Who's made a movie?

Cafe Society
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This weekend, my friend Harriss and I watched an independant movie called The Sore Losers. Really low budget movie, lots of topless women, and Guitar Wolf! The movie raised a big question (well, two, but we gave up on looking to an answer for “What the fuck?”) was:

How do movies like this get made?

So, who out there has made an independant movie? Where’d you get your funding? Where do you get your actors? How hard is it to get a Japanese Rock Band to be in the film (or, any fairly prominant rock band for that matter)? Shit, I’ve seen crappy independant films with famous people in them, so how do you manage to get your script out to people you’d love to be in them? And what are some good cost cutting methods (aside from “Don’t pay people you don’t have to”)?

And if you have made a movie…what was it?

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Anamorphic has made one.

I made a couple in school, but usually I work on my friend’s films. The first one, Cut Up was shot on 16mm for about $40,000 or $50,000. He worked for a guy who acted as the executive producer, abd who got investors through his community connections. The second one may or may not have been self-produced. That was Zombie! vs. Mardi Gras. (The page for Zombie! contains nudity, so I won’t post the link. It’s the same URL, except “/movies/zombierms.html” instead of “/cutup/cutup.html”.) If you do a search you’ll see that some people consider it the worst film ever made. They don’t get the joke. (Or maybe they’re not up on the Jean-Luc Godard references.) The latest one, Night for Nixie, is self produced on digital video.

You can get money by finding investors, but the return on most films is not great. Which is to say, they’ll never see their money again. You can borrow it from friends; but again, they’ll probably never see the money again. You can get a bunch of credit cards and max them out. You can just happen to have a ton of money.

Actors can be gotten through Drama Logue, or a similar publication. You can use your friends. You can post a casting notice in the local paper. My friend went to someone else’s casting call and passed out flyers for his own film until he was chased away. If you want to use a SAG actor, you’ll need to pay the price. You may need a waiver from SAG for your non-union film, but Anamorphic will know more about that than I.

Cost cutting? Where can’t you cut costs? Basically, you need to be imaginative. For Zombie! we needed a graveyard. While New Orleans is full of them, they can be expensive to rent. So we built one in my friend’s back yard using planks to simulate the raised graves and matteboard and styrofoam for headstones. We also had a little gargoyle statue we got from somewhere. We shot at night and used some fog. When I showed the film to a neighbour, she thought we actually filmed it in a graveyard.

Use as few people as you can. People expect to be fed! (It’s good form to provide a hot meal, plus snacks and drinkage.) Don’t pay anyone unless you have to. A lot of people will work for deferments. (Which they will probably never see. We shot Cut Up in mid-1993, and I just got $50 of my deferment a couple of weeks ago.)

Try to get stuff free. We were shooting on a levy in New Orleans across from a soft-drink distributor. They gave us a couple of cases of drinks in exchange for having their name put in the credits. You can also try to get locations for free. Set up, shoot, and get out before someone asks for a permit. I was working on another guy’s film and we told the ranger we were just testing the camera, not shooting a film. (Of course it could end up being cheaper to just get the proper permits!) Someone might have a camera and will shoot your film in exchange for the credit. On the other hand, you might end up getting what you pay for! Use short ends, which are cheaper than new rolls.

It’s not easy to make a list of cost-saving “tricks”. Often you’ll find you need a shot and there will be a “normal” way of doing it and a cheap way of doing it. You’ll have to think your way through it to get the shot and still not compromise it. Be innovative.

If you want to make a film, and you can figure out a way to make it within your limitations, you’ll probably be able to make it. But then there’s distribution. Cut Up got some play on European TV, but the distributor didn’t want U.S. rights. After the contract was signed another company wanted to distribute it but insisted on the now-unavailable European rights. A lot of distributors won’t be interested. Others may think your work of art is worth a risk, but then do a piss-poor job of selling it. If your film is picked up, you may ge shocked at how little they’re willing to pay.

If you want to sell your film, make sure it’s a good one. If you make a good film and can get it seen at festivals, and if you can win some awards at those festivals, then you might have a chance at having it picked up. Cut Up won the LA (Louisiana) Filmmaker Award in 1996.

