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What Would It Take To Make a Movie?
What Would It Take To Make a Movie?
Mrebo
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Some of you have studied film or from personal study might know. To make a quality production, what would it take to make a movie? I know the sky can be the limit or just a boy and his camera is even a possibility, but what would be the basic necessities? What would a $50,000 vs $1,000,000 production look like? What would you want for a camera? Film vs digital? If you were going to make a movie, realistically how would you do it?
This is not a lightsaber. Nor a euphemism.
NeverarGreat
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Once upon a time there was a Star Wars trilogy. Now there is apocrypha.Hard to answer such a broad question.
Take Sunshine for example. It was made for about 30,000,000 dollars, which for a big sci-fi movie is very little. However, the effects look like the work of a much larger production.
Several years ago I made a 30 minute movie with a MiniDV camera which cost about 300 dollars. We used wooded locations, used few props (this was a medieval setting), and the "actors", including myself, were all unpaid because it was for fun. Premiere Elements cost 100 dollars, and with all of the supplies the production probably ran close to a thousand dollars. The movie was pretty shit, but with a better script it would probably have been watchable. So a thousand dollars doesn't buy that much in terms of quality.
To cover the basics, hire people with acting experience, write a good script, and get permission to film in interesting locations. The costs of shooting digital should be very small compared to what is in front of the camera. Anyone can create passable CG sequences these days, the trick is primarily in story, secondly in acting.
If you want to know what it takes to make a good movie on the cheap, look at The Movie Hero. That is one of my favorite movies, and it uses extremely little in the way of sets and effects.
zombie84
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Jedi KnightIf you are experienced and own some of the gear already, you will know the techniques to make a professional-looking movie for as little as $30,000 or so, but realistically one would expect to spend six figures at the very least. Half a million dollars could get you a professional crew for a few weeks if you could do some of the post production and pre production yourself.
A feature film is an enormous undertaking, for some people it is the most stressful, expensive and important thing they will have to be responsible for on a professional level. You aren't going to get a sense of it from asking questions on message boards. And you probably won't make much if any profit from it, if you don't end up losing most of the investment. Most indie films are total financial loses, even from established filmmakers many films don't get distribution outside the festival circuit, therefore they don't make back the budget.
The Secret History of Star Wars -- now available on Amazon.com!
"When George went back and put new creatures into the original Star Wars, I find that disturbing. It’s a revision of history. That bothers me."
--James Cameron, Entertainment Weekly, April 2010
What Would It Take To Make a Movie?