HD For Indies

High Definition Video for Independent Filmmakers
A How To Guide for Digital Filmmakers
Welcome all! This is my blog to share my latest research,
thoughts, etc. on utilizing HD for independent filmmaking.

YES, I am available for consulting
Contact me at mike@hdforindies.com

All content copyright 2004-2007 Mike Curtis.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Soderbergh - make a movie for $10,000

The Believer - Interview with Steven Soderbergh

There's a tipping point. If you're going to make a movie for ten thousand you can talk everybody into doing it for free. You could make a really good-looking movie right now for ten grand, if you have an idea. That's the trick.

That's Steven Soderbergh talking about Bubble - he spent $1.6M to do the film, because he paid people. But talking people into doing it for free - that's the trick, isn't it?

By the way, isn't that the most lame, drag-your-ass-in-here attention whoring headline I've written? I'm kinda proud of how much that headline sucks.

: )

Long interview ranging all over the place with Soderbergh - porn, politics, truth, chanigng your mind, cheap movies, vetting quality, etc.

Other quote:

I don’t know where the middle point is—“I can’t find anyone to vouch for the legitimacy of this thing that somebody’s asking me to download”—and access that’s being controlled by a bunch of people who, it’s possible, if you met, you’d actually hate.

He's talking about the arbiters of access to the bigger markets (painters in NYC in this case), but it has pretty damn obvious corollaries to indie moviemaking.

On making mistakes:

BLVR: Do you generally blame yourself when that happens?

SS: When I’m on the set? Yeah. Everything is the director’s fault—you can quote me on that. There are no excuses.

Take that one to heart, folks - in the end, if you're directing the movie, it is YOUR responsibility. If things go wrong, it is up to you to fix it (with the help of your team, obviously...but you picked them...if they aren't great, your fault....if you couldn't afford a good enough team, then NOT the budget's fault, your fault for not raising enough money...etc....)

On Full Frontal:

At the time, I was interested in the contract between the filmmaker and the audience. What’s the fine print? What are you allowed to do and not to do? For two million dollars, let’s find out. And I learned something—I learned that, for most people, I really went off the reservation there.

Fun stuff, go read it.

-mike

Posted by: Mike Curtis / 9/02/2006 11:11:00 AM

Comments:

I get a little tired of people saying things like "make a movie for 10,000!" The reason is two fold:

1. no one has does it. Robert Rodriguez didn't do it. His seven thousand dollar movie was actually like 300,000 once done. And you might say "Well, but that was just post." Well, he apparently didn't have the advantage of being able to do the post right himself. He DID have the advantage of acess to camera and film. Very few people have access to free EVERYTHING. Lots o people think they're going to do it, but I can't think of one decent movie that really came in under 10,000. Primer was close though. But no one got paid.

2. The whole "everyone works for free" might work for a couple years during/after college age. But that's not a realistic economic model for making films. Also, invariably the only person who benefits from a success are the writer/director/producer/actors. In my experience you get very lucky now and then with someone working for free who actaully has talent. But no one who is talented works for free for more than a few shoots. The only economic model that would be fair would be some profit sharing arrangement at least.

# posted by

Anonymous : Sat Sep 02, 02:20:00 PM CST

Anonymous - I KNOW!

: )

I absolutely agree with everything you said, that's why I was being tongue-in-cheek about the viability of such a plan.

Yeah - "Work for free so I get the benefit!"

....not so much.

# posted by

Mike Curtis : Sat Sep 02, 02:44:00 PM CST

Why not contract with your crew for profit sharing so that you don't have to pay them up front but if the movie does well then they could get reimbursed that way?

# posted by

Wes Vasher : Sun Sep 03, 08:06:00 AM CST

A few years ago I rented Brothers McMullen on NetFlix and I thought it was a really well done low budget movie. Character driven, well written, good movie. The director's commentary was eye opening. They had so few crew that in a few shots Ed Burns actually held his own reflector while he was on camera. Crazy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112585/

# posted by

Wes Vasher : Sun Sep 03, 08:10:00 AM CST

Wes - on profit sharing - lots of folks do that, or try to do that, but it is a losing move for the recipients - odds are, the movie isn't going to make money. If I (or any other production related person) agreed to work on deferral or profit sharing or whatever for every project, I'd be broke within a year....most projects lose money. And if they couldn't raise money from the beginning, there's probably a reason for that....

-mike

# posted by

Mike Curtis : Sun Sep 03, 10:32:00 AM CST

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# posted by

freefun0616 : Thu Sep 17, 02:37:00 AM CST

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Saturday, September 02, 2006

Soderbergh - make a movie for $10,000