As someone who's primarily a writer these days, you won't get me to
diminish the role of writers in making films. But, alas, it is a director's
medium -- if in only that the studios tend to defer to the director. The
budgets are set by the companies and the director -- no matter how big or
small or independent the company. They say how much they'll spend, the
director argues for how much "he" needs. And they'll tell the writer to make
changes if what he's written doesn't work with the budget. (Of course, to a
great extent, you can shoot most anything on most any budget. How good
the locations will look -- does it look like Hawaii or Descanso Gardens? --
or how good the effects are or how good the actors are (not that you can't
find good actors who don't charge a lot) will vary, but you can shoot the
script for the budget you have.
I've been told on very low budget projects that the company can't take a
picture that's under $10 million. I tell them we can make it for $10 million.
No problem. It was designed for $5 million but we can spend more, hire
bigger name actors, pay ourselves more, do fancier effects, go on location
rather than the backlot, etc. But they want you to come in with their budget
range already on paper. They don't like the idea that you can change the
film expenses to match the budget...
Craig.
At 09:21 PM 7/22/2008, Alan Adler wrote:
Just want to add this note from another perspective.
All this director talk...
It's the writer that sets the budget -
You write big, you write small -
The director interprets, but he sure ain't the be all and end of
making a picture what it is!
Alan
On Jul 22, 2008, at 8:42 PM, Robert D. Brooks wrote:
So, if $20 million is a 'low budget,' this is what I did with about
1/8th of 1% of that amount (meaning I would have to make this movie
almost 1,000 times - just to have a budget high enough to be
considered 'low')... Although, I'll warn anyone that dares click:
NSFW (it is a Troma-film after all, so don't come crying to me
if...)! ;o)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTMoKB9Zk0E
Cheers,
Bob
PS. Note to Craig: You may just notice a couple names in the
credits there: one is currently the chairman of the Independent Film
and TV Alliance and the other is the head of the oldest independent
film studio in existence, so while I may not have your 30 years in
the business (only about 20 here), understand that I do know what
I'm talking about! And, just to prove I'm right:
http://www.imdb.com/List?year=2008
You'll notice that there are about 12,000 movies listed there - just
from the last 6 months (and they only list a fraction of all the
movies made - very few student films, foreign
films, ultra-low- budget films, etc...). I
guess I should be expecting an apology?...
----- Original Message ----- From: Craig Miller
To: Robert D. Brooks
Cc: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Can a major director shoot an "epic" on a low
budget?
You're missing the point. You're wrong about the number of movies
made.
Your numbers all seem to be wild guesses and you haven't specified if
you're talking about feature length films or including all lengths
and formats.
I can only believe you're doing the latter because your numbers are
just
way, way off for the former. (And what makes you think each film
festival
gets applications for a completely different group of films? Sundance
requires it hasn't been shown anywhere else before them but most
festivals have no such rule. And they don't say films can't play
other
festivals after them.)
Please don't insult us by suggesting that only you are so smart as
to know
about films not made by the Hollywood studios or that we don't know
about
low budget films. I assure you, that isn't the case.
And if you think the super low budget filmmakers all make wonderful
movies, you clearly haven't seen a significant enough percentage of
them.
A large percentage of the indies are godawful. As are the majority of
studio pictures. But they don't suddenly become good because they're
made with low low budgets.
I've been in this business over 30 years now and I've worked with
and seen
pictures at all different budget levels. The budget -- high or low
-- isn't what
makes them good.
Craig.
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