

Lean movie-making: Zombie flick wowing Cannes made for $70 - ujeezy
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/21/Colin/index.html

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anigbrowl
I've worked on a lot of no-budget movies (no-budget in Hollywood terms is
anything under $100k). I have dont feature films that cost as little as $30k.
The trick of making a short cheap movie is to know what you're doing well
enough to shoot the whole thing in a short period, like 1-2 weeks.

The $70/45 pound is bullshit. Even if you don't pay people (you can get away
with this because everyone wants to be in movies), the rule is that you at
least feed them and pay for their transport costs (bus tickets or gasoline).
Unless you are exceptionally good at scheduling, you'll have them there for a
full day which means feeding them twice.

I guarantee this thing cost at least $10,000 in food and expenses. What it
probably means is the filmmaker spent $70 and scrounged up the rest from his
parents and friends' parents. Even if you do home cooking, feeding and
stumping up bus fares for an average of 20 people a day ain't cheap. I hate
these kind of stories because when you're trying to raise money for a low-
budget movie people say 'well X was made for $150', while many of your
suppliers (particularly suppliers of locations, which you can't afford to
build) hear 'movie' and think you're going to drop thousands per day.

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ivankirigin
It also doesn't account for the makers labor. It's like saying "I made a web
app in my spare time over 3 months while working at McSoftware Firm. So it
cost $0 to make!"

No, it was subsidized.

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anigbrowl
Well, working for free or deferred pay (if the film gets sold) is common at
the bottom end of the business. So I'm prepared to accept that the labor
outlay was $0, since in such cases there's an agreement that nobody is owed
any money unless paydirt is hit. And equipment may be owned or borrowed -
after all, I have 2 cameras that can shoot video, and a fast computer, so if I
began shooting something lo-fi tomorrow I'm already equipped. But still.

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DocSavage
It helps when you have friends just coming off the X-Men 3 production: "Most
of the zombie make-up in the make-up artists' cases was inherited from other
movies."

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baddox
It's still impressive that he was able to borrow and recruit volunteers for
the whole deal, but the $70 budget is a bit deceiving when he certainly used
equipment worth far more money.

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ubernostrum
I prefer to think of it the same way as stuff out of the demoscene that goes
on about producing an awesome demo in 4k... and then doesn't mention that it
requires all sorts of stuff to be separately provided through DirectX or
OpenGL.

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Luc
But it does mention it, it just doesn't make for a snappy headline.

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albertsun
I'm always curious how they tabulate costs for this kind of movie. Why exactly
were the crow bar and drinks included in the $70, and everything else not? The
video camera, or the editing software, or the computer he edited on, or the
time of the creator and actors, or even the actors make up and costumes, all
cost money, it's just that they were donated or already owned.

If he just recalculated some of the expenses I'd imagine it could also be $0
or several thousand.

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shard
It's out-of-pocket money, just like those "I built a web startup for $100"
posts. If the web startups counted how much the OSS would have cost if it was
not free, the total cost would skyrocket.

