Film Courage: Why do you make movies for less than $50,000?
J. Horton, Filmmaker/Youtuber/Podcaster: I think most people that make movies for less than $50,000
are making it just me because that's what we have to work with or that's what we can raise I would
feel much more comfortable as far as production goes working around $200,000 or $300,000. making
a $50,000 movie is tough no matter how you cut it no matter what the scale of it is trying to pay
people fair rates and it's it's next to impossible so I make $50,000 movies for one because that's
that's the ceiling of what well close to the ceiling of what I can raise myself or pay for
myself anything beyond that it starts getting a little hairier so and then as far as returns
to be perfectly honest I wouldn't feel 100 comfortable right now taking a hundred thousand
dollars on a movie I wouldn't be positive I could return that back $50,000 for the right movie I'm
80/ 90 % sure I can return that back or at least most of it 100 I don't know when you say the right
movie are we talking narrative are we talking documentary I it could be narrative or documentary
when I say right movie the a genre that's doing well in the market a a a scale that I think would
work at that budget level for example I'm getting ready to do a horror movie and it's called craving
budgets right around 50/$60,000 and it's a it's a siege pitcher takes place mostly in one location
it has some incredible creature effects and right now as far as independent films go independent
horror movies creature stuff is doing really well and if your creature is good it can do really well
let's let's just say for example the movie kind of turned out mediocre but those monster things
are all really good that movie can still make that budget back and then some based off the
monster it's almost what name talent was to horror movies five years ago the monster becomes the name
so if you think that a movie is over $50,000 then you realize I may have to take a producer's money
and I don't want to add that stress I don't want to have to that's a lot of stress on someone's
shoulders to be accountable for that yeah so so the $50,000 is a safe place for you because you
can do that on your own yes yeah and and and also just to start thinking about it on a on a backend
way and you'll hear a lot of filmmakers say hey if you don't get paid up front you're not going
to get paid and maybe if you're a DP or director for hire that's true but has an entrepreneurial
producer you're making every your back end is everything so if I make if I have a $50,000
movie and say a producer comes to me tomorrow and they want to put in $50,000 so now it's a $100,000
movie how much back end do I have to give to that producer they're putting in 50 of the budget so
let's just say for the sake of argument you're going to have to give them half of the back end 50
and how much more is that movie actually going to make in the market at $100,000 as opposed
to 50 is it enough that that 50 is worth it because I make my living off of my back end
so if I'm losing half of my back end is the movie going to make more than fifty percent
higher then you have got to have you have got to think about stuff that and in this particular case
unless I guess maybe at 50 maybe maybe if I put in a a bigger name actor if I put 25 of it and hired
Tony Todd or something that maybe that would help it but I honestly don't know I have a friend who
just did did a horror movie a couple years ago and had some two pretty good like upper level
b actors should have the movie should have done gangbusters and it didn't so if 50 is just I
think 50 is a safer bet right and are these usually films that are shot in one location
no although so I did one called the other side back in 2014 and it had maybe 12 locations but
we shot a good chunk of it in this compound where it was this person they had a house
and they had a garage and they had an office and we we made six locations out of that one
and as far as on independent stuff people say this all the time make it a one location shoot
that's that's the way to save all your budget it's only going to save so much because a
shoot day is a shoot day a shoot day costs a production what a shoot day cost of production
yes you're going to lose some time if you're constantly company moving but on an nd on average
you're spending I don't know five or six thousand a day so as long as your company moves are
structured to where you're on one location for that whole day and then maybe another
location for another three days and then one day at another location but you're not doing
midday company moves it it's you're not going to save a ton of money on the single location
a little bit but not a ton you might on a six day shoot you might you might lose a half a day
in the company moves that split across six days so it's it's really not that much not much of a save
and for the $50,000 budget are you typically the editor yes yes and the reason being I'm not
one of those people I have to edit everything but I’ve been editing now for 20 years and at $50,000
you're going to be able to pay an editor five or six maybe 10 000 tops and I don't feel I'm
