The Wrap has a fascinating guest blog from Joshua Caldwell about his first feature, ‘Layover.’
The angle is that they made it for $6,000.
Having worked on bigger budget films, Joshua relates how he decided he could make his film for much less.
“…my thinking flipped from ‘I need a lot of money’ to ‘How little can I get away with?’ I had everything I needed to make a film: actors, cameras, locations, editing systems, and so on. I thought back to an idea I had about a young woman stuck in Los Angeles on a layover and thought it might be a concept easily executed for very little money.”
He goes on to reveal his approach:
A. Modular Storytelling. Craft a story that can be scaled up or down depending on your budget.
B. An Appropriate Camera. Sometimes a DSLR makes more sense than a RED.
C. Great Sound. Record clear sound. Get good music. Mix them well.
Joshua concludes:
I believe that we have to think more like YouTubers. We have to:
1) Cultivate an audience by creating and delivering consistent content. Doesn’t have to be every day but say bye-bye to spending four years focused on making and selling only one movie. Your audience won’t remember you.
2) Make that content at a responsible budget level so that a ROI is possible through direct-to-customer distribution on a network you’ve built by building and rewarding your audience.
The current state of indie film is in flux and there are new and every growing opportunities available if you’re willing to move beyond the traditional approach and think differently.”
My take: At this point, the financial cost of movies should not be news. Everyone should know you can make a film for next-to-nothing or for millions. (Count the number of people in the credits to get a good idea of the size of the budget.) Beyond cost, insiders can readily calculate the value of the film. This attaches dollar amounts to all the donated services and equipment, multiplied by the evident quality of the film (what it looks like and, more importantly, what it sounds like.) Nevertheless a film is only worth what it can be sold for. This is the territory this blog covers; who is your audience today? Once upon a time it was a distributor in each of many well-defined windows. Today, who knows? We’re still coming up with a new model, even as the old model clings on. ‘Layover’ is going the direct-to-viewer route, using Vimeo On Demand and Gumroad. Lots of other models exist. What’s working for you?