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albertsun
There's a difference. OSS is free for everyone. The things that reduce his
film making costs are not free for everyone.

~~~
shard
OSS may be free in terms of purchase dollars, but not free in terms of time
needed to learn how to code. Just like getting X-Men production props is free
in terms of purchase dollars, but not free in terms of time needed to build
those connections.

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christofd
Agreed, the $70 estimate is very misleading. It doesn't include opportunity
cost of capital (time), cost of education, his existing equipment, his friends
connections etc. etc.

Also, I'd like to add: his opportunity cost is actually HUGE - 5 years earlier
and he was not qualified enough (guessing - tied down with education, learning
the ropes etc.), while 5 years later and he's too old to be doing this
(pushing 40) and probably tied down with wife and kids.

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wallflower
The zombie film flick "Colin" is succeeding on the strength of the filmmaking
and the PR made-for-nothing-story.

I have two friends who have made documentaries and films. Startups and film-
making are very alike. Making films for people to watch is very much a labor
of sweat and passion. Even finishing the film is a feat. Making it into a film
festival is a success. There is a whole circuit of
local/regional/national/international festivals. Everyone has heard of Cannes
- but the Big Sky (Montana) festival? Making a film that is accepted into
Cannes? That is a major accomplishment. Making a film that gets picked up by a
major distributor. Probably the equivalent of an IPO.

As Chris Holland of the Film Festival Secrets blogs writes:

"I think this [Doonesbury] strip pretty much sums up the indie film experience
for many filmmakers"

[http://filmfestivalsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/02/doonesbury-d...](http://filmfestivalsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/02/doonesbury-
does-indie-film.html)

Chris, an indie film insider, on the realities of getting your film
distributed:

"So while you're on the ground at the film festival, do the following:

» Set discrete, measurable, attainable goals. Of course you should think about
what your overall goals are for your film and your career, but for the
purposes of any one event you need to write down the bite-sized goals that you
can accomplish while you're there. "Find a distributor" is not a bite-sized
goal. "Talk to ten distributors and establish contact with an acquisition rep
at each" is more reasonable."

[http://filmfestivalsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/01/last-
minute-...](http://filmfestivalsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/01/last-minute-film-
festival-prep-tips_7437.html)

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noonespecial
Hollywood has a long _long_ history of fudging the numbers on the true costs
of movies. They use it for everything from simple tax evasion to huge complex
schemes in order to deprive rights holders of royalties.

Calling it $70 as a publicity stunt is pretty benign.

~~~
wallflower
My friend Matt who works as a PA (production assistant - meaning you basically
do stuff like go grab a very specific lunch for X movie starlet at times) says
Hollywood operates under its own rules.

For example, apparently if you work for more than 14 days (or it might be 21)
straight on a production you automatically become part of the union. So, what
they do, is every 14 days they fire all the temp workers on the set. And
usually rehire them the next day.

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eru
By the way, do you know why Hollywood seems to have so many strong unions?

~~~
wallflower
I don't know and this explanation seems to be good (e.g. talent is not
interchangeable because of social connections and big-hitter players
supporting the union)

[http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/11...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/11/why-
are-hollywo.html)

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zandorg
I learned from a Media Studies course that distribution and promotion costs
100% of the cost of a movie. So a $30 mil movie costs another $30 mil to
promote. Unless of course you get promotion by saying how much it cost!

[Additional] I loved the Hunt for Gollum and that was astonishing film making
for the budget.

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Darmani
Certainly impressive, but I take issue with the statement that this film cost
$70 -- is the creator's time worthless? If this film grosses $140, I doubt
he'll be jumping in joy over a 100% profit.

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swolchok
Your startup is certainly impressive, but I take issue with the statement that
you only need $20000/year to develop it -- is your time worthless? If your
startup makes $120000 in its first year, I doubt you'll be jumping in joy over
a 200%-500% profit.

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jerf
Uh... no, no that argument definitely doesn't scale like that. $100,000 profit
for a year's work sounds like a plan to me.

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swolchok
The point was that we also measure startups by their cash costs, not their
cost+time.

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snewe
How much of this is just buzz-creation? It is next to impossible to verify the
$'s spent. However, 18 months of time + volunteers does have a high
opportunity cost.

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vaksel
hopefully it'll make more money than the blairwitch project

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ryanwaggoner
Is this sarcastic? According to Wikipedia, Blair Witch Project had gross
revenues of nearly $250m as of 18 months ago.

 _The Blair Witch Project grossed $248,639,099 worldwide, against a $22,000
budget.[12] The film was featured in the Guinness Book of Records as having
the highest profit-to-cost ratio of a motion picture ever, making back
US$11,301.78 for every $1 spent._

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vaksel
not sarcastic, I'd just like to have something for $70 break the record

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ryanwaggoner
Ah...now that you've rephrased it, I see how your comment could read that way.

