but before we get started I just wanted
to say we're continually reminded of how
amazing the film riot community is and
how much it just blows our mind the
community that has been built around
this show thanks to you guys and last
week's episode was a big reminder of
that for us because in the comments
section of last week's episode you guys
really showed up with some wonderfully
kind and encouraging words and really
appreciate that that stuff that's like
fuel for us to keep going seeing that
the things that we hope this show would
turn into it actually is and that it's
affecting you guys in the same way it's
affecting us it's it's become this
really great relationship where you guys
have encouraged and built us up as much
as we hopefully have done for you so
again thank you for that but another
thing we saw asked a whole lot in the
comments section of last week's episode
which of course that episode was all
about clarifying different levels of
budget is how we get our budgets for our
film and make that money back first I
wanted to start with how we make our
money back from short film since I think
that leads into how we get the money and
the answer to the question of how we
make our money back is 90% of the time
we don't make money on short films I
think some people have been able to but
that is not the norm for sure there are
definitely things that you can try to do
to bring in some revenue to offset the
cost of your film and depending on the
cost to begin with maybe some extra
money on top of that and those are
things like submitting the footage from
your film to be sold as stock footage or
stock images stock music if you made all
the music yourself any assets you made
for the films like VFX assets anything
custom that you can put up as a pack to
sell to try to recoup that cost or
there's also on-demand services that
will put your film on places like Amazon
and you can get some revenue from the
streaming there although it's usually
pretty miniscule you can also monetize
your film which I would only do this
through ads like you get on YouTube I
would personally never put anything up
for rent since I don't think almost
anyone is gonna pay to watch a short
film like 99% of the time and that's the
whole point of making a short film in my
opinion is to get your work out there
and show what you're capable of but for
me personally I don't even like to
monetize our films on
you tube it's a bit distracting I think
and it doesn't really make that much
money anyway for instance this episode
of film riot that was monetized and hit
1 million views only made a little bit
over $1,000 and that's with a million
views now there have been episodes that
hit that amount of money would just have
those views because YouTube is confusing
but it's not something that I would
count on because it's so unpredictable
some of the things that I have
personally done to try to recoup some of
that cost is you sell some posters or
our on set experience packs that have a
lot of special features on how we made
our films these have helped to recoup a
little bit but I've never really made my
money back for me making all these short
films like I said last week they're just
passion projects one that my cast crew
and I come together to make and invest
in ourselves we do the work so we can
gain more experience and create calling
cards for what we can do as artists that
will hopefully take us to the next stage
of the thing we're really wanting to do
because like I said on the show before
no one's gonna invest in you if you
aren't willing to first invest in
yourself of course that doesn't
necessarily have to mean money that can
also just mean time often it does just
mean time and effort you can't do great
things with little to no resources but
now let's move into how I get the money
for my films and for that I want to take
a look at a few different films starting
out with one of my earliest public short
films which is tell-tell cost me
somewhere in the area of $2,000 and
since my entire crew was just family and
friends willing to spend their weekends
helping me and the locations where my
girlfriend's house and my parents house
all the money went to cast travel
expenses for the cast food props gear
makeup and wardrobe and I got this
budget in a very stupid way that I do
not recommend you doing which was all by
maxing out a credit card which then took
me almost a year to pay off so again
definitely isn't something I would
recommend doing then of course there
were a couple of those hundred dollar
type films which I did pay for myself
but after a while I wanted to take on
bigger projects to build my experience
and have larger crews and those budgets
were not sizes that I could take on
alone so that's where our partners came
in and that was for films like Ghost
house chainsaw and ballistic for those I
went to people who believed in us who
got what we were trying to do with film
riot and
importantly had gear and software that I
would be using on the show and showing
you guys that we did use with or without
their help on the project and for me
that's key if you're gonna try to go
this route I think authenticity really
is very important whenever I've gone to
a company my pitch is always the same
I'm going to be using your stuff either
way but do you want to help us make this
the best it can be and to the credit of
many of these companies they decided to
help and in fact some of them said no
and I still use their gear and show it
on the show and people said that we got
paid to do it when we never did they
said no now I totally understand that
I'm in a unique and very lucky position
that I very much appreciate with film
riot and all of you that does give me
the ability to bring in companies like
that so the approach is definitely
different and not really a realistic one
if you don't have a following but you
never know until you try
one option for you could be going for a
lower dollar amount and just one company
that you really believe in what could
make it worth it for them is content
everyone is always looking for content
either to show off what their gear
software is capable of or just to draw
eyes to what they're doing as a whole
before I had much of a following at all
that's actually exactly what I did and
let us direct hooked us up with some
gear that we wouldn't have had otherwise
and we didn't have an audience at the
time they just hooked us up so they
could get content out of it now if you