You can get Cut Up on the Da Killaz compilation DVD for ten bucks from Suncoast Motion Picture Company. This has four films on it. I have not seen one of them, but in addition to Cut Up there are Bang and The Murder Men. Those other two were made by another friend of mine. The Murder Men was shown at the Hollywood Black Independent Film Festival last year. Ithink everyone should own a copy of Da Killaz. If it were in every American household, I would be very happy. :slight_smile: (Did I mention that part of me deferment for Cut Up is like half-a-point in the proceeds? :wink: )

Some funny films about independent filmmakers are In the Soup and Living in Oblivion, starring Steve Buschemi, and And God Spoke with Soupy Sales.

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The Sore Losers was made by J. Michael McCarthy (aka JMM, Super Tupelo) who was for some time the entirety of the independant movie scene in Memphis. In addition to Guitar Wolf, the lead is played by Jack Oblivian of the Oblivans. If you like Guitar Wolf and you’re not familiar with the music of the Oblivians, I highly recommend you check out Soul Food or Oblivians Play Nine Songs with Mr. Quintron and prepare to have your socks rocked off.

I have know Micheal McCarthy socially for years. We’re not good friends or anything, but I attended the premier of his first movie Gorotica and we speak when we see each other socially. He’s a great guy–full of energy, charisma, and obviously bursting at the seams with ideas. His aesthetic is totally different from mine: he loves old C-grade exploitation movies and vintage porn. He’s got pluck, I’ll give him that, and he knows lots of large breasted women who are willing to take their clothes off for his camera. But even with that obvious plus, it’s been nothing but a struggle to get these movies made. He’s been an inspiration to a lot of people around here, and now that digital technology has made moviemaking much cheaper there are a lot of Mike McCarthy imitators in Memphis, for better or worse. Personally, I enjoy watching his stuff in a theater with people where everyone can laugh and have a good time, but I don’t own any DVDs or watch them by myself. His screenwriting is…shall we say, limited. But perhaps intentionally so. Right now, I know he’s been working with Troma to make a new movie, which has to be a dream fulfilled. I say more power to him.

I am currently involved in my second ultra-low budget digital movie project. The first was called Slick Lilly vs. The Grand Canyon and is a political satire that defies easy description. I was one of the lead actors and did some sound. The one we’re working on now is called Six Days in the Life of Mims. It’s about the preparations by a rich playboy type for a Rapture party. I can’t really add much in the way of low budget tips that Johnny L.A. hasn’t covered already except to say that digital is the way to go. It has made everything an order of magnitude cheaper and allows aspiring filmmakers to get experience and make mistakes without incurring catastrophic financial burdens.

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I almost forgot: the SDMB’s own jackalope is a supporting actor in Mims and is kicking all kinds of thespian ass. I can’t wait to see the end product.

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Oh yeah…

Everything will take longer than you expected. Days (and nights) are long. On Cut Up we were filming in New Orleans… in August. Upper floor set. Thousands of watts of lights. Air conditioner was too loud to use (and it was not very effective anyway). I remember getting kicked awake at four in the ayem, having some coffee and doughnuts (goddamn was I sick of doughnuts after that shoot!), loading up the car, spending all day on the set doing hot and heavy work, loading everything up again and unloading it back at the house, and sitting on the floor at midnight mixing blood for the next day’s shoot. In other words, by the end of the day you’re tired, sore and sweaty. You’ve had to deal with a director, a DP, and other people who are losing their sanity. If you’re the director, you will lose your sanity. Ya know? I like it!

Here’s a Film Threat interview with my friend who made Cut Up.

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Wow. Thanks for the insight guys, and the words of advice. Johnny L.A., they have a copy of Zombie vs. Mardi Gras at the local video store here in Austin, and although I haven’t gotten around to renting it myself, its reputation does precede itself. A friend of mine saw it and said it was absolutely atrocious. If that’s what you were going for, then you definitely succeeded. Now, I’m prompted to check it out even more.
Man, this board is great.
And thanks for the input about J. Michael McCarthy virbotronica. I enjoyed the The Sore Losers a lot, it’s just, with the wackiness and disjointed last half hour, it reminded me of a bunch of independant movies that don’t really make much sense. I can’t see them approaching people with the script adn asking for money like that, so that’s where I was curious about where to find funding for movies that really wouldn’t seem to have much marketable appeal. I guess having a reputation is a good start, though.
Again, thanks for the insight guys, it was really helpful.

