You guys don't seem to be getting my point: If 99.9% of all the films that
get made in any given year have a budget less than $5 or 10 million - you
can't go calling $20 million 'low budget' -even if it is low by Hollywood
standards (and do you really think that I don't know what the average
Hollywood budget is nowadays or how many films they put out in a year???).
Hollywood isn't the only game in town! You guys (like seemingly everyone
else on Earth) only consider big-budget Hollywood films 'films' - every
other film doesn't even exist in your world. Your world only consists of
those 2-400 films a year that Hollywood puts out, not ALL of the movies put
out in total... That's doing a great disservice to the film-makers,
writers, actors and crews out there around the world (who do a far, far
better job, dollar-for-dollar, than Hollywood does)!
And, to clarify for you, they make somewhere between 2 and 5 thousand films
a year - in Canada alone! The Toronto Film Festival gets something like
5-800 applications each year from just Canadian indie films (and only a tiny
fraction of films will get submitted). Vancouver gets another 4 or 500.
Consider that the US is ten times the size (as well as Europe, Australia and
Asia - we'll even exclude Bollywood just to even things out), and my numbers
are probably quite conservative actually. There's likely well over 1 or
200,000 English language films made each year. But, as I said, those other
199,800 don't matter to you, so they might as well not exist...
Cheers,
Bob
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Can a major director shoot an "epic" on a low budget?
What is "low budget" depends on who you talk to. $10-20 million is
moderately low. For a studio level film, it's positively tiny. Even for
a lot of small companies, it's considered low budget. I've dealt with
companies that if a film isn't over $10 million, they won't consider
distributing it because it's way too low. (An average studio film is
over $65 million, for comparison. So, no, $10-20 is not "ridiculously
high". Except in the absolute sense of why should they cost so much.
But the fact is that they do.)
But for people not at the studio level, $10 million is toward the high
end. $2-3 million is about the range for most "independent" low
budget films. Ones that actually have a likelihood of making a deal
for distribution.
Absolutely there are films made for less. $400,000-$1,000,000 is
the range for low budget TV movies, such as those that air on Sci Fi
Channel (and then get sold on DVD or get some theatrical distribution
in Europe). And there are films made for a lot less. But those rarely
are of a quality -- in terms of acting, lighting, sound, etc. -- to get
any
sort of distribution.
Also, I doubt very strongly that there are "50,000+ English language
movies are made every year". I doubt there are that many in all
languages made in a given year. Unless you're including shorts and
internet videos and student films, etc.
Craig.
At 05:09 PM 7/22/2008, Robert D. Brooks wrote:
What on Earth are you guys talking about?!? You're talking about 'low
budget' as if $10 or 20 million was LOW! That's not a low budget, that's
a ridiculously high, Hollywood budget! A million or less is a low budget.
A hundred thousand or less is a shoe-string budget. Here's a clue: if
there are major stars in it and a full union cast and crew, it's not 'low
budget!' Probably 50,000+ English language movies are made every year, and
far less than 1% of those have a budget over 5 or 10 million...
Cheers,
Bob
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