Tell me about your film

Cafe Society
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Tuckerfan and Cisco want to make films. And yes, I have a few ideas knocking around in my head.

So let’s say you want to make a film. You have, or have access to, all of the equipment you need. But you have no budget to speak of. You look around your house and surroundings. Maybe you live in the mountains. Maybe you live near a beach. Maybe you live in the heart of a big city. These will be your locations. You will use things you already have for props. For example, you have a collection of puppets so you use them as ‘actors’. Or you have a coin collection and you use it as the basis for the plot (say, a collector’s visiting nephew spends an exceptionally rare coin and the story involves the collector’s efforts to recover it). Or you have a friend who has a very distinctive ‘look’ and you use him or her in a film about someone who physically stands out. A friend of mine found an abandoned car in the desert. He made a super-8 film called Spit In the Sunset. As nearly as I can remember it involved a guy whose car broke down and who is attacked and killed by ruffians (who also demolish the car).

Using only the people, props and locations to which you already have access (and, again, given that you have the equipment to shoot it – a HandyCam and a shop light will do, or assume you have a 16mm camera. It doesn’t matter.), describe your no-budget film.

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Oh, just as another example: When a friend was in jr. high he made a film called Why Don’t I? San Francisco. His family took a trip to San Francisco and he shot scenes on the well-lit streets with his super-8 camera. Then he recorded a jazz track over the three-minute film. He won an award at a student film festival with that one.

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I haven’t filmed anything and I can’t contribute much to this thread, but I look forward to some of the responses.

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This thread isn’t about films people have made. I only mentioned a couple that friends made as examples. It’s about the films you would make using only the resources you already have. So contribute away! :slight_smile:

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The latest one I have written is based solely on having no money at all to shoot with. It’s black and white, with only two locations.

So far, there also isn’t any dialouge, except for maybe a line or two.

It starts off with a guy in a city. It’s always completely cold and bright, and he walks around bundled up with sunglasses.

In between his story, there is another story with him in the hot, dark country. This time, he’s a farmer, trying to grow light.

Somewhere in there is a storm drain connecting the two.

Essentially it’s about a guy who really wants to be anywhere where he isn’t at the moment, but it’s hard to break it down in a simple synopsis.

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Oh, ha! Good thread concept. I know nothing about making films, but I always have some ideas percolating. My current concept is to make a sort of action film about fighting terrorists. The terrorist-fighters are middle-aged ladies with normal jobs, because I am a middle-aged lady with a normal job. One thing I have noticed about my crowd is that all us women are good at Macgyver-ing stuff we need in a pinch. Of course, in real life we’re not usually fighting terrorists, but I still think the skills would apply. For setting, I’d film it here, in New York. Along with our ability to Macgyver stuff, we’d also use our cool knowledge about the most effective ways of getting around New York, and shopping, to track down and defeat the terrorists.

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Very Monty Python. I like it. I can see a squad of Pepperpots drinking tea and kicking ass.

PP1: Hello, Mrs. Holland Tunnel!
PP2: Hello, Mrs. Not Holland Tunnel!
PP1: Been fighting terrorists?
PP2: No, been fighting terrorists!

(Only change the characters to the New York equivalent of Pepperpots.)

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ZebraShaSha, please let me know if you ever get around to making that film. It sounds wonderful.

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I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing a music video based on a jazz tune I like that would feature people dancing in various styles starting with belly dancing of the Little Egypt variety, going on to flappers, jazz dancers, some forms of what are now called ballroom dancing (jive, paso doble, but none of that waltz shit) on to current dance styles) to express the notion that dance is a form of communication. I’ve heard so many people say it isn’t, using that as a justification for saying strip club dancing can be censored because it isn’t a form of speech. It IS a form of speech, it’s blatantly obvious to me that all dance is a form of speech, and the film I’m thinking of would express that idea very powerfully.

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I wouldn’t use dancers, I’d just use clips and Macromedia Director. Copyright problems abound, obviously.

