Reference: StudentFilmmakers Magazine, June 2007. How We Made A Movie for Less Than $1000 by Glen Tickle. Pages 48 – 49.

Producing a feature length movie on your own is an intimidating idea. Assembling a cast, finding equipment, getting a crew, scheduling the shoot, and a million other details are all things the aspiring filmmaker has to consider before they call action on their first day of shooting. But chances are good that a first time filmmaker is also worried about money.

A few months after finishing my first feature Several Ways to Die Trying I was meeting a producer to talk about the movie. Eventually she asked about the budget. I laughed and told her the truth that we had almost literally no money. She pried a little, so I told her “Nine-hundred and five”. She said she was amazed we pulled it off for less than a million. When I told her I meant nine-hundred and five dollars she almost did a spit take.

Is it possible in a world where movies like Crash are considered “low-budget” to get a feature length project in the can for less than what most Hollywood films spend on light bulbs? It isn’t easy, but it is possible with a fair amount of planning and a measurably larger amount of creativity.

Before anything you need a script. The easiest way to get your hands on a script that lends itself to being made on the cheap is to write one yourself. The first thing I did was make a list of all the ideas I had and narrowed them down to the one I thought could be done for the least amount of money. My story about a suicidal author with writer’s block on his suicide note seemed like my best bet since it really only had two main characters and only a few different locations.

If you’re worried about spending money for screenwriting software just check out www.celtx.com and download their software. It comes with some great pre-production tools, but the best thing about it is that it’s free and it works.
It’s also important to have people read your work. If you think someone will steal your story then just register it with the WGA.

Best $20 you’ll ever spend. When you get that taken care of put the script on Triggersteet.com and Zoetrope.com these are both great free sites that let you get feedback about your work, as well as giving you the chance to read other people’s screenplays.

My film professor constantly impressed upon us the idea of writing for location. Choosing the setting for Several Ways to Die Trying came down to choosing places we could shoot in for as long as we needed to without getting constantly interrupted, kicked out, or charged money. I had access to acres of forest, two houses, a library, and a drive-in burger place so those became my locations.

What you really need to do is to write for budget. Ask yourself at every step of the writing process “Can I do this with less?” Some people think a limited budget is a clamp on their creativity, but I say it just forces you to think more creatively about every decision you make. An early draft of Die Trying had the main character being wheeled away in an ambulance. Instead of going through the hassle of trying to get an ambulance for the shoot I rewrote the
scene on the premise that the ambulance never showed up. The meaning of the scene still came through and I think it was better than the original.

The beautiful thing about working on your own independent film is that there’s no deadline for the script. Work on the script for as long as it takes you to make it as good and inexpensive as it can possibly be before you move on to preproduction. The most control you’ll have of your film is in the script phase so don’t rush it.

A common mistake in low-budget filmmaking is trying to do too much yourself. Making the jump from producer/director/writer/cinematographer/editor to a shorter job title with fewer virgules can be daunting for a would be auteur, but it’s well worth it to share the nuts and bolts duties of production with someone else. Sharing the burden of the logistical work frees you up to focus more on the creative aspects of the production, but the most obvious benefit is there’s just less work you yourself have to do.

Find yourself a producing partner who can handle the organizational end of things, and who can occasionally yell at you or talk you down from a ledge depending on the situation. The more planning you do before your shoot the more smoothly things will go.

The reason that Several Ways to Die Trying cost $905 is because that was the amount of money we had. If you don’t have $905 don’t worry. The best way to get money from people is to ask for it.

I asked practically everyone I know for $5 so I could make a movie. Most people laughed it off, but some didn’t. A few people gave more, and in total we raised around $550. The rest of the budget I put up myself. I’ve been told it’s a bad idea to use your own money to make a movie, but the way I saw it was that I had money but what I really wanted was a movie. It made perfect sense at the time and I don’t regret it.

Having no money means you’re going to be shooting on video.

The quickest way to get rid of any romantic notions you may have of the warmth and richness of film is to price a single roll of film from shooting to getting a final print. That $6 miniDV tape will just look better and better.
Use the best equipment you can afford. If you can’t afford any, then find a way to get it for free. Some companies will let you use equipment in exchange for a mention in the credits or some other such exchange. If you have filmmaker friends they probably have equipment they could lend you so ask around. And if your assistant editor and sound guy show up with a trunk of equipment just accept that it’s there and don’t ask questions. That’s called “Plausible Deniability”.

If you want a sweeping crane shot you’ll need a crane. Which you can buy, rent, steal, or build. I’ve seen some great homemade rigs, but if you’re not particularly inclined towards feats of engineering you can find plans for home-built versions of a number of rigs at sites like www.homebuiltstabilizers.com.

The biggest advantage of being a student is that most colleges have communications programs with video and editing equipment available for student use. If you don’t go to such an institution then find someone who does and make a friend. Officially it was my producer who checked out the equipment from the school, but it didn’t hurt that I was friends with the guy who ran the equipment office and that I had no qualms about abusing school equipment. If
you’re a student it’s your tuition that pays for the equipment, and don’t you let anyone forget it.

Almost everyone who worked on Several Ways to Die Trying, myself included, was either still in school or had just graduated and hadn’t found a job yet. The big advantage to this was that we were all still living at home and were able to take time off to focus on the movie without having to worry about bills and responsibilities.

We shot the movie Monday through Thursday for four weeks. That freed up the weekends for the cast and crew to work part time jobs. It also gave us a chance to go over the footage we had shot the week before to make sure there weren’t any problems.

One lesson I chose early on to ignore was not to work with your friends. If you’re a filmmaker then you probably have filmmaking friends, but don’t use them just because they’re willing. Most of the cast and crew were friends of mine, but they were all experienced in the job they were doing. If your friends can’t act, don’t put them in your movie.

Craigslist.org and Mandy.com are both great free resources for finding cast and crew. We posted crew and casting calls on both these sites and were flooded with headshots reels and resumes within a week.

These are just a few suggestions on how you can work with such a small budget. The important thing is to think creatively about what you can do with very little money. Don’t be afraid to pull the trigger if you don’t think you have enough. Once you get people involved who really believe in your project they’ll be willing to do just about anything to see it through to completion.

Glen Tickle is the writer/director of Several Ways to Die Trying. For more information on the film please visit.
www.filmkid.com