The good news is that this generation of visual storytellers has it much easier than its predecessors. In the eight years since “The Blair Witch Project” introduced us to the notion that a low-budget, digital feature could become a bona fide blockbuster, debates over whether or not digital technology will rewrite the rules of the moviemaking game have all but ended. These days, the question is how to use that technology to make your movie, or, better yet, carve out a career for yourself as a filmmaker.
For longtime filmmaker Gregg Lachow, who directed the films “Money Buys Happiness” and “The Wright Brothers,” advances in technology were a wakeup call, ultimately serving as a gateway to the artistic freedom he’d always wanted. “In the old days, indie filmmakers would make one feature, maybe two,” he says. “Then, unless Hollywood came calling, that would be it. The process was just too expensive and too difficult. That’s not the case anymore.”
A Little Help from Your Friends
Like many young filmmakers today, Lachow didn’t wait for Hollywood to come calling. Instead, he rounded up the most talented performers and crew he could find and founded his own mini movie studio, The Film Company, which operates in New York and Seattle. The company’s prime directive is to bring outstanding ideas to the screen using in-house facilities and talent. While the concept may seem far-reaching for the average beginner, finding talent from within your circle of friends has become the option of choice for indie filmmakers — from Wes Anderson, who put longtime chums Owen and Luke Wilson in the leads of his breakthrough film “Bottle Rocket,” to Jared Hess, who wrote the title character of “Napoleon Dynamite” specifically for fellow Brigham Young University student Jon Heder.
“For me it all started when I sat at the table with my buddies one night, and we realized we had a lot of talent between us,” says New York actor/producer Tim House, whose low-budget DV feature “Mulberry Street” has screened at several top-tier fests, including the Tribeca Film Festival and the Stockholm International Film Festival. “We didn’t audition one actor for this film.”
House took advantage of the connections he’d made working as an actor in New York over the last 15 years and enlisted the best of them to help bring his vision to the screen. “Mulberry Street” chronicles the outbreak of a deadly virus that turns unwitting Manhattanites into blood-thirsty rat creatures — a concept the filmmakers were able to create with limited resources and only a handful of locations. House was able to convince much of his production staff to work on a deferred basis, meaning they forfeited their salaries in lieu of a percentage of the film’s profits. In most cases, cast and crew will only agree to such terms if they truly believe in a project. House emphasizes that having a solid script with a catchy, high-concept hook helped him clinch the deal. “We did 31 rewrites on this thing,” he recalls. “We made sure the script was in great shape. If you want quality people to work for basically no money, you have to approach them with something really juicy.”
Filmmaker John Theisen, whose film “Ninjas vs. Pirates” toured the festival circuit last year, agrees. “If I have to spend a lot of time talking you into helping me make my film, then we’re probably not the right match,” he says.
The title of Theisen’s film pretty much speaks for itself, and the filmmaker notes that he didn’t have to go into too much detail in explaining its premise. People were either sold on the idea that ninjas and pirates should do battle on the big screen, or they weren’t. Those who were jumped at the chance to help Theisen make it happen. “We hired non-actors who just like to dress up like pirates,” he says. “But those are the people who will give you a real commitment.” In the end, cutting such corners helped Theisen keep his budget under $3,000 — a virtual shoestring, even for a 20-minute digital short.
Money Talks and Other Obvious Clichés
While digital technology may have slashed the cost of making an indie film, it still takes significant amounts of cash to create a project worthy of showcasing in top festivals. Factor in equipment costs, props, permit fees, post-production and music rights, and you’ve already racked up several thousands of dollars before you’ve paid your talent a dime. If you do get into a festival, you may need to blow up your video feature to 35mm film, which amounts to transfer fees of about $350 per minute. Multiply that by 90 minutes and suddenly you’re asking your parents to take out a home equity loan.
Fortunately, there are ways to cut corners on all of these expenses, particularly when it comes to quality equipment. Nowhere has technology made filmmaking easier on the wallet than in the area of equipment costs. Over the last few years, the price has dropped dramatically on DV camcorders with three light-sensing chips (known as coupled-charged devices, or CCD’s), which give cameras the ability to produce broadcast-quality images. These are the same cameras used to shoot scores of contemporary indies, from Spike Lee’s satire “Bamboozled” to Danny Boyle’s zombie flick “28 Days Later.”
