7 Steps to Making A Low Budget Film: STEP SIX
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 putting everything together to create your final film.
6. Post-Production
So you survived shooting your film. You got through 4/21/356 (delete as appropriate) days of organising, stressing, pushing to get every shot the way you wanted it. When you started there was a mountain to climb and you climbed it!
Congratulate yourself, pat yourself on the back and have some beers with cast and crew and celebrate.
Now the next stage begins: putting all the files together to create a movie which is hopefully somewhere close to your original vision. I’m presuming you have shot using a digital camera, in which case you will now have a load of movie files in whichever format you decided to shoot.
So what now? The next part of the movie-making process can be just as much of an endurance test as filming. This depends on your shooting method, to a certain extent, and also the style of the film.
Editing
The main event of post-production is editing. The first dilemma you will face: will you edit yourself or get a volunteer?
If you have no budget for post-production, then you might find a someone who offers to edit the film for free/share of profits. Sometimes you find an eager film student or editor who only gets corporate work and would like to do something more creative. This is tempting, but often turns out to be a bad idea.
“I have learned one thing. As Woody says, ‘Showing up is 80 percent of life (success).’ Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both.” Marshall Brickman
The problem is people often commit themselves but then struggle to find the time, for whatever reason. So you gather all the files and send them over. Perhaps at first some work is done, in the first rush of excitement. Then you don’t hear from them for a week.
Which turns into two weeks.
Emails, calls and catch up meetings result in promises along the lines of “I’m sorry but things have been really crazy at work/uni/home (delete as appropriate) and I just haven’t had time to do any more on the film. But I promise I’m going to make space next month”.
You can guess what happens next month. Meanwhile, your film is now in limbo and you are torn: do you call it quits and take over or do you hang in there and hope?
DIY?
Here’s my tip: call it quits. Right now. Don’t wait another second. In my experience, that person is never going to find time to finish your movie. I’m sure they believed they were going to do it. But like someone who just paid for a year’s gym membership on January 1st, the promise turns out to be harder to fulfill than imagined.
And once someone has committed to your project, it’s very rare they’ll hold their hand up and admit “sorry, I’m never going to finish this.” Instead, the situation festers between you. They probably feel like they let you down and you’re full of frustration that your movie suddenly hit the buffers.
But if you know someone and you have worked with them before successfully, then perhaps you can rely on them. Otherwise, the other option is simply to edit the film yourself.
At least YOU will definitely show up… right?
I’ve edited all my films. Not because I want to be an editor, but because I know I’ll show up. I know the size of the task of editing a narrative film, even a short one. Be under no illusion, it takes dedication and time to do it well.
The difference with shooting and post-production is with shooting there’s an unmissable deadline. If you don’t turn up on the day of the shoot, you won’t be in (or involved in) the movie – simple as that. But once you have acquired all the video and sound files of a movie, you’ve also acquired an unlimited time to finish the job.
Second tip: I’ve heard of people who give the files to someone and don’t keep a copy for themselves. With digital filmmaking, its crazy. If you did the right thing and kept backups during shooting, you’ll at least have an escape route now, should an editor let you down.
Here’s my basic editing tips and a list of free editing software.
Sound
Again, you are in the same situation: do it yourself or hope for a reliable volunteer?
The above applies, for sound design and mixing too. Can you afford to pay for it to be done professionally? I’ve always done the job myself. But it all depends on the level of quality you want to achieve and your own ability to achieve it.
Once you have a rough edit, you can note all the dialogue lines which might need re-recording. Reasons for this include any noises in the background when you were shooting which can’t be removed and are too loud to be acceptable. Or there may be too much reverb from the room the scene was recorded in.
There are programs you can use to remove unwanted sounds from dialogue, including Adobe’s Audition which comes integrated with Premiere Pro. But there’s a limit to what can be achieved with this software. A low hum or some clicks can be fixed, but an overbearing air conditioner might be too loud. Also, any wind blowing against the mic is often too much to fix in post.
If you can afford it or have access to a recording studio, you can get the actors in to do ADR (automated dialogue replacement). If you can’t you can still do a good job without.
Disaster management
I have had to replace unusable audio on many occasions, without a recording studio set up for the purpose. When filming Kosmos, we had the sound recordist from hell and (cutting a long story short) ended up having to replace half of the dialogue.
