I just got finished doing a Producing seminar and I'd say 99% of the gang was stuck on getting their film made because of a budget they've decided it needed to be and cannot come up with the money. Who set your budget, I'd ask? All of them admit to placing that self-imposed price tag on the project which, if you're seeking private equity may be a bit of a stretch to put it kindly. I'm reminded of when my father, Lee Stanley had put a $1M price tag on his big labor of love, "Desperate Passage" (back in the mid-80s) and after 4 fruitless years, he finally got the call. We drove up to Moniesito where a wealthy friend of the family lived and he said he was tired of watching my father talk about his dream without bearing any fruit. He handed over an envelope and said, "Go make your movie!" We got into the car (would'a popped champagne if we had it) and when dad opened the envelope, it had $25,000 in it. Assuming this gentleman was going to put us on a draw payment schedule, my father went back to ask when we'd see the rest of it? A minute or three later, he returned with his head slung low and said, "That's all he would give us. He told us to figure it out and go make your movie!" Well, guess what? We did. Mom, Dad, and I went out, gathered some cheap, borrowed gear and a crew of 4, and made the film. It took 2 yrs for anyone to even watch it after it was done but then a miracle happened. Steve Bell, former Pres. of KTLA somehow saw it, called us into his office and said he wanted to make it the biggest event on television. And he did just that. Michael Landon signed on to the project to open and close it and the show went #1 in the Nielson ratings (twice) and was nominated for 4 Emmys, winning 2 and launched the "Desperate Passage Series", where we did 6 more which gathered 33 Emmy noms and won 13 of those little ladies. And the budgets for the other 6 shows never exceeded $200,000 "Gridiron Gang" was part of that series, which went on to be re-made with SONY Pictures starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and was a #1 blockbuster hit. I tell you guys this simply to encourage you. We have more resources now than ever to make movies look good on a shoestring budget. Don't look at what you want to make something for, grit your teeth and figure out what it'll take to really get it done. I promise you, you'll get a lot more movies made and better, each one will be a stepping stone to the next which can have a bigger budget and a lot better chance to get you where you want to be, rather than talking about it. You've got this! Now let's go make some movies! xo
Filmmaking / Directing : What's Your Budget? Who Cares! by Shane Stanley
Shane Stanley
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Filmmaker | Author | Educator at Rolling Thunder Films ♦ Filmmaker
4 years ago
What's Your Budget? Who Cares!
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"...,each one will be a stepping stone to the next which can have a bigger budget and a lot better chance to get you where you want to be. (bears repeating)
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Big Fan Shane. Watched all of your content. If you get to Arizona, let me take you out for some drinks...)
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Thanks gents. Huge fan of AZ. My home away from home my man. I just might take ya up on that one.
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You did get me in trouble though.....I completely remodeled my home for a Dark Comedy about Marriage to be shot in 2022. Every room in the house is different and I built multiple sets in main arena. Then my wife and I were watching your Youtube about to "never shoot in your home" (sign of an amateur) and she smacked me side of the head. I was a finalist on Project Greenlight with my first script. It was posted on their site and two years later It became a successful movie. How do I know it was mine? I made up all of this bizarre science and all of it showed up in their movie, and they even lifted blocks of my dialogue. I recently watched your youtube about Hollywood ripping off good stories. I know that "they say" this doesn't happen, but I was the victim of it....wish I had found you earlier before I dived into this...lol.
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Thanks for sharing this story, Shane Stanley. Very inspiring!
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Thanks, Shane. I just got a comment in my script’s logline (Buddha’s Shadow which is an epic, historical movie based on Buddhist scriptures) saying that he was amazed by the number of people rating my script but because it was in the +30m range, nobody is going to produce it! I was not discouraged or anything but Shane’s message here will make screenwriters do the right thing — write as best as they can. Write as creatively as they can and don’t ever worry about the budget! Cheers!
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On the one hand, good advice. On the other... people who can't figure out what a film really costs need to cough up just a little investment and get some professional consulting/budgeting/scheduling and then maybe their pitch decks will show reasonable numbers. And unfortunately the employment and tax laws are now evolving to make it rather dangerous to do many of the shenanigans filmmakers would do in the past to get their shows done.
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My experience has shown me that nearly all writers have no concept of what it costs to produce a movie. Many say that its not their job, they just work on the storyline. There is some logic to that BUT the writer must have some basic production costs associated with his/her story in order to market it to a viable Producer.