To save costs on props and permit fees, your cheapest bet is to choose a simple script that doesn’t require them. Low-budget filmmakers often opt to produce stories that take place in one or two locations with a handful of actors. Theisen, for example, chose to set his burgeoning pirate-ninja conflict in modern times, thereby excluding the need for pirate ships and other period sets that wouldn’t have been cost feasible. “Obviously, I’m not trying to recreate ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ with this movie,” he notes. “We shot the whole thing in a warehouse in one weekend.” Still, resources do exist for filmmakers whose scripts call for some vital expenses. For example, if you’re dead set on shooting that heart-stopping car accident scene, the city of New York sponsors a vehicle auction every other Wednesday at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There, price-conscious producers can get their hands on everything from cars and trucks to ambulances and heavy machinery.
When it comes to saving money on post-production costs, resourcefulness is the name of the game. For the hardcore DIY set, the most inexpensive option is to buy video-editing software like Final Cut Studio (list price $1299) and work from the comforts of your own laptop. If the meticulous nuances of editing aren’t your thing, you’ll probably have to enlist the services of a post house or hire a freelance editor. When House was weighing post-production options for “Mulberry Street,” he was able to negotiate a discount with Soundtrack Studios, a New York-based facility that did post-production work on films like “The Devil Wears Prada” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator.” “We showed them a rough cut of the film, and they were really impressed with it,” he recalls. “They gave us a great deal based on the strength of the project.”
Cutting costs on music rights typically amounts to choosing music that fits your budget. Any mid-sized American city will likely have a sizable pool of indie bands and musicians from which to draw. Most smaller acts will be all too thrilled to grant you the rights to use their music in your film for free. In the age of social networking, combing the Internet for talented musicians that fit your genre needs has never been easier. If, however, you’re determined to set your gritty drug-deal scene to The Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for My Man,” don’t despair. While securing full rights to popular music can cost thousands of dollars, paying only for festival rights is a cheaper alternative, one that will grant you the freedom to showcase your work in festivals without fear of prosecution from the record company police. If you’re lucky enough to land a distribution deal, the distribution company will likely foot the bill to keep the soundtrack to your cherished drug scene intact. Just remember to contact the artist’s agent and file for rights early, as securing them can take six months or longer. Depending on the song, you may need to secure two sets of rights: one from the artist who recorded the version of the song you wish to use, and one from the song’s publisher.
When it comes to raising money for your film, often the first question a filmmaker will ask is: How do I do it? The answer, of course, is as complicated as moviemaking itself, but many low-budget filmmakers agree that raising money for your film starts with being able to convince someone — anyone — that your movie is worth making. “You have to believe in it, and you have to be willing to back it up,” says House. “At the end of the day, money talks. I put up a lot of my own money for this, and I was lucky enough to find someone who was willing to match me dollar for dollar.”
For “Ninjas vs. Pirates,” Theisen, who works in the nonprofit sector, took advantage of his knowledge of fund-raisers and held one himself. “We pretty much had to beg, borrow and steal everything,” he says. “But the fund-raiser was a big help. We spent $300 and raised $1,500.”
Watch It Again
Advancements in technology have certainly not done away with the headaches and heartbreak so intrinsically tied to the moviemaking business, but every day scores of dedicated newcomers commit themselves to the process, hoping to land in that small percentage of artists who can actually call themselves professional filmmakers. You don’t have to be a professional, though, to take advantage of the proliferation of marketing options — like viral video sites and self-distribution — that have burst on to the world stage in recent years. In fact, it’s often the amateurish nature of short-form video that propels its creators to superstardom on sites like YouTube, whose top videos attract a viewership rivaling that of a modest TV network. Statistics like these only increase the odds of exposure for any budding auteur with a camera, an idea and the drive to see it through. “It really doesn’t matter if you have a nickel to your name,” says House. “The people who make it in this business are the ones who get out there and do what they have to do.”
