STICKING TO BUDGET

You should be aware of your budget at all times. From the beginning to the end, you have to work with your budget, always getting the most production value for the money at your disposal. But whatever you do, don't change your budget after you started shooting! You started by writing a script that would cost you $55,000 to shoot. You did a script breakdown and you determined what equipment, locations, actors, crew and shooting schedule you had to use to be able to finish your movie.

Then if halfway into your production, or even one week in, somebody told you, "This is great, I love your movie, I'm willing to put up another $45,000 into it! What d'you say?" Tell him to go to hell! Not out loud, of course! Smile, say, "Thank you!" Now, here I'm going to tell you something very valuable. It may be that you'll think this is a mistake, "Never say no to money!" But believe me, in film making this may be the kiss of death for your career. Don't ever change your budget after you start shooting! Because, you may be required to use his wife or girlfriend as your leading actress, because he might want to "star" or possibly "direct" or "produce" your movie.

Okay, maybe you don't mind, and the offer is a good one, to your liking, for one reason or another, maybe his wife is a beautiful and talented actress, or whatever, you're still going to screw up your movie, because your movie is written and irrevocably designed to be a $55,000 movie! You say, "Wait a minute, you mean I don't have the intelligence to modify my script and budget to take advantage of such a fine opportunity?" No, you don't! Here's what you have to do, if you find the offer genuinely in your favor. You stop production. You rewrite, redo the budget and hire brand new or additional actors and crew! There's no other way!

But, here's something better, if you really want to succeed in the business: convince your "investor" to put the money into your next project, and come up with a new project that you'll shoot after you complete the one you've already started. This way you'll gain valuable experience in doing a low-budget movie, completing and marketing it, then with the money you get from the distribution you can decide how to work out a co-producer relationship with your enthusiastic investor.
You'll have made a valuable contact with a distributor, or successfully marketed your movie first, and now you can proceed with more confidence, with a broken-in crew (who'll love to work on your next movie, for more money,) and now you can make a better second movie.

Whatever deal you work out with people who get excited about your ability as a film maker, remember not to disrupt the creative process that is so delicate in making a good movie. Your experience, discipline and talent deserve more nurturing, you don't want someone else's ambition to jar you into selling your dream. 
Take a lesson from the old fable about the dog who had a bone and as he looked down into the water from the top of the bridge, he saw the image of a dog with a bone and as he barked, the bone fell out of his mouth and was lost!

To stay on budget on a shoestring production, you should definitely forego dollies, expensive car mounts, and of course cranes and lighting and grip trucks. If your budget is under $100,000 use a set of tripods, reflectors for lighting outdoors, a basic camera such as an Arri IIC in a blimp of some sort (the Cine 60 or the Arri S 120 blimp) or a Mitchell BNCR (if you can find one buy it) or whatever deal you can wrangle on an Arri Bl-1 or Bl-2, Nagra IV L or 4.2 with a couple of Sennheisers (416 and 816 -- or buy yourself older models of these versions, they work fine,) use short ends for your (film) raw stock (make sure they're tested,) and use some basic lights and practicals as I discussed in earlier chapters.

Rehears a scene well before you shoot it, so that you can get it in the can by your fourth or fifth take. This way you can stay within the 5:1 shooting ratio (i.e., you'll shoot five feet for every one you use.) Learn to discipline yourself to cutting in the camera whenever possible, by deciding at what point in the master you'll be going to your mediums and then allow for a few seconds of safety (to allow yourself at least a couple points where the editor will actually cut) and then yell, "Cut!" 

If a medium shot take is blown early, don't hesitate to "Cut!" And get into the habit of saying at such times, "We had a technical problem," as you walk up to your actors. In other words, you were cutting anyway for your own reasons. Some cameramen don't like that because it reflects on them, but explain it to them. Most of the time you'll get away with it. Stay cheerful, but be tough. Your blowing your own money, a few bucks of developing and printing film every second you hesitate to say "Cut!"

Don't start "passing around" close-ups to actors! "What about my close-up?" Shoot close-ups only when there is a legitimate reason. The scene needs a punch or you need to drive in a special detail of the story. Learn to say, "I'll get you next time!" And smile, pat them on the back, it's cheaper.

Keep your sound crew busy in-between takes. Let them do "wild lines" (takes that are recorded without camera running -- you might say mit out camera or MOC -- I just coined that,) where there was camera noise or too much ambient noise, such as a passing car or airplane noise. Wild lines will save you a lot of money. Editors are used to cutting them in. You'll never know the difference. In fact you get better "readings" of the line from the actor sometimes. (Don't over do this aspect, you end up wasting too much time, and the whole thing will backfire on you!)

