Over eleven years of screenwriting I have lost count of the number of times I have heard, and indeed said, that phrase. It’s the mantra of many an arrogant writer, myself included, thinking I am god’s gift to screenwriting. After all, I have read countless books, have attended numerous courses to develop my craft, and have had two of my 6 full feature screenplays optioned by producers.

But boy, I was wrong.

Of course we all want our scripts to be picked up by the greats of Hollywood and want to have our vision  turned into $250m movies where our work is launched into the stratosphere, lauded by our peers and appreciated by millions of acne ridden popcorn junkies – and that’s just the critics!

Meanwhile back in the real world… we actually want to get one of our movies made. To do so, we need to understand the concept of risk. And the movie business is one of the toughest and most competitive in the world.

Enter the micro budget movie.

The film business thrives on Darwinian economics. Money talks, and the landscape is littered with burnout victims dying in the graveyard of ambition.

The business, however, is not rocket science. The more expensive a movie is to make, the more bums on seats are required to make it viable. Of course the reverse is also true. If it is easier it is to recoup costs, the risks are lowered.

The lower the risk, the more chances that a producer or an investor will step up to the plate. The lower the investment, the less the producer or investor has to lose and the more chances you will have to get your movie made.

So how do we specifically write a micro budget movie that’s worthwhile?

Here are my Ten Top Tips for writing a micro budget movie

Writing Your Micro Budget Movie

1)    High Concept. The micro budget movie absolutely depends on great story. A concept that has a great hook that will draw people in. But keep it simple.

For example, our micro budget movie 54 Days is about 5 people trapped in a nuclear shelter. They are surrounded by nuclear and biological contamination, without enough food and water to go round. Either one dies or all five die. It’s simple – but primal.

2)    Think like a producer. Before you start writing the first FADE IN of your micro budget movie, try to carry out a financial audit in your mind of your concept. Focus on the big print – how can you squeeze out every cost in your story without compromising the heart. If you have already written your script, give it a “financial edit”.

Take the time to read the big print by itself with a cold, hard eye on cash; on how much things cost and how can you reduce those costs. If it means re-writing scenes – so be it.

So often you will be surprised to discover new aspects of your story, and new dimensions to your character. Remember there is never a problem… Only an opportunity for improvement!

3)    Locations – Eradicate  them. Each time you have a new location, you have to move an entire crew. That takes time. Reducing the locations to an absolute minimum reduces the time taken to shoot your movie. As with any business – time is money.

Squeeze out the time.

4)    Small Cast – Actors cost money. Keep them to a minimum. Of course there is a balancing act as you are shooting a movie; not putting on a stage play. If your micro budget movie is 90 minutes long and you have developed great characters on paper, you can explore them in even more depth if you restrict the number of characters on screen.

What quality actor in their right mind is going to turn down the opportunity to have extensive screen time for really well drawn characters?

5)    Characters – One of the Golden nuggets of successful screenwriting is to write great characters. It’s the writer’s nirvana. In micro budget movie making, great characters have to be at the very crux of your script.

You have to engage the audience with great characters that are memorable. Go “deep and wide” into your characters. Dig deep into their physionomy, sociology and psychology.

6)    Story Structure – Stories have been around for thousands of years as a means of communicating and understanding the human condition. There is a very clear structure that works for successful stories. Call it formula if you like, but think like Hollywood but without the budgets!

7)    Special Effects – Don’t have them. Again time is money, and whilst low cost options do exist for outsourcing special effects, keep it clean and simple.

Are there any alternative ways to show your plot points other than referring to CGI? (Perhaps CGI in the world of micro budgets should stand for Costs Guaranteed to Increase!)

8)    Keep the script short. The shorter the script the less time it takes to shoot, and the lower the costs. Given that 1 page of script typically represents 1 minute on screen, keep the script down to 80 to 100 pages – preferably closer to 80.

9)    Edit Ruthlessly. Make the script super tight. Reduce it down to the bare bones of the story. If you can say something in one line instead of 5 – do it! Be economical, because you will get the story moving quickly, make it much more intensive and give the audience much more value.

10) Research what is possible – Network and talk to as many filmmakers as you can. Talk to them about tips and tricks to get great production values, but at nil or very low cost.

Keep a bank of them in your mind and build them into your script. Knowledge is power. In this case the power to reduce costs and therefore risk.

Writing well for a low and micro budget movies is incredibly difficult.

Not only do you have to take the core craft skills from Hollywood screenwriting, but you also have to take a page out of their accountants’ books, squeezing out every cent you can.

It takes toughness, ingenuity but perhaps most importantly: an open mind. Because in micro budget filmmaking, there is no such thing as an open chequebook.

Tim Lea is a writer, producer and a graduate of The Story Series. His current micro budget film, 54 Days (www.pozible.com.au/54days) is in pre-production with shooting commencing in mid April 2014.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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With thanks to Jamie Campbell.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

by Lawrence Gray

If one is writing with an independent voice, one does well to be a writer/director who finds his or her own funding and audience!

 The big bucks goes to the conformists,
the purveyors of nothing in-particular

And who knows, you might, if you can wangle the grants or grab just enough celebrity attention, be a David Lynch or a Terrence Malick or a Pedro Almodovar or Lars Von Triers. On the other hand you might just be an Ed Wood. And you might never know where you fit in until you are too old and bitter to be able to re-align your career.