are gonna do that you of course need to
have something that you can show them
from your work which is we're investing
in yourself first comes in so all of
this is assuming you've already put in
those 10,000 plus hours to get to this
point but even with all that and the
partners I've always put my own money
into every project that I've ever done
which is why I've just never really made
my money back but another person who has
gone a similar way as what I'm talking
about here is Seth Worley in 2010 I was
working a full time job as a video
producer at a large publishing company
on their events team where I was turning
out videos for their various conferences
and summer camps everything I made at
this job I would post on my Vimeo
account and would note in the
descriptions what gear and software I'd
used to make it which I mostly just did
to show off but it ended up also getting
me noticed by one of the companies whose
products I was using red giant one day I
got an email from a guy named Armour but
know what's saying hey I'm the head of
marketing at red giant and I just
watched a venture now so on and watched
it
he was interested in making an original
short that could serve as a marketing
tool for red giant something that stood
on its own as a narrative short but had
a behind-the-scenes piece attached to it
that could show off how red giant
products were integral and executing it
Oren's budget was 10 grand which for how
ambitious the short was going to be who
was really tight but Arne said and this
was the thing that was more powerful
than money he said you can give out as
much free software as you want which
meant we could offer to pay people and
free software software which was valued
at thousands and thousands of dollars
without this we couldn't have made plot
device for ten thousand dollars even
writing it around available resources
like my brother my parents house props
from all videos including a yellow
button we had sitting around our office
despite all of our practicality it still
came down to paying people for their
time and the software is what gave us
the power to do that this only really
works once by the way once people have
the software it doesn't really work
anymore
again mine and Seth's paths are somewhat
unique and specific something more
common nowadays is something like
crowdfunding which I think has plenty of
pitfalls of its own and a very small
chance of success of you being realistic
and again isn't something that you
should even consider trying unless you
can show people what you're capable of
delivering first but since I have never
done a Kickstarter myself I asked my
friend Ryan Pauley to talk a bit about
his experience every film that I've
directed has been self-funded but with
pizza time my ladies short we decided to
take a different approach so to do the
concept justice I knew that we needed a
bigger budget so we decided to go to
Kickstarter we ended up raising about
$19,000 on Kickstarter and with some of
the personal money that I put in as well
as the money the maker table our
production company put in we ended up
having a budget of about $35,000 pizza
time was my first Kickstarter and I knew
that I needed to put a ton of time and
research into making it successful so I
looked at other successful Kickstarter
films and studied their campaigns what
did they do right what did they do wrong
now Kickstarter's all or nothing so that
means that whatever money you set at the
beginning of your campaign you have to
reach that goal in order to get your
money that created a lot of pressure for
me but it's pressure that I need it
because I was really kind of treating
this Kickstarter like a full-time job
putting a ton of time and research and
to making sure it was a successful
campaign you really want to make sure
it's the rewards that you give out or
realistic for your campaign for us we
gave a lot of digital rewards app but we
also had a few physical rewards like
pins and posters that are gonna be a
little bit more expense
can eat into the budget that we set out
to get for the Kickstarter you really
need to be smart with those rewards look
at your budget and see at the beginning
of your campaign what that money is
gonna go towards so what I've heard from
Paulie and everyone else that I know
who's done a Kickstarter say that it
really is like starting another business
altogether and if you were going to go
that route you got to make sure that
you're able to pull it off the way that
you say you can and deliver what you say
you can to your contributors another
unique perspective comes from Colin Levy
colin is a filmmaker that's done several
short films but most recently Skywatch
which I'm sure a lot of you have already
seen he had a very large production that
spanned years and had you know Jude Law
I've probably made 30 or so shorts over
the last 15 or 16 years they really run
the gamut in terms of scope and scale
and direction value my first shorts of
course were terrible and were made for
no money and my latest short Skywatch
which I released on YouTube a couple
months ago had a budget of north of
$100,000 which is a lot of money this
project wouldn't have been possible
without all the ones that came before I
found like in general I've sort of been
leveraging the work I've just completed
to do whatever is next I made a film
called suburban plight in high school it
literally starred my dad I shot in my
backyard
probably had a budget of 15 bucks but it
came out well and that's crucial to this
whole narrative because once you're
convincing people down the line to help
you out they're gonna look at that
previous work and make a determination
how do you make good stuff without
resources well for me the secret weapon
has been time I spent a year and a half
on that six minute short in high school
shooting going back and editing
realizing what I needed going back out
shooting more for free cuz it's my dad
and I can grab him and force him to do
stuff know what astonished looks like
via static that's for a few years I made
a movie called enroute in film school we
had a budget of $3,000 and in this film
which is about an airline pilot we had
three or four different types of
aircraft we got two fire trucks and an
ambulance for nothing our budget almost
exclusively went to food again we were
able to do a lot with a little and where
did the money come from
in that case my own pockets but to make
that project happen I was literally
pointing to two suburban plight my high
