That quora post is virtually worthless. Comparing "production costs" between films is effectively meaningless.
For example, Paranormal Activity had a "production cost" of only "$15,000", and did "$190 million" at the box office. Sounds great, right?
Wrong. First, every low budget production involves calling in a huge number of favors (read: free work) that is not done on normal, funded films. So even the $15K number is ridiculously low if you are trying to compare the issue at stake: money spent on production value.
But let's ignore that. Next up is the cost of prints. A print on a wide release averages about $1200/print. Suppose we order 3000 prints on the Paranormal release. How much did we just spend? $3.6 million. (Without doing a wide release, there's no way to hit $190 million at the box office.)
Wait, that doesn't sound right! The Quora post makes it sound like some heroic filmmaker got their film made for $15K and it "made" $190 million! And now you're telling me they couldn't have even sold tickets without spending another $3.6 million? Yup. The $15K bit is a lie, part of the publicity of the film.
Of course, they don't keep the whole $190 million. Roughly, they'll end up with around 50% of that after the theaters take their cut. So we're really talking $95 million on a $15K production budget, and a $3.6 million print budget.
But wait, there's more: making the correct payments to the production staff, actors, director, etc. and the cost of marketing.
You see, a film that's shot under budget will have to make up those numbers if it does well. There is no free lunch. For our purposes, the amount is likely to increase a $15K budget by 10-100x (not a typo). In many cases, substantially more as top-line talent takes a percentage of that $95 million gross.
And then we hit the advertising. In a nutshell, Hollywood (and in this case, Paramount did the marketing) has a tough time marketing anything in the usual way for under $20 million. So let's go with that, even though I suspect the numbers for Paranormal were higher.
So...with all that, was Paranourmal a hit? Absolutely. Was it an example of a $15K movie that made $190 million. No, not even close: you're a few orders of magnitude off.
The same is true of every other film on that list.
-----
The real reason Hollywood does not make "low budget" films like the OP seems to want is because even spending zero, nothing, nada on the production budget still incurs $20-30 million in costs to distribute that film.
So ask yourself: if you were going to spend $20-30 million manufacturing and promoting something, wouldn't you want to spend some serious money on the production itself? Wouldn't you want to make sure the story/actors/direction had a high likelihood that people would watch the resulting film?
You would, which brings us to the real problem: actual films cost more.
Suppose you were really frugal, you tailored your story to easy locations, few setups, just a couple of actors, etc. Even then, $200K is pretty low to do a film that would actually be watchable (the "found footage" genere is basically the only kind of film that can be reasonably shot for the under $50K budgets in the Quora article).
So okay, $200K – and you don't have distribution yet, and likely won't get it.
That's a lot of money to "invest" in a film that won't make even it's production costs back. The vast majority of independent filmmakers don't have that kind of money to blow on a film and get zero return. (Raising money there is just as hard as Silicon Valley, if not harder.)
It can be done. Like Crazy is a recent example, made with a $250K production budget and shot on HDSLRs. It's done well enough that the production team will get to have another go on a presumably bigger film.
But it won't be done often, and bitching about the 120 films the Hollywood studios make each year (yes, it really is that low) isn't going to change what they make.
Yes, because the cost of buying the digital projectors was offset by an agreement with the studios to pay the same amount for "digital" prints as they currently do for film prints, with the extra cost going towards the cost of the digital projectors themselves.
At some point in the future, when everything is all digital and the projectors have been paid for, I do expect the costs of digital prints to go down, but probably not to actual cost, since (a) the precedent was established, and (b) filmmakers are constantly pressuring for better equipment.
For example, The Hobbit is being shot at 48 fps. Not all digital projectors in use in theaters today can play back 3D material at that frame rate. The ability of the theaters to upgrade their projectors is made possible, in part, because the digital "prints" cost well above their actual cost.
A very good question though, and the answer frustrates pretty much all low budget filmmakers. :)
Ha, thanks for the info! That's some interesting financial trickery that I wouldn't have assumed, but in light of the other financial engineering that goes on surrounding films, I can't say I'm surprised. With rapid improvements in digital inevitable (I could see the pixels at a recent "IMAX Experience" viewing), I'm guessing that Hollywood will be on the hook for a while as they try to reach parity with film...
"the bottom line is that it’s never been more difficult for filmmakers to get an original story made"
On the contrary. With affordable HD gear and computer editing, it's never been easier for a filmmaker to make their movie themselves. Compare to 20 years ago, where Kevin Smith could barely afford to buy and develop grainy black-and-white film on a $30 grand budget.
I think it's more accurate to say it's never been more difficult for filmmakers to get an original story made that requires 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life.
Studios have definitely gotten more conservative on the upper end, and the middle is nearly non-existent compared to the past.
"What stories require 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life? Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance of the film industry. But, what stories require 10s of millions to make?"
Any science fiction/fantasy movie with complicated sets and lots of effects for one.
Any historical piece, with revives an older world.
Anything involving lots of actors.