If your budget is over $150,000 you should attempt to get complete takes that can be used in their entirety. This way at the end of the shoot your editor has only one take for each scene, in 90% of your shooting. It makes editing a breeze. This allows you to develop discipline in shooting, since you'll learn how to get the shot that you want every time. Make sure at the end of every take to make a mentally alert decision about whether you liked the take or not. Everyone else may be satisfied with the take, but you're going to be alone with the film at the end. You should be happy with it, especially if you're on schedule and on budget, then it's only a matter of keeping the same set-up and "popping" another take.

The "circled takes only" work printing technique will save you lots of money at the lab. Why shoot sloppily and print everything, hoping to have lots of shots to work with later; when you can shoot less film, get the results you want and print less film. Some of the best directors, even on major pictures, were in the habit of shooting low ratios and getting excellent results. I believe Alfred Hitchcock shot this way. Of course, he was in the habit of story-boarding and planning everything; but, if he could do it, you can do it, because planning is free!

Many directors who overshoot end up getting fired. There's nothing that drives experienced producers and investors more nuts than sloppy directors who shoot enough film that they could've made five movies with the money. And sometimes that's all the difference between one independent's $100,000 movie and another independent's $500,000 movie!

If your movie just can't do without a helicopter, for one reason or another, you should be aware that there are some helicopter pilots who love working on movies and may give you a great deal. Search for them, it's well worth the phone calls you'll make to find one. Generally don't overlook any opportunity of savings some money. Don't be arrogant in such matters as to get someone to do you a favor, in exchange for some publicity or whatever. There are a lot of people who are sympathetic to film makers. Negotiate, wheel and deal -- it's part of the fun of being a "Producer!"

Stay away from unions if your budget is under the $500,000 range, you'll get eaten alive! There are exceptions and these depend on your contacts -- the ones you have, not the ones some actor on your shoot says he has!  Between $250,000 and $500,000 you can do SAG pictures; but you must be very careful as far as your contracts, because SAG doesn't allow much room for error, you have to pay what you contract, otherwise you lose your film!

At the $1,000,000 mark, you can even entertain the notion of a union crew. Your best bet is going to the union and putting your cards on the table. You'll be surprised how much co-operation you'll get when you do that. It's to their advantage to usher you through your first "union picture," because it may be "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Try to stay away from underwater stories and airplane movies if you're doing your first picture and your budget is on the low end of the scale. Now you've started laughing again. You say, "There he goes again, starting to get ridiculous." Well, sometimes you run into a nut case and you get convinced (okay, I was young!) that this fellow has all these scuba gears and underwater cameras and all that, so why not "take advantage" and shoot an underwater movie? You make a deal to cut the fellow in on the "profits" (later he gets to be Executive Producer, and you get a hernia!) Now, let's assume you don't know how to scuba dive (I don't even know how to swim!) So, you can't direct a "few" scenes, so what you'll give the instructions when the actors and your scuba-diving "cameraman-executive producer" comes out of the water to receive instructions!

So, out they come out of the water, huffing and puffing, cursing and swearing (I mean who needs it? You're already sorry!) You ask them, "How was the shooting?" "That damn light is too dim, and I asked the guy to move a little closer, but he kept going off somewhere -- I can't see a damn thing!" And it just gets worse. Later, at the screening room, you're looking at the screen, and all you see is this dark blob moving clumsily in a sickening blue mass of water. 
You don't even need water to shoot the scene. You can shoot something moving at night in the alley behind your garage. You don't even need an actor! Go ahead, laugh, laugh! But, let me tell you something, THE ABYSS was shot in a "dry" studio with smoke simulating water!

Then another "Executive Producer" type convinces you to do an Air Force war picture! "I have great connection in the Air Force. Hell, I spent half of my life in the service, you better believe I can get some favors!" Okay, you look over the photographs and you're already flying! (Later you find out most of the photos were bullshit, excuse the expression, but they say Hollywood runs on bullshit, so this is one word you should learn not to get squeamish about.) So you shoot your air war picture, but somehow it just doesn't look like "Blue Angel." And that one was done decades ago!

You do know the story about how Howard Hughes shot the whole film? He was sitting with all his people in the theater looking at the rough-cut (first edited version of the movie, before the finishing touches go on,) and it was a pretty spectacular movie. Until then no one had made that good a movie about planes in dog fights and what not. So then, someone in the audience said, "Just imagine how it's going to look when we dub in the sound of the airplanes!" (A movie like that is always shot MOS. The sound effects are dubbed in later.) Well, Howard Hughes says something like, "Right, let's do it over again with tape recorders in every plane!" Sure enough he spent another $5,000,000 to re-shoot the whole movie! That was a big budget in those days. No one dared to say to him that he was nuts!

Part V.
Distribution. 
Finding a Distributor. 
Majors' Distribution. 
Mini-Majors. 
Independent Distributors. 
Distributing Your Own Film. 
The Foreign Market. 
Domestic Distribution. 
Festivals. 
Four-Walling. 
Video, TV & Ancillary Markets. 
Building Your Library of Films. 
Business Options. 
Corporations. 
Limited Partnerships. 
Public Offerings. 
Conclusions.