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Oh, I like that idea. Tremendous opportunities for humor there.

"We’ve still got time to catch them! The took the Holland Tunnel. With that traffic, we can take the L street connector and set a trap for them when they exit the tunnel!

“No, no, we should catch the South Avenue bus and then take the crosstown connector, it’ll shave five minutes off the trip!”

“Hell, we could WALK and do better than that! It’s just six blocks and there’s a great deli on the way where we could get some bagels with schmear!”

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I have a script that I wrote specifically to be filmed cheaply on 16mm. It’s about a guy who finds a corpse and wants to make her immortal through art. It’s a short that would run about 15 minutes. I guess it really doesn’t count for this thread though, since I no longer live in the apartment for which it was written.

I have the MGB undergoing restoration, and a Triumph that needs restoration but is running. There are two projects in which one or both of them can be used. The first is a ‘title sequence’ inspired by the title sequence for The Italian Job (1969) and a scene from Goldfinger. I have a Norm’s hostess tray (car mount for a camera) that I’ve been itching to use. Basically it’s a montage of shots of a guy driving on a mountain road (probably near Mt. Baker) with (fake) titles and some Italian-style music (working music is Dean Martin’s Sway). When he gets out of the car he is shot. Only the assassin shot the wrong guy. I might develop a script (or find someone to develop one) for a whole film later. But right now the ‘title sequence’ is what I want to make.

The other idea features a character with the improbable name of Roger Roundley. He dresses like it’s 1964 and wants to make a film using an old Bolex camera. I’d compare him to a slightly older Pecker, only very tangentally. In this case I have the props (cars, old camera) and a character, but I’m not sure what to do with him. I started a script last year where he is narrating his story as he tries to make his film. I also have an earlier start where he becomes embroiled in a murder plot. The former is a comedy, and the latter is more of a thriller. I’ve decided it won’t work as a thriller. Since I’ll have two cars, I’m leaning toward a romantic comedy where he meets, or tries to meet, his female counterpart.

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Black and white. Mise-en-scene circa 1930s. Doug, in appropriate period attire, in a leather chair, a drink and smoke by his side, cranking a wind-up portable phonograph in a sunny, white-walled room. He puts a Bluebird 78 on the turntable: Shadows, by the David Rose Orchestra.

POV Doug. Things get blurry, then refocus - in color. Inanimate objects begin moving around the room, throwing interesting shadows on the white wall that interact with each other in changing patterns and shades in time with the music.

The music hits a big ending and we dissolve to B & W again. We hear the kksshhh-kksshhh-kksshhh of the leadout groove and see the pickup bouncing. Pull up to Doug, asleep in his chair. He awakens to the noise of the groove, gets up and stops the player.

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I would like to film Mark Twain’s The War Prayer. Supposedly the most-banned work in high school libraries.

No actors, just the camera acting as the eye of the narrator. Voice over the text with no changes. Lots of spooky empty churches, graveyards and whatnot.

You could do it in a weekend.

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"First Contact Story " - a “based on a true story” short tale of the first, year-long European settlement by shipwrecked Europeans at the Cape of Good Hope. With the help of the local Khoi herders (think Pilgrims and Indians) they manage to survive long enough to be rescued.
All I need is the unspoiled 16-mile beach an hour up the road, some friends who are of obvious Khoi descent, others of European stock, and a truckload of ochre clay which I know where to get free. And some cows and goats, I know where I can rent those cheap.

Use SCA garb for the Europeans, use stock footage for the shipwreck, use driftwood for the shipwrecked encampment, the rest is dialogue and mime.

My actual script, a fish-out-of-water-comedy treatment of the *true *story of the Khoi chieftain who was kidnapped to London (in order to be taught English to make him a better trading partner), would require better sets and costumes, so falls outside the bounds of the OP.