Anything involving even one famous actor.
10 million dollars is at the absolutely bottom end concerning most of the famous Hollywood movies. Budgets around 70M-100M+ is the norm.
Marketing that film and securing distribution has become far harder than it has in the past. The only way to get mass distribution is through the major movie production companies and they don't have an appetite for risky films anymore.
That may be true, but the same democratization smackfu is talking about has also taken place on the distribution & marketing end. It's easier now to "market" & distribute your movie without help from the gatekeepers. Mostly online, but it's cheaper to make DVDs too.
Pointing to Kevin Smith again, he is now promoting a movie independently using his internet celebrity, blog, podcast, tours, film festivals (this used to be the only channel) and distributing it via netflix, itunes & such.
Both points are probably true at the same time. A lot of the biggest stuff is going on inside the castle. The Gatekeepers are stricter than ever about what they let in. But, times are pretty good in the town outside the castle too, you might not have to care as much about the gatekeepers. If news of your juggling prowess reaches the King, the gatekeepers will let you in. If not, you can still entertain the masses.
The analogy to startups is good. But, you don't have to blame the investors/studios. What they are doing might make sense. They want less risky investments because they are putting a lot of money into them. It's not necessarily a bad thing that longer shots get less money. It's nice that they can still take the shot without it.
There is a serious flaw in this analogy. It costs tens of millions of dollars to make a Hollywood blockbuster, and you don't find out if it was money well spent until opening weekend. But a couple of unemployed software developers can test out a startup idea for a few thousand dollars, and very plausibly get to millions of users or ramen profitability in a few months if the idea is good.
The incentives are totally different. So even if we agree that consumer media internet startups are becoming formulaic (I sure don't), this isn't the reason why.
Well said. Silicon Valley has created this perception that everyone should be trying to go for the next big blockbuster... of course, that what the VC community would like everyone to do. Because they can only make money on blockbusters - they can't make money on the scale or time horizons of a more modest growth business.
Better yet, has there been any good hacker movies, ever?
The only movie I liked wasn't remotely "hacking" was the first Matrix. It was mostly some pop terminology sprinkled through it. Much like all Hollywood interpretations of what hackers actually do.
It's hilariously actually.... Spinning 3D cubes to hack into some database, while the actor looks like he's playing an awesome game of minesweeper on flaming tits that emit crummy (inappropriate) pop music.
*enhances image resolution above what it's original source res is... Badazz >.>
Pirates of Silicon Valley was okay, and I liked The Social Network, even if it bears the same resemblance to Facebook's actual history that Lord of the Rings does to the actual Middle Ages.
Miguel de Icaza had a cameo in Antitrust. The computers are all running Gnome on Linux. A few decisions are made by characters that wouldn't be made by an actual engineer for the sake of dramatic tension, but overall, it is highly realistic as far as Hollywood goes.
A film in Hollywood made "for everyone" is a four-quadrant film with a PG-13 rating.
Less than 30 films a year released by the studios (out of the 120 they release) fit that description – i.e. 80% of the films the major Hollywood studios release each year are explicitly not made for everyone.
What they are all made for is a mass audience, where "mass" is essentially: enough to make their money back.
32 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 75.2 ms ] threadCan non-blockbusters in Hollywood make money like they can in the valley?
For example, Paranormal Activity had a "production cost" of only "$15,000", and did "$190 million" at the box office. Sounds great, right?
Wrong. First, every low budget production involves calling in a huge number of favors (read: free work) that is not done on normal, funded films. So even the $15K number is ridiculously low if you are trying to compare the issue at stake: money spent on production value.
But let's ignore that. Next up is the cost of prints. A print on a wide release averages about $1200/print. Suppose we order 3000 prints on the Paranormal release. How much did we just spend? $3.6 million. (Without doing a wide release, there's no way to hit $190 million at the box office.)
Wait, that doesn't sound right! The Quora post makes it sound like some heroic filmmaker got their film made for $15K and it "made" $190 million! And now you're telling me they couldn't have even sold tickets without spending another $3.6 million? Yup. The $15K bit is a lie, part of the publicity of the film.
Of course, they don't keep the whole $190 million. Roughly, they'll end up with around 50% of that after the theaters take their cut. So we're really talking $95 million on a $15K production budget, and a $3.6 million print budget.
But wait, there's more: making the correct payments to the production staff, actors, director, etc. and the cost of marketing.
You see, a film that's shot under budget will have to make up those numbers if it does well. There is no free lunch. For our purposes, the amount is likely to increase a $15K budget by 10-100x (not a typo). In many cases, substantially more as top-line talent takes a percentage of that $95 million gross.
And then we hit the advertising. In a nutshell, Hollywood (and in this case, Paramount did the marketing) has a tough time marketing anything in the usual way for under $20 million. So let's go with that, even though I suspect the numbers for Paranormal were higher.
So...with all that, was Paranourmal a hit? Absolutely. Was it an example of a $15K movie that made $190 million. No, not even close: you're a few orders of magnitude off.
