7 Steps to Making A Low Budget Film: STEP FOUR
Is it possible to make a film without funding? Well, I’ve been doing it for over 20 years so… absolutely you can!
But it’s not easy. In fact, the scale of the task is often so overwhelming it puts many of us off even starting.
So here are my 7 Steps to making a film without a budget…
Each step will be a separate post. Today, I’ll talk about organising and preparing for your shoot.
4. Pre-production
So you’ve got your story/screenplay and your desired shooting method chosen. Now it’s all about the planning.
If you are intending to shoot a feature film, I really recommend you shoot some shorts first. This will provide you invaluable experience when it comes to planning and shooting a bigger scale production. Particularly if you choose the 21 day shoot where there’s less room for error.
Above all, when shooting a film with very limited funds, you will find yourself taking on roles normally covered by about 5 people (or more). But if you burden yourself with too many things, you will never take flight, no matter how hard you flap your wings.
And that goes for anything.
Say, starting a business, for example. You might start with few or no staff at all, with just you trying to get your idea up and running. But if you try to reach too many goals at the same time, you end up reaching none of them.
Advice to new businesses is often to work out the most important goal, put everything else aside and focus all your energy on that goal. Well, making a film is like running a business and making a low or no budget movie is like setting up a new company.
People run businesses from their home or from the garage and if all goes well they can move into premises and hire staff. So think of this phase of your filmmaking journey as your “working from your garden shed” phase.
My point is, most other businesses start out small and if they succeed, only then do they grow into something bigger. So why shouldn’t we think of filmmaking in the same way?
Starting out with your low-to-no budget film means start small – small crew, small kit list, small cast, small location list and so on.
I’ve already written about pre-production on a zero (micro) budget, but here’s some general tips.
- Keep it simple. As mentioned, when your resources are limited, you cannot afford to burden yourself with anything but absolute essentials. It’s like climbing a mountain solo – don’t bring the big, heavy tent and packs full of equipment. You need to be as lightweight and lean as possible or you won’t make it.
- Contracts. If you intend to sell your distribute your film to the public, make sure everyone has signed release forms allowing you to use their work, image or property. Film buyers need to see signed contracts before they part with their money.
- Be efficient. For example, film everything in one location in one go. The less travelling you and the team have to do the better. Keep costume, make up, props and so on to the minimum. Think through every scene and see what you can lose to make it even easier to shoot. Remember, it’s all about the story.
- Legal issues. If you’re intending to distribute your film to the public, there can be legal issues with using brand items without permission. This is also something to bear in while shooting, however you might specify a brand in the script and then get into trouble later. On the other hand, these days it’s much easier to remove logos and copyright infringing images in post. But do you want to add that extra burden in time and cost?
- Crew: keep your crew to the absolute minimum. Even volunteers need feeding. They probably need expenses to get to the location. More crew means more chance someone won’t turn up or goes to the wrong location. More people means more organisation, more time, more cost.
Deliverables
Deliverables are a checklist of items you need to deliver to a distributor when they buy your film. Although the list is generally the same, companies can have different demands. For example, Netflix needs your film in 4K.
This list can be quite daunting for the no-to-low budget filmmaker. This is why getting your film ready for market can be where the real cost comes in. Going back to El Mariachi, although the film cost $7000 to shoot and edit, over $250,000 was spent getting the film ready for release by the company that bought it.
How much you worry about deliverables before (and during) you start filming is up to you. But as you can see, it is possible to make your film for almost nothing and then look for money to polish it into something sellable. If you intend to sell your finished film, certainly you should look into what needs to be delivered before you start filming.
Stripping it down
Shooting on a zero budget is all about removing everything until you have the absolute bare minimum you can possible make a film with. I have shot scenes with just myself and cast – no lights, no make up, no special equipment. So it’s absolutely possible to film a great scene without 5 to 10 crew in attendance.
Once you’ve been though your script removing everything you possibly can, do it again. Remove more stuff. I’m sure there’s still fat that can be trimmed.
And then do it again. This time remove locations. Do you really need to have that half page scene at new location? Can’t that moment of the story happen at one of the main locations?
Strip everything down to it’s purest, most efficient, fat-free version. And you know what – you’ll end up with a better script and a better film. Because it will force you to really think about the narrative and discover what’s at the emotional core of your story.
Props
Apart from locations, another essential part of your production is the props witten into the story. Some things are not essential to the plot while others are. So go through the script and make a list of essential props and non-essential. Obviously, the essential props are the ones you need to focus on.
Props are a key part of creating the illusion of your story. Depending on the story, props can be easy to get hold of (household items, for example) or hard (like guns or sci-fi devices).
Guns. Depending on the country you’re filming in, laws about waving guns or replica guns around in public places will vary. In the UK, for example, you are no longer allowed to buy even realistic-looking toy guns – they come in bright luminous colours. One reason for this is to protect you from getting into trouble (and possibly shot at) if police get the wrong idea. So that should be enough to give you food for thought – whatever the laws are where you are filming, be extremely careful when having actors holding weaponry in a space where they might be seen by unsuspecting members of the public.
Number the scenes
Make sure to number the scenes of your script. This makes it much easier to schedule and generally stay organised. Using Final Draft and other software, it’s usually pretty easy to add numbers.
The complication comes when adding or deleting scenes after you have done so. There are ways that the film industry uses to keep track (which are incorporated into Final Draft and others), which involves adding letters to scenes and so on.
However, I generally try to avoid getting into this situation with my low budget filmmaking. The reason for adding letters and so on is to keep your potentially large crew on the same page (literally). But if your crew is small (or you don’t have one) then changes to the script can be dealt with without over complicating things.
Scheduling
Now that you’ve honed your production down to it’s most efficient version, you can begin planning where and when the filming will take place. How this looks will depend on your shooting method.
There’s expensive scheduling software, but I simply use Google’s free Drive (docs and sheets) to set out my production plans. I have customised them to my needs, which means I can strip the docs down to the crucial information. Google docs and sheets can be easily shared online, via email, and easily updated so everyone is instantly in the loop.
Things to include in your schedule are: time for everyone to arrive on location, time to start filming, scene number, estimated time to complete scene, breaks (meal breaks or location moves), character/cast name for each scene, list of props for each scene, scheduled end of shoot time for each day.
Bear in mind sunrise and sunset times for the day of the shoot, as this will determine some shooting times.
Want to see some of the documents used during the production of a low budget film? Schedules, location plans, cast contracts and more can be found here: Low Budget Film Production Samples (Patrons Only)
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Step Five: Production. What methods, tips and tricks are there to make the most of your limited resources while filming? What hazards are there to look out for?
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