7 tips on writing low budget films
Making a micro-budget film comes down to one thing: remembering to KISS
This post is about a screenwriting talk given by script and development consultant Ludo Smolski arranged by ShowFilmFirst in 2012.
Despite a lot changing in those six years — streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime have come to dominate home viewing, YouTubers are a thing now, the UK may lose access to film funding from the European Union — but this advice is still current.
Smolski’s talk covered the basics of screenwriting and finished with seven tips for those writing low-budget films.
Smolski said his tips were especially applicable to scripts being written for Film London’s Microwave program. This scheme (currently) provides up to £110,000 development and production funds for films with budgets under £250,000 — aka “micro-budget” films.
What ‘low-budget‘ means
What the production budget of a “low-budget film” is, depends on who you ask. Some say it’s under $500,000, some $250,000 and some $50,000.
But distributors — the people finished films are licensed to so they can get into cinemas, DVDs and streaming services — use “low-budget” to describe films that look like a director tried to do too much with too little money, and ended up with a film that looks “cheap” — poor CGI and visual effects, or low-quality set design and costumes, are obvious examples of this.
Why make a microbudget film?
The reason you should write a microbudget feature is that they get made.
There is nothing wrong with writing a $400 million science-fiction 3D extravaganza as one of your spec scripts. While it may get you a job writing another script, you are highly unlikely to find a movie studio who will make your film. Even experienced writers, producers and directors struggle to get their own projects made in the studio system.
But it is possible for you to form a team and raise £250,000 to make a film you’ve written, and go from final draft to distribution in less time than it takes for a studio to reject your sci-fi epic.
Money to make films has always been tight, and it’s getting tighter. But it’s likely British filmmakers will soon be cut off from EU funding and the chance to work with European filmmakers and companies, due to a ‘no-deal Brexit’ severing the UK’s film industry’s partnerships with long-term partners in the EU on the 29 March.
This means to your script to be made, you will have to make sure it’s affordable to film — and costs even less to make than it will do today.
So here are Smolski’s seven tips for writing and shooting a microbudget feature film.
Ludo Smolski’s ‘Low-budget magnificent 7‘
1. K.I.S.S
All of the following can be summed up by, “Keep it simple, screenwriter.”
2. Give yourself rules
Set rules or limits when writing the screenplay. Smolski described the Dogme 95 manifesto, and the Advance Party and Advance Party II rules as empowering, rather than restraining, for filmmakers.
3. Minimise locations
Micro-budget films are usually shot on location as hiring a studio and constructing sets is expensive—in terms of money and time (and in a film shoot time is money). However, as changing locations is also expensive and time-consuming, Smolski advised keeping costs down by:
- Keeping the number of locations to the absolute minimum.
- Pick locations that are accessible to you.
- Pick locations that near each other — if your script needs a shop and a flat, find a shop that has a flat above it.
Recently, a filmmaker I know released Guardians (2014, writer/director Mark AC Brown) — a film shot entirely in his home. And it’s doing nicely for him and his team.
4. Three parts
Three characters are ideal for micro-budget films, as it allows a wider variety of relationships and conflicts than two-hander or solo pieces could manage.
5. Simple premise
Keep your screenplay’s core idea simple. But you can make the telling of it as complicated as you want.
6. Be entertaining
As Smolski said, no one goes to see a film because it’s cheap. Audiences want you to entertain them. So make your film entertaining.
People do not pack out cinemas across the world to see The Room (2003, writer/director Tommy Wiseau) because it cost next-to-nothing* to make: they go and see it to enjoy themselves.
Making a genre film is a good way of attracting audiences. So consider making a horror, comedy or a science-fiction film. But there are other factors to keep in mind
Horror films have a huge fan base worldwide, so a fresh, original horror film stands a good chance of becoming profitable, even without having a wide cinematic release. But you have to be innovative in order to stand out and make your film well-known on the horror film festival circuit.
Comedies do well in their country of origins but rarely do well in other territories. Every country has its own sense of humour that people in other countries don’t share — there’s a reason why we don’t see Japanese comedies in UK cinemas. While physical comedies can do well overseas — Mr Bean is an international icon now — they are likely far too expensive to make for a micro-budget production.
The production costs of war, period and science-fiction films (especially those set in a cyberpunk or post-Apocalypse worlds) will likely fall outside the micro-budget category. All of these will require specialised set design and costume, which would devour a production budget.
That said, you should write a micro-budget war, period or sci-fi film if you want.
A “period” film set in the near-past (such as Lady Bird (2017), may not be prohibitively expensive
A war film needs to show the effects of war on people, not necessarily the fighting they engage in. (The European film No Man’s Land (2001) about the Serbia-Bosnia war in the 1990s, is an example of this).
As for science-fiction, Darren Aronofsky’s Pi (1998) had a production budget of $60,000, Shane Carruth’s Primer (2004) cost $7,000 and Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (2010) cost $15,000—and all three were critically acclaimed and popular with audiences. These directors also showed great skill is maximising their available resources.
Aronofsky used a highly stylised black-and-white, expressionistic/cinéma vérité aesthetic, that would likely have helped keep filming costs down. As well as writing and directing his film, Edwards created all of the computerised visual effects in his sci-fi/horror about an alien invasion. Carruth went much further: he starred, wrote, directed, produced, edited, and scored his film, as well as handling sound and production design.
7. Form your team
If you want a film your film to be made, find people who want to direct, produce and shoot films and make some shorts together. This will help you build experience and will give you a body of work to show investors you know what you’re doing.
And you will also find people you can lean on for support and who will form the core production team to make your feature film.
Just be prepared to get out from behind your keyboard and “get your hands dirty” with the rest of the crew during production.
* Tommy Wiseau, the writer, director and star of The Room, says the film cost $6 million to make. Anyone who sees it will have… doubts about that claim.