Dave, clearly you did not read my response to John's original post.
Here is what I posted in reply:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~
John:
And I'd like to see Federer, Nadal, the Williams Sisters, etc. play a
tournament with wooden rackets. The problem is that there is no
incentive for highly successful filmmakers to go 'guerilla' on us to
prove your point. They could most likely do it. Spielberg made DUEL
for $450,000 in 1971 which was likely about $200,000 in 1960 dollars
and Christopher Nolan made MEMENTO for $5,000,000 40 years after
PSYCHO which was likely close to $1,000,000 in 1960 dollars. Point
being, we expand to our budgets personally and professionally. These
guys are filmmakers no less than Hitchcock was. All nostalgia aside,
John, I think your question is still interesting but I'd like to
extend it to the group in this fashion where a certain Director did
exactly what you propose:
In the 1940's, a director sought to prove to the studios that he
could produce a film within the system on budget and on time. He not
only came in on time but was under budget:
What was the film's title? And who was the Director?
Those who know me have a built-in advantage.
Patrick
ps: I'm completely serious about wanting to see a 'wooden racket'
tennis tournament!
On Jul 22, 2008, at 2:35 PM, David Kusumoto wrote:
** Spielberg did this 15 years ago. He began shooting what was
thought to be an "unbankable" Holocaust picture in March 1993 --
that made it to theaters by December. It took him 10 weeks, cost
$22 million, a pittance by Spielbergian standards, 33-years after
"Psycho." He ended up with a three hour, "mostly" black-and-white
picture with no zooms, steadicams, cranes or "Spielberg camera
tricks," near zero post-production time. "E.T" was the only other
Spielberg release considered made on the "cheap" for $10 million,
but that was in 1982. The budget for "The Dark Knight" is said to
be $180 million plus. I doubt Spielberg himself could shoot a
modest "epic" in many locations for under $30 million today, unless
it was a documentary w/less expensive foreign production crews.
** What would be intriguing, though, which gets to your point -- is
whether Spielberg could do a "Sundance-type" film in the U.S. --
with no stars or sets, armed only with a talky script. Oscar-
winning director Peter Jackson shoots his action films "down under"
because of cost. Imagine how much they'd cost if shot in the
U.S.? This is why I'm extremely curious with what Jackson will do
with his next film, "The Lovely Bones" (now in post production),
which is based on the 2002 mega-bestselling book by Alice Sebold --
a modest "talky" story about a small American town -- narrated
throughout by a 14-year old girl who's murdered on page one.
-kuz.
> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:45:38 +1000
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: I saw THE DARK KNIGHT tonight. . .
> To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
>
> I just returned from seeing The Dark Knight this afternoon and
although it
> was reasonably entertaining I have to wonder if a really
successful movie
> can be made today without throwing truckloads of money into the
project and
> relying almost totally on whiz bang special effects and mass
destruction of
> cars, buildings etc etc.
>
> I also thought that it was a little remiss of the director that
in a number
> of scenes it was very hard to hear what Gary Oldman was saying. I
actually
> have no idea what he said in the fairly key final scenes, bearing
in mind
> that his were the last words of the movie, and the people I saw
the movie
> with made the same comment.
>
> In 1960 Hitchcock made a movie with his TV crew for a budget of
under a
> million dollars and shot the film in a matter of weeks. If it
hadnt been for
> the shower scene, he would have completed the project even
quicker. I would
> like to see one of the major directors like Spielberg, or
Christopher Nolan,
> make a film with a low budget and see what they could come up with.
>
> Regards
> John
>
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