The short film SAW landed Wan in Hollywood making films like "Saw" and "The Conjuring".
What are some techno thrillers shot for under $50K
- Thread starter harmonica44
- Start date
The short film SAW landed Wan in Hollywood making films like "Saw" and "The Conjuring".
Really? Go over to the screening room.
Needed for...
Zombie movies: Lotta make up & costumes, prop guts/brains, buckets of blood, couple guns & bludgeoning weapons + several cheap locations + run around a lot & a whole lotta "suspense."
Slasher movies: A big knife, a few costumes, buckets of blood + couple of cheap locations + run around a lot & a whole lotta "suspense."
Action movie: Cars to crash, property to destroy, knives & many guns + multiple locations, some cheap, some not + run around a lot, choreograph several intense hand to hand combat scenes + constant action story to justify all the effort.
Techno-thriller movie: Lotta actual tech props, lotta guns, multiple vehicles + multiple locations, some cheap, some not, but the more techno looking the better + run around a lot, choreograph several intense hand to hand combat scenes + constant action story to justify all the effort.
Slasher movies: A big knife, a few costumes, buckets of blood + couple of cheap locations + run around a lot & a whole lotta "suspense."
Action movie: Cars to crash, property to destroy, knives & many guns + multiple locations, some cheap, some not + run around a lot, choreograph several intense hand to hand combat scenes + constant action story to justify all the effort.
Techno-thriller movie: Lotta actual tech props, lotta guns, multiple vehicles + multiple locations, some cheap, some not, but the more techno looking the better + run around a lot, choreograph several intense hand to hand combat scenes + constant action story to justify all the effort.
Drama is cheap.
Action is not.
That's the difference.
Drama is cheap.
Action is not.
That's the difference.
Drama requires talent.
Action requires money.
Until you resolve this question any sort of discussion about making any sort of film is totally redundant.
Needed for...
Zombie movies: Lotta make up & costumes, prop guts/brains, buckets of blood, couple guns & bludgeoning weapons + several cheap locations + run around a lot & a whole lotta "suspense."
Slasher movies: A big knife, a few costumes, buckets of blood + couple of cheap locations + run around a lot & a whole lotta "suspense."
Action movie: Cars to crash, property to destroy, knives & many guns + multiple locations, some cheap, some not + run around a lot, choreograph several intense hand to hand combat scenes + constant action story to justify all the effort.
Techno-thriller movie: Lotta actual tech props, lotta guns, multiple vehicles + multiple locations, some cheap, some not, but the more techno looking the better + run around a lot, choreograph several intense hand to hand combat scenes + constant action story to justify all the effort.
Drama is cheap.
Action is not.
That's the difference.
Well as far as props go, it seems that action movies would just have more prop guns but I don't think that should take a huge chunk out of the budget, since the guns will just be props and the effects added in later.
The hand to hand combat scenes should not bee too much since I have a friend who is willing to teach SWAT to the actors he said, for very low pay.
I want to keep the car crashes and property destruction to a minimum. Basically I want to do this thriller but instead of a lot of destructive action, keep it low key but with suspenseful kills and chases, kind of like a slasher film. I think some people have assumed I want to make a really destructive action movie.
I watched the trailer to D4, and that movie looks like it may have more action in that what my script calls for. Their is even a helicopter shot of the Pentagon, and they show a helicopter land. I don't know if the helicopter was CGI or not, but I for one do not need choppers or aerial shots of Washington D.C. at all for my script, so would that make a difference? Either way I am impressed. I was told on here that my script would require milliions and it looks like D4 does a decent job on it's budget, and has just as much production value as I would be looking for I guess.
However, D4 by the looks of it wants to be a movie that is about special effects, and not quite as big on story. I just want to tell a story and use the special effects and low key action scenes to help, rather than try to sell the effects as the primary and story second. But that is only what I gather from the D4 trailer.
So if I've understood correctly, you started this thread by saying you wanted to create something like 24, which is one of the highest quality and best high octane, action-thrillers ever made for the small screen. Your solution to the problem of the very serious money it costs to achieve commercial standards in this genre is to make a low octane film with very little action and very few thrills. In other words, not a high octane action-thriller and absolutely nothing like 24 whatsoever?! The example you are now giving (D4) couldn't be more different from the sophistication of 24. It looks like a self distributed DVD which currently rates 3.5 on IMDb and from the trailer looks and sounds exactly as you would expect of a film with a budget 1,000 times lower than 24, yet you said that you were impressed??!
