I'm happy to announce that Must Come Down, a film I was line producer on, will make its festival premiere at Cinemafest in San Jose next month. I came on board MCD after a few days of production at the request of my friend Dominic Fratto who was producing. Up until then they were continually going over twelve hours each day. I worked with the 1st AD, Dave Moppert, and we came up with a new schedule that seemed to help get things under control. The film is directed by Salt Lake artist Kenny Riches and was literally a bunch of friends getting together making a movie. It was a very fun set and I enjoyed being on it. Congratulations to Kenny and lead actor Dave Fetzer and all the gang.
Go here for times and ticket information.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Knowing when you're making a micro-budget film, or something entirely different
When I first was approached by Kevin Barker to help him and his wife Amy Miller produce Last Kind Words we discussed shooting on a micro-budget, or at least under $100,000. As I read the script I felt like that would certainly be possible. After all, most of the action takes place in a forest and on a farm. The script I learned was written to be filmed at the lovely Mook Farm in rural Kentucky which was owned by a friend of the family. The idea was that our small crew and cast would stay at Mook while we shot. It seemed easy enough. At the time, I was shooting Dave Boyle's Surrogate Valentine, on a much smaller scale. Piece of cake, I thought.
However, several factors quickly changed that vision of low-budget ease into a much more complicated procedure.
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| Director Kevin Barker discusses a scene with Brad Dourif in Last Kind Words |
- Director's Vision: To make Last Kind Words for the cost that we hoped for we needed to take a visual approach similar in look to Blair Witch Hunt, or some other down and dirty project. However, this wasn't Kevin's vision for the film. As he spoke with his cinematographer it became clear that Kevin wanted to highlight the beauty of Western Kentucky and to make a film that was genuinely great to look at. This would require a much bigger crew (of course, we settled for only a slightly bigger crew) and a larger equipment package. The plan was just to use reflectors in the forest, but eventually we paid for a few extra generator days to be able to have better lighting options. We also needed to have a jib shipped out from Los Angeles (cheaper than renting one locally), a condor, and other toys. Fortunately fellow producer Amy Miller agreed with Kevin's vision and was able to make some financial magic happen to get some additional cash for the project.
- Travel Costs: It turns out that we couldn't stay at Mook with our expanded crew so we had to look elsewhere. The nearest hotel that could accommodate us at a decent rate was over a half hour drive away. Because we were an hour and a half from Louisville we even had to put up local crew. Almost all of our crew came in from elsewhere, however, because we didn't have the network needed to get willing low pay crew from nearby. We had crew from New York, California, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska and a caterer from Virginia. We rented out an entire motel for the crew which turned into quite the party, but the crew travel/lodging costs alone was $20,000.
- Mr. Brad Dourif: Once we started talking about spending more to make it more of a "real" movie, we started talking about finding a name actor for the lead role. Brad Dourif was an early consideration and his agent was really great to work with. However, he insisted on a rate quite a bit higher than we had budget for, so we had to make an adjustment there. Dourif delivered a dynamite performance and having him in the role certainly helps as we sell the film.
As the producer it was my job to keep abreast of these expenses and to warn Amy, who was handling more of the investor side of the team, about them as they arose. I had several nights when after number crunching I had to knock on her door to bring her more bad news. The news was always, "If we want to make this movie like we're currently making it, we're going to need to do this..." (followed by something that would cost more money).
But we always agreed that it was worth it to try to make the movie the way we wanted to make it, as long as we could figure out how. Thanks to a very skilled director (Kevin), a very crafty Executive Producer/Producer (Amy), a brilliant cinematographer (Bill Otto), a skilled 1st AD (Eric Sheehan) and a great cast and crew, we were able to endure a very hard and taxing shoot and make a pretty good film.
But we always agreed that it was worth it to try to make the movie the way we wanted to make it, as long as we could figure out how. Thanks to a very skilled director (Kevin), a very crafty Executive Producer/Producer (Amy), a brilliant cinematographer (Bill Otto), a skilled 1st AD (Eric Sheehan) and a great cast and crew, we were able to endure a very hard and taxing shoot and make a pretty good film.