Which brings me back to the question: what’s your story?

Are you aiming at being the big bucks five-picture deal guy, the TV show runner, or the indie filmmmaker? Are you going in search of your own voice, and courting failure because it may be years before you discover that you have nothing special?

Or are you going in young and green and willing to do the donkeywork of re-vamping old formats hoping that one day you will have the power to make the “passion projects”? Or perhaps, nothing in particular, may well be enough for you?

 Are you aiming at being the big bucks five-picture deal guy…
or the indie filmmaker?

Most of us think we can be all these things. We think we can be artists and technicians and writers of hits and writers of “important” game changing pieces of work.  But we cannot. And worse, if one makes a choice, it can be the wrong choice.

Trying to write action films aimed at teenagers when you have no talent for it, is as worthless as trying to write great art when you really just want to film things being blown up! Having talent for one thing rarely translates into talent for the other. And the rewards for either are not the same.

If the bucks are big, you can rest assured that the competition is big and the winners so often are not those with a talent for writing, more with a talent for having the right parents and connections.

Life for the writer is hard. They have to work out where their talents and interests lie and where the politics of the day lie and where the money goes and what the audience responds to and what they think the audience should respond to and how much suffering and general indifference and rejection they can take.

The earlier you understand what your story is going to be, the better it is for you, because then you can understand the finances of your chosen arena and the personnel of your career line and factor into your life various solutions to the problems of making art and making a living.

The earlier you understand what your story is going to be,
the better it is for you

But of course being a character in the story is a lot different from being the writer of the story, and that I am afraid is going to prove your greatest problem at all times.

Lawrence Gray

In a prior life, before moving to Hong Kong in 1991, I helped found the London Screenwriters Workshop, and since coming to Hong Kong I founded the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle.

I was chairman of both august organisations and have only just stepped down from the Writers’ Circle, considering myself far too damaged to continue leading the charge for the great unknowns of Hong Kong literature. [more]

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( photo credit Construction Schedule: Eric Fischer)

Low Budget: Black Water

In 2006, I hooked up with producer Michael Robertson when he was in pre-production on the low budget croc thriller Black Water. I spent more than a decade writing for TV and short films in the UK. Still, I never managed to get a feature going, so I was about to have the best meeting of my life.

Michael told me three things. They were making Black Water for around $1.3m. If it worked – it ended up selling to 71 territories – then the financiers would want to do another low budget film. “And this is where you come in.” If I came up with a genre film that could be shot for $2m or less, then he would make it.

And … We’re Rolling!

Two and a half years later, Michael was true to his word. On May 11th 2009, the cameras rolled on my supernatural low budget thriller Road Train.

Michael’s list of must-haves for a great low budget genre movie was simple: high concept, small cast, limited locations, few or no special effects, and no night shooting. The first four I had no problem with, but the idea of no night shooting had me scratching my head. I knew I wanted to do a supernatural thriller,  Typically, in these kinds of films, the night time is where all the scary stuff happens.

In the true spirit of low budget filmmaking, I made a stylistic plus out of a necessity, and made all the scary stuff happen in the blazing desert sun. Indeed, the entire story takes place within a twelve-hour period, and it makes for a very compressed, storyline.

Selling At Cannes

After I came up with a basic outline for Road Train, Michael made up postcards featuring a mock up poster, a 200-word blurb, and a strap line: ‘Never, Ever Leave Your Vehicle.’ Check out Michael’s website to see what I’m talking about.

Michael took the postcards to Cannes in 2007 and flashed them around … and the money men said yes! Michael then put his hand in his own pocket (bless him) and paid me to write the script.

Researching the script, as usual, came down to three areas: experts, characters, and what I like to call ‘walking the ground’. ‘Walking the ground’ involved a trip to Dubbo NSW, to hang out with truckies, and a six-hour trip in a road train. My experts – people whose brains I could pick about what they do – included a truckie, a serious camper for the camping-in-the-outback stuff, and a doctor for the effects of dehydration on the characters. Character research involved pulling together aspects of different people I knew, in order to create written character backstories.

Financing The Low Budget Indie

I did about three drafts for Michael over eight months, before director Dean Francis came on board. Dean was the catalyst for turning an already good script into a great one, by being very clear about what needed to be left alone, and what still needed more work. Michael approached Screen Australia (SA) with the new version of the script and the private money attached, and SA agreed to put up the other half of the budget.

While the original private money eventually fell victim to the credit crunch, other private money and the South Australia Film Commission came in to make up the shortfall.

So, two years from (literally) an idea on the back of a postcard to the cameras turning – a mere blink of an eye in the world of film financing. Hopefully, at the end of it all we’ll have a small-but-perfectly formed Aussie genre film that, like Black Water, punches well above its weight – one that finds an audience both here and internationally.

I’m looking forward to visiting the production later this month, and will keep you posted on developments.

– Clive Hopkins

Prior to ROAD TRAIN, Clive Hopkins’ main claim to fame was as the writer of Oscar nominated short film, HOLIDAY ROMANCE.

Cleo Mees

Cleo Mees is a Sydney-based writer, filmmaker and dancer. With a background across several disciplines, her interest is in finding out how these different disciplines can intersect and inform each other.