you want ,you make the film. You take it one step at a time. Make the film, make the best you can make it-then you take it and see about marketing it.
IMO making the film is something you do because you want to-when you start going down the road of putting the cart before the horse (IE distributing becoming more important than the film itself) it's the wrong road to go down IMO.
I wonder...
I know there are two schools of thought on this and I know
both are valid. But at what point is thinking about distribution
before you shoot the right road? If not with your first feature
then with your second? Or should distribution never come into
consideration when making a feature?
I understand this in your opinion and there is no right or wrong.
Is there a point in your opinion when a filmmaker should think
of the horse as the distribution and the cart as the film?
Decide what you want to do/be first.
If you just want to make a feature that resonates with you, has a great story, etc and you don't care about making your money back. Then distribution shouldn't even be part of your thought process, and festivals the same.
If you want to actually recover your cost, distribution is probably one of the firsts in line to be settled on. Everything changes from there: if you're adamant about going theatrical then you're going to get a named actor, director, producer, etc. If you're adamant about selling a lot of territories then you aren't making a drama and probably not a horror movie, or war story, in this climate.
So on, so forth.
We had distribution first up when we decided on which one to go after... as we're all too broke to put money down and not at least break even. lol
If you just want to make a feature that resonates with you, has a great story, etc and you don't care about making your money back. Then distribution shouldn't even be part of your thought process, and festivals the same.
If you want to actually recover your cost, distribution is probably one of the firsts in line to be settled on. Everything changes from there: if you're adamant about going theatrical then you're going to get a named actor, director, producer, etc. If you're adamant about selling a lot of territories then you aren't making a drama and probably not a horror movie, or war story, in this climate.
So on, so forth.
We had distribution first up when we decided on which one to go after... as we're all too broke to put money down and not at least break even. lol
I think this is well said, and kind of answers what I would have to Directorik's wonderings
I think if you're just starting out, learning the ropes and/or it's about making what you want, and the financials aren't a concern, I agree with your thought.Now I also agree it' makes sense if you have a experience, and/or your mindset is "I want to get distributed, I want to make films that make money"-well, if you've got a plan to go with that (but then I would also ask does that affect the film you are making? Do you make decisions based on "what the audience wants to see" vs "I've got a vision I want to show".
I'd love to know (and Directorik and others can chime in with their expertise), when a movie is being made for big distribution into theatres with big budgets, does the "what will the audience think" enter into the equation? And if so how much? Or is it more "We've got X millions of dollar budget to make a film, and this is how we're making it"?
So many paths here.
Right, but one can't factor into ones budget on the supposition that there might be a cash injection sometime after you've completed the film and got distributors biting the line.
El Mariachi got a big boost by getting money put into post that helped out their audio and VFX issues- but if I'm making a film (even if I have confidence in my ability as a creative storyteller and the skills to attract distribution) I'm not going to make a film that has holes that need extra money added later on in order to plug.
I just think the overall budgets are an irrelevance on an indie filmmaking board like this. If Gareth Edwards hadn't got distribution for Monsters there'd still be a very impressive cut knocking about, even if it couldn't quite match the visual panache of the theatrical release.
El Mariachi got a big boost by getting money put into post that helped out their audio and VFX issues- but if I'm making a film (even if I have confidence in my ability as a creative storyteller and the skills to attract distribution) I'm not going to make a film that has holes that need extra money added later on in order to plug.
I just think the overall budgets are an irrelevance on an indie filmmaking board like this. If Gareth Edwards hadn't got distribution for Monsters there'd still be a very impressive cut knocking about, even if it couldn't quite match the visual panache of the theatrical release.
I've thought about it and I want to get distribution. But some movies here and there are distributed even though they don't have named people. Not movies like El Mariachi, where they decide to distribute them after they are made. But a movie like say... Oldboy, or Cell 211 got distribution without having named people. Or did those ones also work out the same way as El Mariachi?
Old Boy is a foreign property with foreign names. It's also not a low budget picture.
The gyst of it is, anyway, if you plan on getting notable distribution then you're going to have to plan on spending a lot of money. By notable we mean theatrical and more than likely earning money.
If you're not getting names in some capacity, resign yourself to low hanging and more realistic fruit, like getting distribution to break even.
I think this is well said, and kind of answers what I would have to Directorik's wonderings
Now I also agree it' makes sense if you have a experience, and/or your mindset is "I want to get distributed, I want to make films that make money"-well, if you've got a plan to go with that (but then I would also ask does that affect the film you are making? Do you make decisions based on "what the audience wants to see" vs "I've got a vision I want to show".
I'd love to know (and Directorik and others can chime in with their expertise), when a movie is being made for big distribution into theatres with big budgets, does the "what will the audience think" enter into the equation? And if so how much? Or is it more "We've got X millions of dollar budget to make a film, and this is how we're making it"?
So many paths here.
I know what you mean. And the answer for me, is a little both. The story I have is not what an audience will expect, but there a lot movies audiences loved, because it did what they weren't expecting. I hope to make one of those.
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Well since I'm in Canada, perhaps if I got my movie made, could I too release it to the U.S. as a foreign film with foreign names, the same way? Mine would be a low budget one too, so I don't see how Oldboy is any different there. I guess it doesn't have to be notable, but I want it to catch eyes and get some theatrical distribution like lot of foreign films in the US. It doesn't have to be a big American blockbuster, but I would like to be a worthy foreign film contender, at least.
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