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Just for the record, this has been done. It was added to the Public TV version of Twain’s A Private History of a Campaign that Failed. Edward Herrman did the reading, and it’s pretty good. AFAIK, it’s not out on DVD, but here’s the VHS box:

http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Twain-Classics-History-Campaign/dp/B000F3EVOI/sr=1-3/qid=1161018008/ref=sr_1_3/102-2316190-5068134?ie=UTF8&s=video
I’ve often shot movies in my head. They made The Odessa File pretty much the way I wanted, although they screrwed up the ending. Two SF films I’ve thought about doing were Fredric Brown’s Arena, done straight for once. And I’d do it without narration or voice-overs. I think it can be done, and done well, especially now that we have CGI.

I’ve also wanted to do (as I’ve said many times on this Board) Alfred Bester’s two SF books The Stars my Destination and The Demolished Man. The opening of TSMD could be absolutely superb – a real visual attention-grabber. The rest of the film practically calls out to bbe filmed – it’s filled with such odd and arresting visuals like the toy railroads of the rich, the asteroid people, the indrare vision, and The Burning Man. Don’t listen to the naysayers – this could be done, it could be done reasonabl faithflly, and it could be interesting enough to a non-genre audience. Ditto on TDM, in which I see the telepathy parts as the most interesting and doable parts. Hell, if Bester could convey a sense of the ineffable telepathy by playing with static words on paper, imagine how much better you could do with animation, color, and sound! And, again, you’ve got the visuals of the New York Crater and future society to add interest.

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I’ve got one, though it’s not totally free, I only need a borrowed farm and some sheep. And no it doesn’t involve Hal, much anyway.

It’s about killer sheep who have eaten some bad grain that turns them crazy. I’ve been thinking about this film for a couple of years now, and it turns out that someone beat me to the punch with a film called Black Sheep. Bastard.

I do actually have an idea, not for a movie, but a show. And this one all I need is a camera. It would be about a guy, me, on his motorcycle traveling around the US, stoping at small towns, national parks, places like that. I don’t want to see the big cities that all the other shows would be about, this would be about life outside those cities. I’d stop at fairs and other events that small towns put on that you never really hear about. Plus it would be about motorcycles.

I still want to film my killer sheep though.

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A black-and-white, silent film called Rex Fears Dogs:

*Rex has a crippling phobia of dogs. His two friends, Jack and Axel, are (respectively) a socially offensive creep and a goldfish-obsessed cretin. His girlfriend, June, leaves him in disgust after one too many panic attacks upon encountering a dog in public.

Rex devises a ruse to fool June into thinking he’s OK now. He gets a stuffed toy dog and pretends it’s real, hoping June will fall for it. She doesn’t; he gets distracted during the performance, thinks the fake dog is real, and panics again.

He turns to the supernatural for a cure. A witch gives him a magic charm, consisting of a Milk-Bone on a string to go around his neck, which she claims will protect him from canines of every description.

Emboldened by his newfound invulnerability, he throws a party at his home, to which he invites his friends, June, and a dog (as well as some extras). He begins to pet the dog, to show off his lack of fear, but the dog eats the Milk-Bone amulet from around his neck! He has another panic attack, diving off the deck at the back of the house. June and the assembled partygoers mock him cruelly.

Just then Axel (the goldfish-obsessed cretin) shows up, a late arrival to the party. He carries a goldfish in a bowl; he is thrilled about his new pet. When June sees it, SHE has a panic attack, revealing that she’s got a phobia of her own.

Rex thinks for a moment, sees her hypocrisy. He tells her to get lost and she stomps off in a huff.

The party begins in earnest.*

OK, I confess I didn’t just make this up. Rex Fears Dogs is a movie I made recently on DV; it played this Saturday night at the indieMemphis Film Festival. Unfortunately, the pinheads on the judging committee didn’t seem to appreciate my genius and I was cruelly snubbed at the awards ceremony.

It’s hard out here for an auteur.

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Hmm… With just the stuff house A sword-wielding Scotsman wearing chainmail and kilt fights off a gun-toting Sherlock Holmes wannabe in a canoe. Hilarity ensues.