What, How, Who?

If you want to complete a feature project for $4k you need to answer these three questions on a macro and micro level:

What is the story you want to tell?
How are you going to record your story?
Who are you making this for?

You shouldn't start until you have answers to all three AND be aware your answers will/should change, be refined, or jettisoned, as the project moves forward.

From the Holiday project, here's but one macro answer for each question (keep in mind there are many macro and micro answers you will develop--not just one):

What is the story?
A revenge story turned on its head
How to record the story?
iphone 4S at locations near my home
Who is this for?
Cinephiles interested in a challenging story

I'll gloss each of these questions for a few posts, then give some down and dirty advice using specific examples.  I'm not suggesting anything new or radical, these are simply questions designed to cover three basic feature project areas: development, production, business.

Although question one concerning story might seem the obvious place to begin, you can, in fact, enter your project from any of those questions.

I entered Holiday via question two.  I was curious if moving image technology had moved far enough along to allow anyone with a cell phone, laptop, and $4k to make a marketable feature that would play on mobile devices and movie theaters.  An aesthetic experiment asking in the digital age and its ability to target market, how narrow can you make your target audience and still turn a profit to support your existence as a filmmaker?  I'll let you know when I sell this project.

You could also come at it from question three--I want to make a horror film, or a love story, or whatever.  It doesn't make any difference.  No one question is easier to begin with than any other and they all must be clear in your head before you begin monopolizing other people's time shooting scenes.

And again, you must treat all three with equal importance.  If you drop the ball in any of those three areas, downstream you will find your film difficult to sell to distributors.

Introduction

I’m about to complete my first feature length motion picture project, Holiday (project website).  It sits at the nexus of a major disruption in the history of motion picture creation and distribution, and an explosion in potential narratives.  Although Holiday is but one example of numerous projects completed at this nexus, it is the one I know intimately.  This blog will be a discussion of that project from its inception to its sale--an event I'm trying to make happen sooner, rather than later--and then whatever might come after.  I did learn a few things on the way and the intention here is to create a resource for current and future no-budget directors and producers.

The shift in creation/distribution

In the last 24 months smartphones have gone from recording at 1080HD to 4K.  At this point anyone with a cellphone can shoot a feature that can be projected in a theater without noticeable loss in production value.  Indeed, studios have been producing and releasing feature projects shot on 4K for years.  Furthermore, with rise in use of mobile media devices, 4K resolution is more than adequate.  Holiday was shot in 2013 with an iphone 4S (1,100 shots), both a GoPro 2 and a GoPro 3 (375 shots), and a Canon 5D (100 shots) and posted at 1080HD with the intention of up-resing the image to 4K for theatrical distribution.

The shift in narrative

This new technical paradigm creates an opening for the creation and dissemination of alternative narrative structures, micro-narratives, petit récits—a John Cassavetes nirvana of narrative possibilities.   But Cassavetes had to take well-paying studio acting gigs to feed his independent film habit.  Shooting on 16mm was, and still is very expensive.  Yet today, you can buy a smartphone for $300 or less.  Then you need a $1,000 laptop, a $250 external superfast drive, and a $100 slower backup drive.  Never have feature projects been potentially so inexpensive and thus open up the potential availability of alternative narratives, other stories, not economically profitable in a system where production is much more expensive.  But to be clear, this doesn’t mean everyone will make a feature, it just means anyone can.  Thank goodness.  Of course, that creates its own set of issues.

Awesome, but also, not so awesome

On the flip side of this tremendous creative potential is the certainty of a glut of product available which will drive the selling price of projects down to where it could become impossible to make a living as a director/producer.  Is there a way around that rather sad prospect?  Sort-of, but overall, I remain pessimistic.

Of course, one way to “make money” in this new system of exchange would be to mass-produce.  But getting a hundred minutes of motion picture story to hang together enough to engage an audience is not trivial and thus, not conducive to mass production (ask any studio or television exec).  Much of what has happened in the music industry (and commercial photography) since the turn of the century—where a few artists earn 90% of the income—I fear will be the fate of feature length story telling.  The three-television network universe I was born into is about to explode into galaxies of digital content providers (currently referred to as “websites”).  So there will be great demand, but for very specific content, and the selling price point will stay low for most producers.

Another way to “make money”, however, is to do a project so inexpensively that you can’t help but turn a profit.  This blog will address this potential path which is not without limitations.

The project

My co-producer and I completed Holiday for less than $4,500 cash out the door.  We’ve chosen to spend a little more to create an original score and there are deferred contracts, but the project was shot and edited for less than $4,500.  To make a feature length project that is a marketable product is challenging enough—it’s simple to string together 100 minutes no one but you is interested in—but to do it for $4,500, now that’s a bit of a hat trick.  And Holiday is not yet completed, nor is the project sold--an important fact if we are talking about making a living.  So although I don't recommend using this as a day-to-day business model, it might serve as a pathway to something bigger. 

I’ll be back soon with more.