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So true Doug and I agree with your comment wholeheartedly. It also doesn’t excuse THE producer who’s seeking the money who should know this but also needs to steer writers they want to work with to write within a realistic playing field. But you’re right.
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I think Doug's comment may refer more to a studio engaged writers who write stuff to be made on studio schedule. Freelance, no string attached writers (like me) do specs as a show off work, to demonstrate skill, compatibility etc. so no need to bust my mind over potential budged over them scripts. Whoever wants me considering budged when I write, better have me hired first.
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A quick glance at InkTip producer requests and recent options by Stage32 writers shows that by far the greatest opportunity right now is for low and medium budget range scripts, so the fallacy that you don't need to know anything about budgets is easily disproven. For example, If you don't know the budget difference between a single location script request and a Christmas rom-com you're basically showing what a non-pro you are. The first hint you're a newbie is to announce you're writing an interplanetary super-hero story about a nobody who wins the heart of the galaxy sweetheart.
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Kiril Maksimoski Produce's are most often looking for scripts in a given budget range. They are unlikley to hire someone who they think can't write in that range. So... while I understand your attitude, it's part of your writing skill in the commercial world to be able to get within a budget range.
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Great story! Thanks for sharing.
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If possible, you literally have to MAP the movie industry in your genre. Know who the major players/producers are and in what financial range their movies standardly are made .For a holocaust movie (this day and age) in Europe - West and former East - that is between 1 mil and max 6 mil. They're mostlly international co-productions. That's just an inescapable fact. Quality is key. But Often success depends more on (1) the right distribution channels and (2) smart thinking while producing ("Son of Saul" for the most part is made in ONE controlled INT location that has connecting rooms), than making an Oskar movie.
And "to really get it done" you have to keep pitching to the right people. Not Mndlesly & Massively send out query letters."
In my case (and in a lot of cases) what Shadow says is hard but true. At some point, cut-cut-cut.
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Excellent, coherent and inspiring post and discussion, this is so timely, thinking of the logic of understanding how to scale my scripts and concepts up and down from micro-budget to indie to studio range while expanding upon the story; from visualizing big-screen action all the way back down to a contained table read.
I am editing excerpts from my lowest-budget feature script to a twenty-minute short comprised of only the essential Act I dialogue scenes, most of which are two-shots.
The story is fully-developed, so this dialogue is robust, organic, evocative, intriguing and suspenseful, and since I've done the work developing the script, but also knowing that the likelihood of connecting with a studio (or even indie) budget any time soon might be vanishingly small,
I am strategizing plans to embrace transformative change, put on my filmmaker hat and plan and produce a micro-budget / proof-of-concept short that sets up the characters, story world, tone, and all of the things that make it rock-and-rollable (the Happy Hour full script is posted on my profile with logline, a California "revenge-on-the-road" story).
Instead of needing vehicle collisions and helicopters right away, I'm zooming in on the basic locations, office, liquor store / convenience store, outdoor cafe, etc., to just visualize the really elemental settings and set-ups to deliver a very short nugget of the premise and opposition in Act I,
which honestly might reveal story flaws that will take me back to the drawing board, but even if the pre-production process on this micro-thingy shows me that the project is not as robust as I thought, I'd much rather learn that sooner than be out there pitching and get a pie in the face.
And all of these principles of prototyping, scalability, proof-of-concept and cost/benefit analysis are solidly foundational to the whole large-scale venture capital industry, standard business best-practices across many fields and disciplines, so for us as screenwriters if we can explore these strategies we're adding powerful skill sets to support our creative investments of time, heart and soul.
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Absolutely correct.. I just had a friend make an entire movie on a 4K black magic and a budget of max 10 grand.. my gosh it absolutely smashed other films I have seen on one million dollar budgets.. I believe because where there is a will there is a way and passion at 100 percent well there is nothing stopping you.. love this convo thx heaps
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Thanks, Kellie, and yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about here. Bravo to your friend!
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This is a fantastic story, Shane! I also appreciate the fact that it took 2 years AFTER you made it for something to happen. Even in the best cases, this is a business of months and years, not days and weeks.
Thank you Jason and yes, so true. We always hear about the overnight success stories and often the films that took ten years to come to fruition. Oh yeah, that was Gridiron Gang once we made our deal with SONY. It was acquired in 93/94, went into turnaround after three long years and then in 2006 got new life and actually got made. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Hello everyone! I am not new to the @stage32 community, just a bit delayed in engaging within the Writer's Room. I am grateful I am here now though - the value in these posts are golden.
Thank you, @Shane Stanley, for posting this encouraging message that many, including myself, needed to hear.