H44, you just don't seem to be making any sense. The implication is that you can hardly tell the difference between what looks like a typically crap, tiny budget B movie and one of the biggest budget and well executed action thrillers ever made for the small screen. Please tell me this isn't so and that the hundreds of replies you've received on this and other threads haven't been a complete waste of everyone's time!
G
H44, you just don't seem to be making any sense. The implication is that you can hardly tell the difference between what looks like a typically crap, tiny budget B movie and one of the biggest budget and well executed action thrillers ever made for the small screen. Please tell me this isn't so and that the hundreds of replies you've received on this and other threads haven't been a complete waste of everyone's time!
G
Just to expand upon APEs audio post budget comments......
My specialty is low/no/mini/micro budget projects. On the average it takes me as a one-man-band about 600 hours to do the audio post on a 100 minute feature project, just a basic drama. There's no weapons play (maybe one or two gunshots), very simple vehicle cues, and no stunts except perhaps a face slap or a body fall.
Even at a very low rate of, say, $25 per hour, the audio post budget is $15,000, almost a third of your entire budget. Let's say you find some newbie willing to do it for $10 per hour; that's still $6,000 or 12% of your budget. And that does not include the theatrical mix.
My specialty is low/no/mini/micro budget projects. On the average it takes me as a one-man-band about 600 hours to do the audio post on a 100 minute feature project, just a basic drama. There's no weapons play (maybe one or two gunshots), very simple vehicle cues, and no stunts except perhaps a face slap or a body fall.
Even at a very low rate of, say, $25 per hour, the audio post budget is $15,000, almost a third of your entire budget. Let's say you find some newbie willing to do it for $10 per hour; that's still $6,000 or 12% of your budget. And that does not include the theatrical mix.
Harmonicas Swat Training....
Harmonicas Swat Training....
Is he the hand or the fly?
24 doesn't have much action in though. Usually the most action you will get out of an episode is, some SWAT guys bust in a room and a few people get shot in a few seconds, maybe a minute, depending on the episode. It is very low key. I can only judge D4 by the trailer. I have not seen the movie. I guess I just thought showing a low key action scene where a few people get shot is easy. If you watch 24, there are a lot episodes that don't have much action, especially in the early seasons, where you could have 4 go buy and no action.
When I say I want to do 24 without big action, I mean it's like 24 in that the plot is similar. Federal agents, are on a ticking clock to stop terrorists, who have already done a lot of damage, and they are willing to break laws and red tape to do it. It's like 24 in that sense, cause I wanted to compare it to something as an example. But I never saw 24 as having big action really. Just some small low key shootouts here and there and fighting kills here and there.
And I mean to say that D4 looked like a good movie from the trailer, I was just impressed with things like having a helicopter, aerial shots of the Pentagon, and shootouts. You can take those things and make a better movie with it, can't ya?
I think it all depends on who you hire really. Their is an audio engineer who is doing my friends movie, 30 minutes, and he only asked for 1000, and that was for the whole thing. He's a pro who has been hired to do television commercials so far, and so far the movie sounds pretty good, better than Primer anyway, and I use that as an example since Primer was an independent hit.\
Well I told the actors I do not have the budget for it. They do not want to do a short film of it though. They said they would do the feature, but a short would not be near as good. I will try to find others for it.
Last edited:
No, 24 is not "very low key", it's the exact opposite, it's a fast paced, high octane action-thriller. It may be less action and more thriller but to create the pace and energy which makes a thriller thrilling is difficult and expensive. You need a high edit density with lots of complex shots which contain movement and energy and then you need a large, highly skilled audio post team to enhance the energy, pace and visual complexity. These shots may not be as expensive/complex as high action shots but they are still way more difficult and expensive than a simple two person drama set in a sitting room and the vast majority of your film has to be made thrilling, not just one or two scenes! Take away the action, take away the complexity of the visuals/audio and the pace and energy which is what differentiates a thriller from a simple drama and what you are left with is a simple drama, NOT an thriller, action film or action-thriller. Surely this is not hard to understand?!
