So what the hell are the breakdowns of low budget???

M

MaximusXXX

I've always considered films under $100,000 to be ultra low budget pictures.

We all here understand that you can make a quality film under that budget with the technology available to us, but that it will undeniably be an indie production.

Now, a $20,000 film to me is considered on the lower-tier of ultra low-budget, but then I here many people telling me these figures, while low, are low in relative terms to big name productions, not ultra-low budget in quality.



And it gets me thinking. 50 million pictures do not cost 50 million to make. They are often makeable for a fraction of the price, if of course the big name actors aren't there and massive legal fees are not required.


That said, how do we breakdown low budget pictures by price-tag??


For me:


Low Budget Premium-$100-$500,000
Ultra Low Budget-$50-$99,000
Minute Budget-$10-$49,0000
No Budget-Under $10,000
 
Generally, a low budget feature is seen as anything with a budget less than about $5million.

I was listening to an interview with Australian Director Scott Hicks about The Lucky Ones starring Zac Efron. It was made for $25million.

He was saying the studio execs balked when he told them they could make it for that much. He said to them 'we do things different in Australia, we can make this for much cheaper'.

So they put the script out there and attracted the interest of Zac and Taylor Schilling based on the script alone. He said they didn't pay them stupid sums of money, didn't have personal trainers and jet allowances and all of that sort of stuff.
They made it conservatively and (relatively) cheaply.

Conversely, look at a movie like The Lord of the Rings trilogy. IIRC, the budget for that was ~$200million. If you watch the BTS documentaries, you'll hear people like Serkis and Lesnie talk about how it's the 'highest budget low-budget film ever made'. They're keeping people in sheds because they couldn't afford anything better. They've got people outside the 'studio' they were shooting in on 'plane watch' radioing in every time there was a plane coming over that they had to pause production for, because that's where they had to shoot.

There's candid footage of a blow up in Production department between the UPM and the 1st AD because the 2nd AD needs to come in on one of the weekend non-work days to get everything sorted for the shoot week, and the UPM doesn't want to pay her for the extra day.

It really depends on the movie. You can't have a blanket statement that says 'all 50 million dolalr movies do not cost 50 million dollars to make'. That's also forgetting that they may not even be popular enough to make back the 5million spent on it if they didn't have the actors that were paid $10mil each to be in it. Who knows.

For me, anything under $100,000 is ultra low budget, at least in the industry here - you rarely see that many movies over $2million dollars made, except for those American studio films that are shot down here.
 
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MaximusXXX said:
. . . how do we breakdown low budget pictures by price-tag??

For me:

Low Budget Premium-$100-$500,000
Ultra Low Budget-$50-$99,000
Minute Budget-$10-$49,0000
No Budget-Under $10,000
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To me NO BUDGET means just that . . . nothing spent on production. No paid cast or crew. Props and wardrobe entirely from what you can beg, borrow, or already own. All equipment used, same deal. Just pick up a camera and shoot.

I'd call anything from $100 to $10,000 a Micro-Budget.

But really, when you get into the $100k to $1-Million range for a "low-budget" union indie, how much of it actually shows up on-screen as production value versus how much gets eaten up by lawyers, insurance, fees and permits, and pay for nonessential crew - things you don't have on non-union Minute or Micro Budget pictures?
 
Fiveacre Films said:
But really, when you get into the $100k to $1-Million range for a "low-budget" union indie, how much of it actually shows up on-screen as production value versus how much gets eaten up by lawyers, insurance, fees and permits, and pay for nonessential crew - things you don't have on non-union Minute or Micro Budget pictures?
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I'm not sure exactly what 'nonessential crew' are. And why do they not deserve to get paid?

As well, insurance, fees, permits etc. - they're all essential really. You can 'get away with it' on 0 budget by being careful, but realistically you're more exposed financially if you don't have insurance compared to a production that does.

You seem to misunderstand the difference between a movie and a great movie. Yes, the location that the $1mil budget movie paid for might cost a lot more than the location you got on your $100 budget movie. But they paid for it because it was the right location, rather than the easy/cheap/close location.
 
jax_rox said:
I'm not sure exactly what 'nonessential crew' are. And why do they not deserve to get paid?

You seem to misunderstand the difference between a movie and a great movie.
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I didn't mean I wouldn't pay certain crew. I meant I wouldn't hire any nonessential crew in the first place - like personal assistants and stand-ins for every single cast member. Those things are nice, but you don't need them to make a good film. I'm talking about a crew of 6-8 versus a crew of 25-30 on a large production.

The difference between a movie and a great movie is the script and the director. Money can help, but it's not essential.
 
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Fiveacre Films said:
I didn't mean I wouldn't pay certain crew. I meant I wouldn't hire any nonessential crew in the first place - like personal assistants and stand-ins for every single cast member. Those things are nice, but you don't need them to make a good film. I'm talking about a crew of 6-8 versus a crew of 25-30 on a large production.

The difference between a movie and a great movie is the script and the director. Money can help, but it's not essential.
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I think you'd struggle to find a $1mil feature that hires personal assistants and stand ins for every actor. In fact, I'd suggest that 25-30 is a small crew. Most shorts I've worked on (even small, low budgeters) have a crew of 10-15 - your camera department is going to be 3 people, and Production department is going to be 2... Sound will often be 2 - there's 7 right there!

Of course money isn't essential, but I disagree that $mil features are full of unnecessary crew like stand-ins. Maybe on $100mil features..
 
The difference between a movie and a great movie is the script and the director.
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There is so much more than that, but I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion... just like what I just did there... ;)
 
I can see the point that Fiveacre Films is making, and to an extent I agree with him. You can have millions upon millions of dollars spent on a single film and still have it be crap. Conversely, I've seen movies made for $10K by people no one has ever heard of that have impressed the Hell out of me.

So, yes, a good script and a great director have more to do with getting a good end product than a large budget.

That being said, having the money to get what you need on schedule makes things a LOT easier. It can also help to lure more talented people to your production. Trying to beg borrow and steal what you need only slows you down and in many cases, makes you settle for less than what you originally envisioned.

But, if you take that into account when you're writing, you can get around a lot of those problems. And having those issues can also inspire you to come up with a solution that's better than what you originally thought of.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's a crap shoot either way... ;)
 
man... if only i had 100,000..... could probably make 10-50 feature length movies... most of the money would go towards supporting me so i could quit my day job and work on them...
 
I think the essential budget points should be the equipment you're using (rental preferred), music and believe it or not, actor fees.


I think lower budget films should concentrate on heavy dialogue because let's face it, the glitz just isn't there.

To make sure these heavy dialogue scenes are done right, you need reliable actors. I think dealing with actors who have realistic perspective and who want to work on the project is rather easy.

Contracts such as $1,000 for 12 days of shooting for example are worth it.



If you have a dedicated crew, you can film a feature in under 20 days. It helps to have some of the crew be the main actors for obvious reasons.


One breakdown for a $6,000 film I saw:


$2,000 on used camera, good quality.
$2,400 on actors.
$1,200 on post production.
 
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