“What is the budget and can we make money?” - Craig McMahon
Let’s talk a little about resource filmmaking.
When Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi all he had was a borrowed camera, a turtle, and a guitar. Plus, he knew he had access to a small town in Mexico. That's it. And he built a movie and screenplay around what he had.
So the first thing I gotta do is consider what do I have to make a zero budget film?
And list it.
So like right now I know my “filmmaking friend” has access to a Canon SL2 as his main camera and iPhone 7 Plus, iMovie for some basic editing, but Adobe Premiere on the horizon. He's got a Joby Gorillapod and a tripod. Plus a Zoom HV40 for sound.
I'll talk about actors later.
The next thing I'm thinking about are locations.
Earlier today, I took a few pics of some settings I could write a scene. Right now what I’m trying to do is just think of places that might work.
I live in a house - that could be one location - just north of Austin. But let’s say I live in Austin, Texas. Granted, its not Richard Linklater’s Austin from Dazed and Confused, but it still has certain look to it. So there’s that.
Just off the top of my head there’s South Congress, Barton Springs, the 360 Bridge, the State Capitol. Doesn’t mean I’m going to shoot there, but now its in the wheel house.
I once took this micro-budget filmmaking course by Craig McMahon on Udemy. It had some pretty good tips. One big tip was writing down everything you have at your disposal to make the picture.
So the big thing right now is making a resource list.
Now at the same time, I’m thinking of stories. As I’m going around, photographing things here and there, I’m thinking of stories.
That’s how I made Man of the House. I had lucked out in that a friend of mine was moving out of his rental. It was a pretty big two-story house. Nothing fancy. His roommate, my main actor, was staying on till the end of the lease. When I found out, I wrote a movie as fast as I could, to get in there, shoot a feature, then bug out. It worked.
So that’s how I’m thinking now. What do I have ready access to make this picture happen? With what I have, can I tell a good story and out of that tell a story visually.