Indie nominees share secrets for making films on the cheap
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LOS ANGELES -- The Independent Spirit Awards celebrate the best in low-budget filmmaking. But within those honors, the John Cassavetes Award goes to the lowest of the low-budget films: those made for less than $500,000.
This year's five nominees talked about how they did it on the cheap. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony Saturday.
'Chalk'
Film: "Chalk" is a mock documentary set in a high school. Directed by Mike Akel, written by Akel and actor Chris Mass.
Budget: About $200,000. Shot on video in 22 days in Austin, Texas.
Their secret: Write what you know.
Akel and Mass drew from their teaching experiences at Austin's Travis High School. Akel taught TV/film; Mass, world geography.
"The first thing we had to do was cut out explosions," Mass joked. People donated food, a lot of students pitched in and most of the actors worked on deferred payments.
"My principal was great," Akel said. "[The movie] 'Friday Night Lights' had shot there, and Chris and I brought our kids as extras in it.
"We spent a full day doing that, watching them, how they did it. From what I heard, it cost $10,000 a day to rent the school -- we got a location agreement because we didn't say it was Travis. We had to hide the school [name], the mascot and all that stuff. Plus we worked there, so we had another little deferred payment."
The hardest part?: "Most people, a lot in Austin, had worked on a [Richard] Linklater film or a Robert Rodriguez film. [The University of Texas] has a big program," Akel said. "I think you get one shot at that -- to get your friends to hop on -- because it's tough when you know your friends are worth money. ... You want to be able to pay someone."
Their advice for aspiring filmmakers: "Do something that you love -- don't think of what the audience wants and then try to meet that," Akel said. Or, as Mass put it, "Really do what's in your means, what you know and what you're passionate about."
'Four Eyed Monsters'
Film: "Four Eyed Monsters" is about two artists falling in love. Directed by Arin Crumley and Susan Buice.
Budget: About $5,000 for equipment, but they accumulated $81,000 in credit card debt because they had no jobs while they were working on it. Shot on video over three years in New York City.
Their secret: Do it yourself.
Crumley and Buice directed, wrote, shot, edited and starred in the movie, based on their real-life story of meeting on the Internet four years ago.
"We own our own equipment, so we basically did everything ourselves, and we had friends help us along the way," said Buice.
The hardest part?: "There was a major psychological problem in trying to wear all these hats," Crumley said. "Of course it saved us money. But we're in a relationship making a movie about the relationship and living together and using the space where we live as the set, so basically we didn't have a place to live.
"In the scenes where we're bummed out or going crazy or losing our minds, that's us losing our minds."
Their advice: "Use your own experience. Life is full of stories and that can be your creative process," Crumley said. "I shoot things on my cell phone and then post them on YouTube. You don't need a hugely sophisticated system."
'Old Joy'
Film: "Old Joy" is about two longtime friends on a camping weekend. Directed by Kelly Reichardt.
Budget: $30,000. Shot on Super 16 film over three weeks in Portland, Ore., and the woods of Mount Hood.
Her secret: Less is more.
"We worked with a small crew: a six-person crew, two actors and a dog. We were making a road-trip movie, and we were essentially on a road trip together," Reichardt said.
"The smallness of it is doable, but it also really worked for the film we were making -- just the scaled-downness."
The hardest part?: "We had a very short script, a 40-page script, so the tricky part was telling the actors to expand on a scene and really take their time, but at the same time we're working with 200-foot loads so those are sort of contrary ideas: Take your time, let it play out, but hurry up because we only have five minutes."
It helped having an executive producer in Neil Kopp who knew the mountain back roads and found places to stay.
Her advice: "Get a day job -- I teach -- so you don't have the pressure of trying to survive off your films."
'Quinceanera'
Film: "Quinceanera" is about a girl who learns she's pregnant as she's celebrating her 15th birthday. Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.
Budget: $420,000, shot on digital video over 18 days in Los Angeles' Echo Park section.
Their secret: The kindness of strangers.
"The movie really came from sort of, like, this crazy New Year's resolution in 2005," Westmoreland said. "We sat actually at this table having our breakfast, and we were a bit hung over on New Year's Day, and we were like, 'OK, we're going to make a film this year. We're going to shoot it in our neighborhood, we're going to do it really low budget, we're going to use nonprofessional actors.'"
"We had four locations on this block," Glatzer added. "I'd say, like, 70 percent of the movie was just shot within walking distance of this place, and it was friends who just opened their doors to us and neighbors and everything, and people were really nice about it."
Extras even cooked food and brought it in, which kept costs down. "It was a battle for the tamales," Glatzer said.
The hardest part?: "We were worried at first that we wouldn't be able to get a really great cast because it was nonunion, but what we found was that there were tons of just really talented people who haven't had the breaks yet," Westmoreland said. "Our cleaning lady's in it, our cleaning lady's sister, our cleaning lady's sister's niece, our cleaning lady's daughter and her grandson."
They used high-definition video thinking it would be cheaper and easier -- and it was at first, Glatzer said, but transferring to film cost them added time and money. There were mistakes with color correction, plus they had to transfer twice: with and without subtitles.
Their advice: Make the most of what's around you.
"It was like a charm offensive," Westmoreland said. "Our locations manager was so super smiley and charming and really kind of got people into the idea of the movie that it was about this neighborhood and it was about gentrification of this neighborhood. It's not just some random crime drama. It's about your lives."
'Twelve and Holding'
Film: "Twelve and Holding" is about preteens responding to a friend's death. Directed by Michael Cuesta.
Budget: Just less than $500,000, shot on Super 16 film over 23 days in New Jersey and Long Island.
His secret: $100 a day. That's what everyone got paid, although some crew members -- the production designer, cinematographer, Cuesta himself -- were offered back-end points.
The hardest part?: "Keeping everyone inspired."
"I find that part of my job on set, when you're working under those constraints, is keeping everyone believing that what they're doing is worth doing for the sake of making a good movie, for the sake of creating a piece of art, hopefully something that has some sort of validity, some sort of shelf life," said Cuesta, whose first film, 2001's "L.I.E.," cost about $700,000.
Much of the credit goes to screenwriter Anthony Cipriano, he said. "It all starts with a great script. If the script is great, then everyone comes on board and believes in it."
His advice: "Make it and find a producing partner that believes in it as much as you do."
"I like making films this big," he added. "I don't care, as long as I can make a living and have a day job, I'll keep making small films. It's so liberating."
First Published February 20, 2007 12:00 am
