Micro budget movies

By Michael Knox, mknox@modernfilmzine.com

As a filmmaker, I’m one of the many people who can appreciate trying to make a movie for as little money as possible and still try and create a great project.

That’s why I’ve spent many hours looking up budgets, and watched films that were shot with very little money to see what those producers did right and learn from them.

Which is why many of the films that will be written about on this blog site will include micro budget movies, shot for $50,000 or less. Over time, I plan to find new films, as well as review older movies that have been made for little money and found success.

I also plan to interview the creative talent behind these movies and learn how they were able to bring their movies in for so little money, information that can help any beginning filmmaker.

One movie that’s a perfect example of a great movie made for no money is the 2004 ThinkFilm movie “Primer.”  Shot for $7,000, the movie’s theatrical release made $424,760, according to the box office Website, The Numbers.

Directed by Shane Carruth the movie was a surprise hit at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize. I recently watched the movie and understand its popularity.

It’s a lean, tight script, using the premise of time travel in its favor for its low budget story. It focuses on two men who discover they have the ability to go back in time and change things, but have to limit their interactions with people in order to not change to much of the past.  Since they keep going back in time and need to limit their interactions with people the movie is, for the most part, a two person story.

That genius bit of creative storytelling kept their price down and pushed them to develop a low budget sci-fi film that really makes you stop and think about the movie’s different elements.

Readers can check out the trailer for “Primer” and more information at the Website http://primermovie.com/