It does depend on who you hire and on the genre of the film and on the quality you want to end up with. Take Alcove's example of the 100 min basic drama. 600 hours is quite a reasonable amount of audio post time for an acceptable quality end product. So this audio "pro" you're talking about is either working for about $1.67 an hour or is putting in significantly fewer hours, either way, this is nowhere near what anyone would seriously call a "pro" and cannot result in anything near "pro" quality! So again, I question what you consider "sounds pretty good" to actually be and I doubt it sounds better than Primer which spent 2 years in post production. And, Primer had very poor sound which ended up making it feel more like a low budget drama than the thriller it was intended to be. For an action, thriller or action-thriller you would need to multiply this 600 hour figure at least 2-4 times (or by about 40 times if you want something of high commercial quality)! What is it you want to make H44, a low budget drama or a crap thriller?
G
Last edited:
Actually even though I consider the plot to be similar to 24, I would not want to shoot it at all like 24. 24 relies on a bunch of cuts and whip pans, in it's dialogue scenes. I would shoot the dialogue scenes mostly in an old fashion way, with a master shot, and a close up for each character in a scene. There would be other shots that would be necessary, like showing what's on a computer screen for example, but I would keep the shot list to a minimum cause we would be on a budget and tight schedule. I wouldn't have near as many shots as the TV series.
There are a lot of movies that are thrillers though, that do not have near as many shots. I would have to shoot it more of an older school style that relies a lot on mastershots, rather than constant close ups, from different angles all over. Of course there will still be close ups to cut too, just not near as many angles of them.
If this makes it a drama instead of a thriller than maybe it's a drama. I just thought it was a thriller since it's federal agents vs. terrorists and a lot of them end up killing each other, which leads to other consequences, with a race against time plot. I'm not the best with genres I guess and I wrote the script without really labeling it a drama or a thriller. I guess I just assumed it was suspense/thriller.
As far as audio post goes, I can try raising another 15,000 or more in time.
There are a lot of movies that are thrillers though, that do not have near as many shots. I would have to shoot it more of an older school style that relies a lot on mastershots, rather than constant close ups, from different angles all over. Of course there will still be close ups to cut too, just not near as many angles of them.
If this makes it a drama instead of a thriller than maybe it's a drama. I just thought it was a thriller since it's federal agents vs. terrorists and a lot of them end up killing each other, which leads to other consequences, with a race against time plot. I'm not the best with genres I guess and I wrote the script without really labeling it a drama or a thriller. I guess I just assumed it was suspense/thriller.
As far as audio post goes, I can try raising another 15,000 or more in time.
Last edited:
What you describe sounds exactly like an action-thriller. How you would make an action-thriller filmed as a very low budget drama work to the point that it's actually marketable, I have no idea. On the face of it, you would most likely end up with a thriller which is so poorly paced as to be un-sellable, ie., a crap thriller! I'm not saying it's utterly impossible but it will at least require some exceptionally innovative film making. This is why most very low budget film makers who know what they are doing avoid action-thrillers!
G
Okay thanks. I didn't think it would be poorly paced though. I tried to throw in as much plot and twists and turns as possible to keep the audience, on the edge and guessing. I tried to write it so that every line of dialogue has a purpose and their is no wasted moments. I've been told by the two actors that script has much more of a plot, that is tighter packed than usual and keeps them guessing compared to other scripts which they have read. Of course they could have been telling me that to flatter me, hoping I would make the movie and cast them.
But I don't think pacing is the problem. I just thought I'd do the action like a slasher movie and have a lot of low key running around, but with some gunfire, since cops carry guns, so you can't logically avoid that. I figure d if I don't have the high enough budget, I might as well do a movie with slasher budget sequences, but with a plot that is not like a slasher movie, and involves a lot more twists and turns than you would find in one. I was hoping audiences would find that refreshing, but I guess not.
But I don't think pacing is the problem. I just thought I'd do the action like a slasher movie and have a lot of low key running around, but with some gunfire, since cops carry guns, so you can't logically avoid that. I figure d if I don't have the high enough budget, I might as well do a movie with slasher budget sequences, but with a plot that is not like a slasher movie, and involves a lot more twists and turns than you would find in one. I was hoping audiences would find that refreshing, but I guess not.
Last edited:
Pacing is ALWAYS a problem in filmmaking!! Thinking and stating otherwise is just demonstrating your inexperience. Twists and turns in the plot is one thing, translating that into a thriller paced film is something entirely different. You don't want to listen to the advice you have been given, that's entirely your choice of course. I suggest you go ahead and try and make your film and find out for yourself. One last piece of advice though, make a short first, that way you won't blow your whole $50k in one go!
G