I had a recording studio, but not set up for ADR. So we had to improvise using Logic Pro. I set the line to be replaced up in a loop on Logic. After a few practice attempts, I would record the actor trying to repeat the line in exactly the same timing as before. Getting the timing right whilst keeping the expression of the original line is the tricky part. Some actors are good at this, especially if they have done it before.
As I edit myself, I’m usually working on the audio design as I go along. I’ll put everything down for the rough edit then go through polishing and tweaking. You’ll need to add an “foley”, sound effects, background ambiences and so on. I also often include music at the start of editing, as it helps to create a rhythm and a feel for the mood.
Music
When it comes to music, you might have better luck finding a volunteer. There are plenty of aspiring composers and musicians online, ready to get involved in a film project. In my experience, composers can be more reliable than others when it comes to volunteering.
You can also find music already written on YouTube and Soundcloud. Just spend some time browsing and see if you can find something suitable. Often, the offer of a small fee will be accepted.
Check out our article on music resources. You might also want to read our article on the legal side of using music.
CGI
These days, adding simple Computer Generated Images can be relatively easy, with plenty of software available to help. As I mentioned in a previous step, you might need to remove brands, logos, replace car number plates and so on.
Other than that, there might be some special effects that need creating. For example, replacing the screen of a phone or a TV. This can be easily done using After Effects and Mocha (and other software). However, it’s not always easy if you didn’t get the shot correctly. eg: it’s too dark or there’s not enough information in the image to track the movement screen.
A step up from that leads to more complex visual effects work, such as science fiction devices, architecture, weaponry and the like. How about some invading aliens?
My advice is, don’t attempt more complex CGI unless you have some experience or have an experienced CGI person involved. Again, this is something that can potentially cast you into limbo in the post production phase as you get stuck either trying to find someone to do the work for little money or raising the money to pay for it.
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)
Deliverables
As I said in a previous step, if you intend to sell the film to a sales agent, what’s known as the film’s “deliverables” can be rather intimidating. And probably 100 times more daunting when you find yourself having to deal with this alone.
The list might look something like this (source):
- Colour stills and photographs
- Screeners
- Trailer
- Credit/Billing Block
- Certified Statement with Contractual Obligations
- Tax Payer Information
- Layered Key Art
- 4k Technical Sample
- 100% QC’d HD ProResHQ or 4444 Master .mov Files
- Bluray Market/Festival Screening Masters
- Master Audio Files
- Copy of Music Score: Digital Files
- Certificate of Full QC Pass
- Final Timecoded Continuity Script/Spotting List:
- Final Shooting Script
- Music Cue Sheet
- Music & Effects (M&E) Tracks
- Final Main Credit
- Final End Credit
- Press Kit
- Logos
- Bonus Material
- Electronic Press Kit (EPK)
- Key Production Agreements
- Certificate of Origin
- Chain of Title Summary
- Rights Agreements
- Copyright Registration Certificate
- Additional Agreements/Statements/Letters
- HDcamSR Masters
- DCP
- Digibeta Masters
- Clip/Footage/Stills/Bonus Material Licenses..
And there’s more. I know, right? And you thought shooting a feature film for almost nothing was hard.
Just when you thought you had reached the summit…
Honestly, I don’t believe you need this entire list before you start approaching sales agents and distributors. My advice would be to at least get some serious interest in the film before slogging through all this lot.
One of the things I made sure to do when I edited Third Contact was to create separate audio tracks for voice and for background. You do this because a film might be dubbed so the background sound mix has to stand up on it’s own, with the voices removed.
As you can imagine, this is quite a job to take on as it means you can’t just overlay the audio. You need to create audio for every scene, including sound effects like footsteps. Imagine your characters are talking and walking. The voice track would probably include the footsteps (hopefully not too loud). But if there needs to be footsteps without the voice, you have to create that somehow.
Are the cavalry here yet?
This is just to illustrate how time-consuming filmmaking is and post-production is no exception. Then when you add on these “hidden extras” the task just eats up more and more time/money.
Thing is, in the end I self distributed the film and had no need for that extra audio work. So it might be worth getting the film into good shape first and get some interest from buyers. Then face the task of all this added work. They may even be able to get involved.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Step Seven: Marketing. The final step is possibly the one least thought about by low-to-no budget filmmakers when they set out to shoot their movie. But this step is possibly the most difficult – how do you market a no budget film?
If you don’t want to miss Step 7 make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter featuring inspiring stories, no-budget filmmaking tips and comprehensive equipment reviews to help you turn your film projects into reality!
