$60,000 1970s dollars is a "micro-budget"?
Who paid for it?
Who paid for it?
A budget of 1% the average counts as “micro.”
$7000 budget in 1992 that made director Robert Rodriguez famous, and happens to be a good movie.
Both Primer and El Mariachi are excellent, excellent examples of how to make a quality movie on a tight budget.
But really, they helped a friend - or family member - make a movie. I would help a friend make a movie. And I'd be thrilled if he made it big. Granted, I have the luxury of having a steady job - and of not having movie making be my career. But still.
I mean, I get what you're saying. But let's look at Robert Rodriguez and the cast of El Mariachi. He put several of them in Desperado, and I bet they got paid working money for that.
Looking through the cast of El Mariachi, it looks to me like every single one of them who made any other movies, also made movies with Robert Rodriguez. It seems like if they wanted to act, Rodriguez helped them get work. I don't know that for sure, but that's what Googling the results looks like.
Maybe it shows that I work in the field and get asked to do these all the time. Sometimes I do them, but it’s just sponsoring promising talent.
Oh man, yeah. Getting asked to do free labor in your field is rough. Sympathies.
It's more! That's part of what makes it impressive.
You can come at it from the perspective of "It's merely an accounting trick and slave labor" but I think that's missing it for what it is. Most art is created without an expected paycheck. Movies especially are collaborative and everyone involved in small indie projects with no budgets knew there were working for little to no pay. You think the actors, camera man, lighting and set guys, were all thinking they were going to make a bunch in the box office from Dark Star / Mariachi? Likely not. They probably were thinking they'd try their shot at exposure. Actors might get recognized and get a career out of it, or not. Film crew at least had something on their resume. It's not like the directors (Cameron, Rodriguez) were making any promises they couldn't keep.
I have a friend who works on low budget films, and it's a struggle. The directors are usually passionate and put in a lot of work, but also get all the credit and rewards if it succeeds. There's a budget, but it's mostly spent on paying travel expenses for out of state actors or for props and equipment and it's taken very personally if any background person want to be paid. "You'd take away from the quality of the movie just for your personal benefit! how greedy!" And in general expecting people with much less stake in the film to be just as invested and willing to sacrifice as they are without any of the upside.
Nah, he did 95% of the work. I just put on some facepaint and shambled and moaned a little.
just saying that people who are expected to put in significant hours to semiprofessional low budget movies sometimes feel exploited. if you don't for yours hell yeah
What about Kevin Smith with Clerks? Yes he got the IP and ostensibly the $/career but he's also brought basically everyone involved in that film with him along for his ride and continues to give them work in sequels/podcasts/tv shows etc.
It can be done ethically but to your point it doesn't seem to often be the case.
I would guess only around .1 % of the US population would ever get this kind opportunity and we are one of the richest countries in the world.