The same is true of every other film on that list.
-----
The real reason Hollywood does not make "low budget" films like the OP seems to want is because even spending zero, nothing, nada on the production budget still incurs $20-30 million in costs to distribute that film.
So ask yourself: if you were going to spend $20-30 million manufacturing and promoting something, wouldn't you want to spend some serious money on the production itself? Wouldn't you want to make sure the story/actors/direction had a high likelihood that people would watch the resulting film?
You would, which brings us to the real problem: actual films cost more.
Suppose you were really frugal, you tailored your story to easy locations, few setups, just a couple of actors, etc. Even then, $200K is pretty low to do a film that would actually be watchable (the "found footage" genere is basically the only kind of film that can be reasonably shot for the under $50K budgets in the Quora article).
So okay, $200K – and you don't have distribution yet, and likely won't get it.
That's a lot of money to "invest" in a film that won't make even it's production costs back. The vast majority of independent filmmakers don't have that kind of money to blow on a film and get zero return. (Raising money there is just as hard as Silicon Valley, if not harder.)
It can be done. Like Crazy is a recent example, made with a $250K production budget and shot on HDSLRs. It's done well enough that the production team will get to have another go on a presumably bigger film.
But it won't be done often, and bitching about the 120 films the Hollywood studios make each year (yes, it really is that low) isn't going to change what they make.
At some point in the future, when everything is all digital and the projectors have been paid for, I do expect the costs of digital prints to go down, but probably not to actual cost, since (a) the precedent was established, and (b) filmmakers are constantly pressuring for better equipment.
For example, The Hobbit is being shot at 48 fps. Not all digital projectors in use in theaters today can play back 3D material at that frame rate. The ability of the theaters to upgrade their projectors is made possible, in part, because the digital "prints" cost well above their actual cost.
A very good question though, and the answer frustrates pretty much all low budget filmmakers. :)
On the contrary. With affordable HD gear and computer editing, it's never been easier for a filmmaker to make their movie themselves. Compare to 20 years ago, where Kevin Smith could barely afford to buy and develop grainy black-and-white film on a $30 grand budget.
Studios have definitely gotten more conservative on the upper end, and the middle is nearly non-existent compared to the past.
Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance of the film industry. But, what stories require 10s of millions to make?
Any science fiction/fantasy movie with complicated sets and lots of effects for one. Any historical piece, with revives an older world. Anything involving lots of actors. Anything involving even one famous actor.
10 million dollars is at the absolutely bottom end concerning most of the famous Hollywood movies. Budgets around 70M-100M+ is the norm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story
How much would it cost today?
Yes, animation has gotten better, but is state of the art animation always necessary? How much less does it cost to be a generation (or two) behind?
Suppose that Toy Story was first-released today, with its ancient animation. Who would care, and how does that affect box-office?
Pointing to Kevin Smith again, he is now promoting a movie independently using his internet celebrity, blog, podcast, tours, film festivals (this used to be the only channel) and distributing it via netflix, itunes & such.
Both points are probably true at the same time. A lot of the biggest stuff is going on inside the castle. The Gatekeepers are stricter than ever about what they let in. But, times are pretty good in the town outside the castle too, you might not have to care as much about the gatekeepers. If news of your juggling prowess reaches the King, the gatekeepers will let you in. If not, you can still entertain the masses.
The analogy to startups is good. But, you don't have to blame the investors/studios. What they are doing might make sense. They want less risky investments because they are putting a lot of money into them. It's not necessarily a bad thing that longer shots get less money. It's nice that they can still take the shot without it.
The incentives are totally different. So even if we agree that consumer media internet startups are becoming formulaic (I sure don't), this isn't the reason why.
On the plus side, I was encouraged about the odds of getting funding.
Don't believe the hype.
Oh how I want to see movies that are not made for everyone.
Better yet, has there been any good hacker movies, ever?
The only movie I liked wasn't remotely "hacking" was the first Matrix. It was mostly some pop terminology sprinkled through it. Much like all Hollywood interpretations of what hackers actually do.
It's hilariously actually.... Spinning 3D cubes to hack into some database, while the actor looks like he's playing an awesome game of minesweeper on flaming tits that emit crummy (inappropriate) pop music.
*enhances image resolution above what it's original source res is... Badazz >.>
But your overall point is well-taken.
Well, it's not totally impossible. You can sort of interpolate a higher resolution from an image, with stuff like "fractal resizing", etc:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/better-image-resizi...
Although, this is also accurate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMdXjTn9rc
My personal favorite is "Sneakers": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/
It doesn't even have to be some art-house thing (although those can be very good too). Even a movie like "Fight Club" is NOT made for everyone.
Do you only want to watch generic shit targeted to the average moviegoer?
Less than 30 films a year released by the studios (out of the 120 they release) fit that description – i.e. 80% of the films the major Hollywood studios release each year are explicitly not made for everyone.
What they are all made for is a mass audience, where "mass" is essentially: enough to make their money back.