Comment by Keyframe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Keyframe | Hacker News Reader

$250,000 is next to nothing for a movie budget. It can't be done. Here is why. Aside actual pre-production, production and post-production costs (which COULD be done for $250,000 - though more realistic budget is $2-3 mil), there is a print distribution cost which can get REALLY high.

Distribution copies are expensive, about $1200 per reel copy if you are really lucky (multiply with about at least 1200 screens for a moderate indie flick (about $1.5 mil).

If you think targeting digital distribution sites is another option - think again. You still pay print copy equivalent expense, but not to the print service company, but to the actual screen venue. This is a ploy George Lucas "invented" and pushed onto screening venues in order to push the cost of digital screens to the distribution companies instead of the screening venues. This will last for at least 5 years from when the venue bought digital screening platform.

Then, there is a marketing cost. In A+ budget titles it is in the order of $30-40+ mil. So when you hear about, I don't know, Spiderman 4 having a budget of $200 mil., it means about 60% of that is marketing and distribution cost.

Now, let's turn focus on actual production costs.

SAG, WGA, DGA - all have a different perspective of what low budget means. There are different categories of low budget titles, and based upon those categories there is a minimum wage you have to pay to actors, screenwriters (treatment, script, whatnot), director, etc... What this means, if you live in some area of USA where those guilds operate is that you are illegal production if you don't pay those minimum wages based on your budget. I have somewhere those scales, if anyone is interesting I can follow up my post and present them.

tl;dr; $250k budget is not realistic. Too many people have worked on this problem already and smallest realistic budget for a visible project is in the order of $2-5 mil.

This is only true if you are the owner of or have a deal with the distribution pipeline ahead of production. The indie route, flawed as it is, is to produce the film (as in, end up with an answer print or digital master in a industry-standard format), take it to festivals and film markets, and sell it to distributor. The distributor will put up the money for P&A, and keep the lion's share of receipts.

Many indie producers lack a proper distribution strategy or fail to budget properly for post, mastering, or marketing - which can mean marketing to distributors as well as the general public. but if you have a good post crew and you have budgeted for your deliverables, then $25k of the $250 for marketing may be enough to get it sold, assuming a great script and the approval of the film gods.

Of course, the likelihood of the investors making any actual profit on such a deal is very small, since the makers have now exposed their production budget and the distributor thus has no incentive to pay more than that unless the film is awesome and a bidding war ensues (you might as well buy a lottery ticket as count on that, of course). Equally, it's very unlikely they'll be able to negotiate a percentage of gross and it will be a long time before they see any net. On the upside, the marketing method is already generating buzz for the film at almost no cost, simply by virtue of us discussing it.

You can make a film for very little and go straight to DVD. DVD is where the real money is: the theatrical run is unprofitable for a great many films, but it validates the film as a Real Movie in the eyes of the public, and there's a very good chance people will rent a film later even if they're too lazy/cheap to go watch it in the theater.

Without a theatrical release or prominent festival entry it's much harder, but not impossible, to make money by releasing on DVD. A $250k film can break even after 3-5 years if it's of middling quality; the distributor may pay $75k up front and then royalties.

If you have the required craziness to make a sub-$50k film that isn't irredeemably crap, they'll probably buy it outright - and as a producer or director, it's better to have something out there with your name on it, even if it is mediocre. It's a lot easier to get money for the second film, when you can truthfully say 'my debut film, derivative horror flick, is distributed by Lion's Gate'.

rian johnson's "brick", which won an award at sundance, was made for $450,000 on 35mm. then it was sold to distribution companies which made all of the below costs you're talking about.

if they're shooting it on 16mm with a small crew (union or not) and their actors are working indie sag, $250,000 doesn't sound unreasonable at all for a film looking for a festival run + talking to potential distributors.

Yes, you are absolutely right. The best way to have a low budget production is to find a film and drama school in a place where there is no union. You can get a crew for next to nothing. They get screen credits which matter more than you think, and you can provide food. You can rent a cheap digital camera like Red One with lenses for about 600 Euros per day, a set of HMI lights and electricity for another 1,000 or so - clothes and props... you can make a movie for 50,000 Euro if you want (typical shooting schedule is about 20-25 days).

However, that wont bring your movie nowhere. You can seek a distributor, which get tons of proposals and probably wont even look at your film (NDAs and lots of proposals mostly). Think of distributors as VC companies and each movie as a startup, because it is. Distributor has enough money to market the film.

Another option, which almost every indie production takes is festival run. Festivals are great because if you win an award, distributor hears about you, distributor might see you there with your movie and there are usually market palces associated with festivals where distributors and TV houses shop for movies and series (I work in animation and biggest is Annecy in France).

Some of you might think, why not go viral with the movie? Why not let it go on the internet, market it around reddit, digg, whatnot - it could be a festival like cycle, no? Well, no. You see, I would be the first one to do so, but if you want your flick to be eligible for any kind of festival award (from Annecy to Sundance to Oscars) it works in a funny kind of way. In order to make your flick run in a festival, requirements to do so usually mean that it had to already run on several festivals (Oscar eligibility for example) and almost always there is a strict rule that your film is not publicly available (online or distribution), which gives festivals a sort of premiere in their region.

Movie business is a strict business with a lot of rules and even more egos. Each and every movie is run exactly like a startup that operates on milestones and further funding.

All true, but you can make those rules work for you. First, genre expectations are different. Generally you need a famous name attached to sell a movie, and you can't get one. But horror fans don't care much about actors. (Neither do sci-fi fans, but sci-fi is exponentially harder to pull off). And fortunately, horror fans like bargain-bin, formulaic movies.

There are plenty of horror and no-budget festivals, so if your film is not total crap then you have a good chance in being selected for one. That'll help you get more money from the distributor, but if you don't succeed it's not too much of a loss.

The union doesn't matter too much. The lower your production budget, the less likely they are to bother you. SAG (actors) has a very cool deal for no-budget films that lets the actors work for free or minimum wage. Writer's guild just does not care below 6 figures. Ditto for the crew and camera unions. Of course the less you have to spend the less you can get in the way of experienced people, but if you have a few enthusiastic key people who are willing to shepherd some enthusiastic amateurs, you'll be fine.

RED One is an amazing camera, but I wouldn't use it for this kind of project. It's still pricey, and says that you have money but you're not willing to spend it on the crew. For the dirt-poor filmmaker, what you want is a Panasonic HVX or similar that shoots 24/5P and which can put out or be converted to something that looks fairly decent at 720p. And a friendly producer.

If you turn in a film that does not completely suck for under $50,000, you can probably sell it for enough to get your production costs back.

This is a really great summary. I always love it when people shine a little light into businesses I know zero about.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/allbudgets.php

A lot of films with budget below 1 mil. (although some of them are very old and you have to take inflation into account)

Production yes, can be done for "little" money - distribution (which most big budget titles account for) no.

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