How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece
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As little as 20 years ago, making a movie to any professional standard required a great deal of expensive equipment and knowledge. Today, however, advances in entertainment technology allow any budding Spielberg to put their mind to creating a masterwork, using some fairly commonplace tech and a little knowhow. Still, even with these resources, making it as a filmmaker is an expensive business – the relatively humble Oscar winner Parasite cost an estimated $11 million to produce, while last year’s Avengers: Endgame reportedly cost over $350 million. So how does an aspiring director emulate their heroes with very little cash? We look at the exploits of now-famous names, in this rough guide to making good movies on the cheap.

By Victoria Luxford

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece.
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Utilise The Internet (The Blair Witch Project, 1999) – This might sound crazy to a generation of online natives, but back in the day, studios really didn’t make much of an effort to promote their films online; at best, the average movie had an official website with some small video files (the charmingly retro website for 1996’s Space Jam is still live!). 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, however, proved what a draw the internet could be. With a total budget of only $60,000, the filmmakers made up for a lack of advertising funds by setting up fake websites that claimed the film was based on a true story, creating a viral sensation that resulted in a worldwide hit. In the days of social media, everyone’s using the internet to promote something, but Blair Witch is a prime example of how a little can go a long way.

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece.
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Improvise Everything (Monsters, 2010) – Gareth Edwards is now one of Hollywood’s most in-demand directors with films like Rogue One and Godzilla, but a decade ago he was a relative unknown, hauling a crew across Central and South America to make his first hit: Monsters. While the post-alien invasion world he created had all the hallmarks of a big-budget movie, Edwards kept the costs down by using consumer-grade equipment, editing on the go, and improvising every scene. He had ideas of what he wanted from the plot, but hadn’t written any dialogue, and if a location grabbed his attention he would stop and improvise a scene. This, plus convincing locals to act in his film, kept the costs down to a relatively tiny $500,000.

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece.
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Submit Yourself For Medical Testing (El Mariachi, 1992) – For clarity, we do NOT advise you to put your health at risk to raise the money for your movie. However, the career of director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Spy Kids) was partly launched thanks to his participation in a clinical trial for a cholesterol medicine, which helped raise the $7,225 production budget for his 1991 breakthrough action movie El Mariachi. It also helped Rodriguez find a cast-member: the late Peter Marquardt, who played the film’s villain, Mauricio, was a fellow test subject. According to Rodriguez’s book Rebel Without a Crew, he was cast due to his resemblance to a number of famous actors.

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece.
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Break Out Your iPhone (Tangerine, 2015) – Made for around $100,000, director Sean Baker didn’t have suitcases full of camera equipment to shoot his indie gem – only a few phone cases! The story of two transgender women tearing across LA on Christmas Eve was criminally overlooked by audiences and awards voters, in our opinion, and the quality of the movie is made all the more remarkable by the fact that he shot it using just three iPhone 5s smartphones, modified with steadicam equipment. The money saved kept costs down, but also meant that the locations and extras featured could be properly compensated. Baker used ingenuity to show that low-budget filmmaking can also be ethical.

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece.
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Go Back To School (Firelight, 1963) – In his late teens, Steven Spielberg would make his first film, the UFO-themed Firelight, using locations and talent from his school. The school band performed the soundtrack, and some scenes were filmed on the surrounding land. The young Spielberg also relied on the community to make his first film a success, renting the local cinema and making $501 on a $500 budget. The legend laughs that there were only 500 $1 tickets sold, meaning someone must have overpaid.

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Keep Your Premise Simple (Paranormal Activity, 2009) – The original cut of Paranormal Activity cost just $15,000, a small number even for a list such as this. Israeli director Oren Peli wanted to make a horror film where the scares came from the feeling that what was on the screen could actually happen, and so turned to home camera equipment and the devilishly simple premise of a couple setting up cameras in their house when they start to notice strange disturbances. The stationary cameras eliminated the need for a large crew, and the dialogue was improvised, making for a natural and effective horror hit at festivals. It’s worth mentioning that the cinema version cost an extra $200,000 as a new ending was created, but there’s an independent sensibility at the dark heart of this scary institution.

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece.
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Cast Your Friends And Family (Clerks, 1994) – The film that launched geek royalty Kevin Smith cost less than $30,000, all raised through credit card debt, loans, insurance payouts and selling his comic book collection. Of the many cost-cutting tricks the director used, Smith cast his friends and family in various roles – Smith’s mother has a cameo as a woman checking the expiration date of milk, while himself and lifelong friend Jason Mewes play slackers Jay and Silent Bob. The gamble paid off, with Smith and his cohorts becoming cult heroes for their efforts.

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…And Ask Them For Money… (Pi, 1998) – While his later films would command budgets of many millions, Darren Aronofsky’s debut feature, Pi, was made for a relatively modest $60,000, which he and producer Eric Watson raised by asking friends, family and acquaintances for help. “A few hundred people gave us a hundred bucks,” the filmmaker told The Washington Post at the time. This prototype version of crowdfunding would propel the director to stardom, but how do they get that many people to believe in their project in the days before social media? “We were really polite,” he says.

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…And Use Their Houses (Following, 1998) – In 2020, Christopher Nolan has been heralded as the saviour of cinema, with his latest work Tenet being one of the first movies to gain a wide release following the global pandemic. In the late ‘90s, however, he was an independent filmmaker doing all he could to save money during the production of his debut feature, a neo-noir thriller set in the London criminal underworld. Using 16mm black-and-white film, and shooting in between the crew’s day jobs, Nolan circumvented the cost of hiring locations by using the houses of friends and family. A decade later, he would be shutting down city blocks for the production of his Dark Knight trilogy.

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece.
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Don’t Let Setbacks Stop You (Once, 2006) – Once became a global hit in the mid-2000s, earning an Oscar and a Grammy for its unforgettable music while winning hearts around the world. But the soulful tale of an Irish busker and the fellow musician he falls for hit a snag when the original lead, Cillian Murphy, left the project – and it also lost its funding. Made for $150,000, director John Carney gave his salary to the actors and made the film using cost-cutting techniques. The return on investment was considerable, given the film’s $23 million box office.

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How To Make A Low-Budget Movie Masterpiece

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