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• 10 Ways 2 Know it's a Low Budget Movie

  2008-10-14 5:56PM / 標準BLOG / 會員可以看
  4個評論

   

  

  "Crash Test", a guerrilla indie film I shot in 2002, has just had a Grindhouse DVD re-release in the States - it's been bundled with the film "Ravage"; and I only just stumbled upon the artwork! Very schlock-exploitation vibe to the re-packaging and re-titling! I shot the super low-budget sci-fi with friends after I graduated from university.

  We shot this movie for a ridiculously small amount of money. I've jotted down 10 things that can happen on a shoot that make you realise YOU HAVE NO BUDGET (these happened on "Crash Test"):

  1. You can't find actors so you consider using your hands as hand puppets to play characters instead - hey, that's two characters right there!

  2. You can't afford stunts or crashes, so in a pivotal action scene you convince your friends to drive their parents' cars at each other - and brake suddenly before the cars hit. Everyone simply hopes for the best.

  3. You can't afford locations, so you shoot the "prison cell" scene in an actor's TV room. You try to ignore the fact that the door doesn't even have a lock. Can we say mis en scene?

  4. When actors aren't acting in the scene, they're holding the camera.

  5. If anyone is left who's not holding the camera, then they're holding the boom pole.

  6. Your lighting department is a small $10 lamp you bought at the 2nd hand shop. You carry it to every location to "light" the scene.

  7. When you tell the crew to break for lunch, they have to wait around as you make the sandwiches for everyone. "Who likes butter and who likes margarine?"  Good news is, there are only one or two people in the cast and crew other than yourself, so this is not as difficult as it might seem.

  8. When you say the film is in "development hell" it means the computer you've been writing the scrīpt on has a virus and won't start back up.

  9. When you have to write the crew credits list at the end of the picture, 80% of the names credited are those of people who don't exist. In fact, they're pets that you used to have. Maybe if the film has a long end credits, you think, it will look more professional. Viewers wonder why so many people on the crew had names like "Scruffy" and "Spot". They also wonder how a film with this many crew could look like it was made by just one dude and a camera.

  10. As you can't find actors, you play a lead role as well as directing. This causes some problems when it comes to directing the scenes during the shoot, especially when you're playing the corpse (see myself checking the storyboard between takes below):