All true, but you can make those rules work for you. First, genre expectations are different. Generally you need a famous name attached to sell a movie, and you can't get one. But horror fans don't care much about actors. (Neither do sci-fi fans, but sci-fi is exponentially harder to pull off). And fortunately, horror fans like bargain-bin, formulaic movies.
There are plenty of horror and no-budget festivals, so if your film is not total crap then you have a good chance in being selected for one. That'll help you get more money from the distributor, but if you don't succeed it's not too much of a loss.
The union doesn't matter too much. The lower your production budget, the less likely they are to bother you. SAG (actors) has a very cool deal for no-budget films that lets the actors work for free or minimum wage. Writer's guild just does not care below 6 figures. Ditto for the crew and camera unions. Of course the less you have to spend the less you can get in the way of experienced people, but if you have a few enthusiastic key people who are willing to shepherd some enthusiastic amateurs, you'll be fine.
RED One is an amazing camera, but I wouldn't use it for this kind of project. It's still pricey, and says that you have money but you're not willing to spend it on the crew. For the dirt-poor filmmaker, what you want is a Panasonic HVX or similar that shoots 24/5P and which can put out or be converted to something that looks fairly decent at 720p. And a friendly producer.
If you turn in a film that does not completely suck for under $50,000, you can probably sell it for enough to get your production costs back.
There are plenty of horror and no-budget festivals, so if your film is not total crap then you have a good chance in being selected for one. That'll help you get more money from the distributor, but if you don't succeed it's not too much of a loss.
The union doesn't matter too much. The lower your production budget, the less likely they are to bother you. SAG (actors) has a very cool deal for no-budget films that lets the actors work for free or minimum wage. Writer's guild just does not care below 6 figures. Ditto for the crew and camera unions. Of course the less you have to spend the less you can get in the way of experienced people, but if you have a few enthusiastic key people who are willing to shepherd some enthusiastic amateurs, you'll be fine.
RED One is an amazing camera, but I wouldn't use it for this kind of project. It's still pricey, and says that you have money but you're not willing to spend it on the crew. For the dirt-poor filmmaker, what you want is a Panasonic HVX or similar that shoots 24/5P and which can put out or be converted to something that looks fairly decent at 720p. And a friendly producer.
If you turn in a film that does not completely suck for under $50,000, you can probably sell it for enough to get your production costs back.