going to find an editor for ten thousand dollars or five thousand dollars that's as good as me
not to be egocentric about it but I it's totally a practical decision if I if I had another $25,000
to pay a full post team I would but I don't so I do it can we break down this $50,000
budget sure and help us understand where are you spending that money okay yeah yeah so i'll do a
kind of a generic like breakdown of a $50,000 movie so I’ll talk a little bit about craving
because I'm just doing that now so oh gosh it's hard without it in front of me but so
yeah probably about on craving $10,000 went for location right right off the bat we needed
a warehouse space two to three thousand square feet and we have to build a set
so we're going to spend I can't say exactly how much on the rental and then $5,000 on the
the building of the the bar set which is the main location and then there's some money in
lodging because it looks we're going to shoot in Palmdale so I'm going to have to put people up
there oh and just so this is all in California yeah this one's going to be in California
so we're spending 10k on the location we're spending it's a it's a bigger cast than I
typically work with I think we're I think we're 10 or 12 major roles in it and so we're spending
about twelve thousand dollars on cast and that's not including name talent yeah include the three
name actors and that's closer to 20 and then we're spending we're we're spending 5 000 on
effects materials and we've already I'm not counting this as part of the 50 but
we'd already spent almost 10 000 on monster materials prior to the crowdfunder and then
but we'll just we'll just say the the five and so that puts us what 35 and then we're spending
about let's see three 300 a day 300 a day on catering and another 200 a day
on crafty and then the rest of it's all in crew and on crew on on indies now I start my base pay
at 200 a day nothing under I'm sorry 211 a day it's California I think minimum wage in 12 hours
and ends up at 211 but then key positions get a little bit more so the dp might make 350 or 400
or sound might make more but for the most part right around that 211 mark and we'll do this with
a skeleton crew it'll be it'll be a dp she'll be she'll be running her own camera including focus
there'll be a secondary camera and when the secondary camera is not in operation
that person's also the the swing so their operator slash swing and then the third person's the gaffer
and then and then there's a dit that's also our script supervisor and stuff that there'll be
makeup but it'll be one person hair and makeup and then our effects guy who does some makeup as well
we'll augment some of that and tell me again I'm sorry how long of shoot is this so this one is 10
days I believe I'm still kind of scheduling it out the the bar which is the bulk of it
is going to be six days and then the exteriors and there's a few other locations three or four days
and this food that you're getting it's from a restaurant or these are caterers coming
no so in this case I'm very lucky with this and the fact that my my niece is a professional
caterer she lives in Indiana and my she's going to she's doing this one as a favor
so I'm basically flying her out and then at 300 a day she could make she could feed a 20-person crew
cast and crew two meals for 200 a day she's really we were the kind of poor that we would spend 20
and a family of five would eat for a week yeah and where is she making the food oh she'll do it here
so it's she'll fly out our kitchen in Canoga Park [near Los Angeles] or we're also if we're shooting
in Palmdale [near Los Angeles] we're going to rent airbnb so we might have an airbnb that's
set up for the cooking and then we'll have the stuff moved into the set which is 10 minutes away
so post you're basically spending almost nothing almost nothing okay so what I on documentaries
I spend I literally spend nothing I do it all I'm not an expert colorist but I can I can do
it well enough I'm real I'm pretty darn good with sound design and mix the only thing I
can't really do myself is a good 5.1 but I know several people to where I can get it done very
affordably so on this movie I want it to be it's a little bit higher profile than a lot of the docs
that I do so I will most likely hire a colorist and a sound mixer and that money has not yet been
raised so like I had the crowdfunding consultant for this and he said after you shoot the movie
no sooner than June we'll do a post production crowdfunder for it and he said we could expect
between 20 and 30 percent of what we raised before for post so we're looking at maybe 15 or $20,000
and not to jinx it but let's suppose you're out there and you need to go a day over let's yeah I'm
doing totally totally there could be a hail storm okay yeah so is there money in reserves or I can
pull from here my own sources yes okay so there's not the way a lot of indies work is you I don't
have an official contingency in the budget but I have money from an outside source that I can go to
if something that were to happen or even going a little bit deeper into my own pockets if I have to
so you're prepared yeah rainy day yeah right yeah exactly so to speak okay that's good.