school movie and saying hey look I made
this don't you want to help me make my
next thing so in 2009 I got involved in
a project that I did not put together
myself but I was hired to direct
literally half the budget came from DVD
pre-sales for them it was very crucial
to build an online community that has
also been pretty crucial for me I have
to say people who've kind of followed my
work and a lot of those people have
ended up supporting it financially when
I did my first Kickstarter in 2011 again
I was pointing to Syntel I was pointing
to on route we were able to raise over
ten thousand dollars and that became the
entire budget from my senior film in
film school and then just to skip right
ahead to Skywatch this project was
different from anything I've done before
because we actually found independent
financing which never happens because
you can't make money on narrative shorts
this one is a little bit different
because it was a proof-of-concept it was
designed to essentially sell as a sales
tool for a feature film how did I find
the money for Skywatch well again it was
because of my previous work production
on this film was entirely financed by a
guy who I maybe had met one time he
reached out years prior via email
because he was a fan of my previous work
he wanted me to potentially get involved
in a different project and something he
was writing and putting together but
essentially fostering that relationship
keeping him posted you know I know this
didn't work out but I have a sci-fi
proof of concept short that I'd love to
make let me tell you about it
fortunately he came on board and that
got us through the week of production in
2014 and then again I pulled out my
secret weapon which is time and spent
years in post chipping away doing
targeted reshoots for no money on my own
gear
and eventually it was going so slowly we
decided to do a Kickstarter but because
of my previous Kickstarter I could point
to that and say hey like well I did this
Kickstarter which was successful
watch the movie it's pretty good it got
a Vimeo staff pick don't you want to
help me make my next thing so you have
to start small and everyone does
and over time it doesn't happen
overnight but as you improve as your
work improves as your relationships grow
it is possible to be doing work at a
higher level without necessarily having
a bunch of cash in your own bank account
I'm gonna need some tech support so
there are a lot of avenues you can take
to make your film happen and getting a
budget for your production it's great
but to close us out I wanted to
emphasize the point of our last episode
most of my short films have been made
for little to no money at all and that's
not even counting all the shorts I did
before film riot all of those were home
video cameras done for zero dollars I
think it's really important to remember
that while getting a budget is great
it's not mandatory for making something
great you can spend next to nothing or
literally nothing and still make
something that will get you into
Hollywood making massive feature films
like Shazam to prove my point here's
someone who did exactly that
when Lata and I made our horror shorts
we didn't have any budgets we had tried
a couple of times to get grant money but
were unsuccessful
so for example when we made lights out
we had to make do with what we had and
we did have some things I had recently
done a paying job that enabled me to buy
a black magic camera and to light it I
had bought a couple of cheap knock off
redhead lights on ebay from China that I
made sure to turn off between every take
because I was afraid that they were
gonna catch fire in fact there's a
moment in lights out when you hear this
electric buzzing sound
that was recorded from those lights and
we had a IKEA paper lantern and a 300
watts photography bulb that I found on a
flea market for like a dollar why a 300
watt bulb for that well I wanted to make
sure that we could shoot really low ISO
and get really clean images with all the
darkness and for dolly moves I built my
own dolly went to Ikea to their bargain
section and found a piece of shelving
that I could put skateboard wheels on
and then use PVC pipes as tracks and we
didn't record any sound that was all
done in post because we didn't really
have any dialogue and that gives you
more control you know every little
creaky footstep in the film I selected
and placed by hand and it was all
finished and resolved which is free and
for the audio I used Reaper which is
very affordable audio software and for
the monster at the end that was a
combination of Photoshop and blender
blenders free Photoshop snob but there
are some open source alternatives like
credo or [ __ ] so it was a very low
budget affair but the thing I've learned
about the difference between
professional tools and the DIY no budget
tools it's basically two things I mean
one is reliability you know professional
gear will just take a beating and go on
forever while you know my dolly you look
at it wrong it will fall apart and the
other thing is ease of use or
frustration because you know
professional gear just works really
cheap gear you run into problems like
when I was buying rods to rig out my
camera I bought really cheap ones that
were not made to spec so they didn't
quite fit and I had to use a hammer and
like my ND filter have like an open-door
policy for UV light so sometimes I would
get really red footage and had to work
with that in post and this monitor turns
into a mirror and sunlight so cheap gear
will cost frustration and take a lot of
extra time but the big advantage when
you're making zero budget shorts is that
for you time is not really money if your
dolly requires extra takes to get
just right you can do that and if
something doesn't work you can like
let's try it again tomorrow or the next
weekend or whenever we have the time you
know as long as you're willing and able
to you know spend the time and effort
and you don't mind dealing with
frustration you can do a lot of cool
stuff with very little money it just
won't be easy
big thank you to all my friends who took
their time to send in their experiences
please check out the links in the notes
below to see their films each one of
them is immensely talented and all of
them have great educational content as
well so definitely check those out and
until next time don't forget to write
shoot edit repeat
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