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El Elvis Rojo: My friend’s idea was to create (as he says in the interview) “cinema of the absurd”. He wanted a rough-looking b&w film that was remeniscent of the French nuveau vague of around 1960. (See Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and Alphaville – films that some people consider crap, but pthers consider great.) That’s why it’s shot in the way it’s shot, and why there are some jarring edits. It’s his “homage” to the period. (There are also references from Godard’s Contempt – “I’d rather spend my time hurling reels.”) He also did not synch the audio with the video, to give it a “foreign film dubbed in English” feel.

And then there was the Corman influence. Corman made low-budget films very quickly back around 1960. A Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors are now classics. But I found The Terror boring. Anyway, the intent was to make an ultra-low-budget film quickly.

Of course my friend was influenced by George Romero for the zombies.

Oh yeah – there is a scene with a sqaushed stuffed dog. If you’ve never been to New Orleans, you might not know about “Blue Dog” (although it turned up in some commercials a few years ago). “Blue Dog” is the work of a New Orleans artist who seems to make his living by painting this single subject. It’s a pretty obscure reference, but funny if you know what it is.

So what he was doing was taking a Romero-esque idea, shooting it like Corman, using the style of Godard, and putting in his own wacky absurdity. It’s definitely not a main-stream movie! It was very well received at the New York Underground Film Festival. I’ve shown my copy to a few people. I’ve noticed that the “tattoo-and-piercings crowd” tend to like it. People with a more conservative outlook hate it. The first group “gets” the joke, while the second doesn’t. (The second group, I think, don’t “get” Godard, for example.)

Which brings up a point. You can make different kinds of films. An action-picture guy is probably not going to enjoy a “chick film”. Zombie! was made for a specific audience, and among that audience it has been well received. The audience it was specifically not designed for absolutely hates it. They know nothing of jump-cuts or random sounds. (My friend added loud random Zombie! in the way that Godard allowed loud real sounds to intrude into his scenes – note the siren in the apartment dialog in Breathless.) Most people are expecting a normal zombie picture and not space aliens, a pudgy ninja, and Galileo-returned-from-Purgatory. It’s absurd – which was the point. So if and when you make your film, be aware of your intended audience and don’t be disappointed when the other group don’t like it.

Just so you know, I shot the “ritual” scene at the beginning of the film and the “apartment” scene with the naked red-head and the guy in the fedora (yes, another Godardian reference).

Having explained all of this, you still may not “get it”. It plays to the sensibilities of “gutter punks” who watch obscure “experimental” films, much as did the early films of Richard Kern.

You have been warned! :wink:

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And yes, I really do know how to spell “nouveau vague”. :smack:

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“My friend added loud random sounds in Zombie!…”

I’ve really got to learn to proofread.

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Not much to add here (sorry I missed this thread the first time around), but something that seems to be getting overlooked is that making movies is lots and lots of fun.

My experience is pretty limited; as vibrotronica noted above, I’m a supporting actor in Six Days in the Life of Mims (can’t wait 'til we finish so I can cut my hair!), and I was an extemely minor extra in Slick Lily, plus I’m currently working on my own short, silent slapstick piece. But in all of those, I’ve had fun, I’ve made friends, and I’ve learned a hell of a lot about films. You spend a couple hours standing around, drinking coffee–or beer if it’s after 10 a.m.–then you take your places and the director says, Action! and you say, “It’s the day when all the televangelists disappear at once, Bums.” Then the director says Cut! and you stand around drinking some more and talking and joking; there are always people around who aren’t working at this specific moment.

It’s work sometimes, but it’s always fun work.

Oh, and if you want to shoot a location, just go shoot it; if someone wants you to stop, they’ll come tell you. Just act stupid, and the worst that’ll happen is a cop will say, “You need to get a permit to do that.” Say “yes, officer,” and then wait until they leave. Or heck, get a permit; I don’t know about other cities, but I talked to the Memphis/Shelby County Film Commission here, and you can get a permit for free. In fact, they told me “If you’re not going to be holding up traffic or something, you don’t need a permit.”