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| This is not what micro-budget filmmaking looks like. |
As I prepare projects now I make the considerations above before moving forward. It's important that everyone is on the same page as far as vision goes. If we had wanted to make LKW on a micro budget we could have. We could have shot in upstate New York or another rural area that could actually house us, that would be closer to a film center where we could easily have gotten equipment and crew. We could have given it a down and dirty look without jibs or dollies. But, then again, the film ended up costing much less than most (though more than we initially planned) and its beautiful look and high production value is one of the strengths of the finished film.
The key lesson, however, is simply don't think you will be able to have a slick, polished looking film on a micro budget. If your vision is to make something stunning, you have to budget for it.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Latest tip: SAG Ultra-low salaries
The SAG Ultra Low Contract has a base salary scale for actors at just $100 (for an 8 hour day... if they work a standard 12 hour day it comes out to $175). If you can afford it, and if your project has a small handful (four or five) leads with mostly just day players below that, I recommend that you pay your leads at the next level. The next level is SAG Low Budget Modified and the pay rate is $268 a day (for a ten hour day). When you send out your casting breakdowns, you'll get a much better selection of people submitting. Most agencies won't submit to a ULB project, but many will to a LBM. You can still pay day players $100 a day, and you don't HAVE to pay non-SAG actors at all (though you probably should). If your project is Low Budget Modified, you may consider hiring your leads at the Low Budget scale ($504 a day)... in fact, you might consider hiring your top two or three at the Low Budget rate for a ULB project.
For my movie Last Kind Words (directed by Kevin Barker) we did this and were glad we did. A few last minute changes pushed our budget into the Low Budget Modified range and we went ahead and made the adjustment with SAG (though we may not have had to). Because we'd already hired at the higher rate we didn't have to negotiate contracts with anyone except our few day players.
That said, if you're shooting super small don't feel ashamed to offer only $100, but be aware that your best casting opportunities will come through your connections, as not a lot of agencies will submit.
Updated rates: In 2015 SAG raised the rates of the SAGIndie contracts to: Ultra Low Budget: $125; Low Budget Modified: $335 daily or $1,166 weekly; Low Budget $630 daily or $2,190 weekly.
For my movie Last Kind Words (directed by Kevin Barker) we did this and were glad we did. A few last minute changes pushed our budget into the Low Budget Modified range and we went ahead and made the adjustment with SAG (though we may not have had to). Because we'd already hired at the higher rate we didn't have to negotiate contracts with anyone except our few day players.
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Hiring at Low Budget Modified scale allowed us to hire super talented Spencer Daniels for our lead. I'm sure his agent wouldn't have submitted him at the Ultra Low Budget rate.
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| We were also able to make offers to Canadian teen actress Alexia Fast (above), as well as Sarah Steele. Their agents were willing to consider the offers at $268 a day. It is unlikely they would have for $100. |
That said, if you're shooting super small don't feel ashamed to offer only $100, but be aware that your best casting opportunities will come through your connections, as not a lot of agencies will submit.
Updated rates: In 2015 SAG raised the rates of the SAGIndie contracts to: Ultra Low Budget: $125; Low Budget Modified: $335 daily or $1,166 weekly; Low Budget $630 daily or $2,190 weekly.
Back after a long holiday break
Hello, I'm back after an extended holiday break. Not because my holiday has been so busy, simply because I've been too brain dead to have anything to write. That hasn't changed, but I don't want this to languish away, so I'll do what I can to keep it up.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
IN THE FAMILY, not the typical distribution plan
The past few days have been buzzing about a little known film called IN THE FAMILY, which opened this Friday on one screen in New York. There is a lot of talk about how the film (directed by first time director Patrick Wang) was rejected by 30 film festivals until it was accepted by the Hawaii International Film Festival. It premiered at HIFF, then played at the San Diego Asian Film Festival where it won the Best Narrative Feature award. Just a week or so after the film is being released by the filmmakers on its single New York screen... to glowing reviews. The reviews for the film have been so great that programmers at festivals across the country are going back to their files to see if they were among the guilty.
IN THE FAMILY is almost three hours long, yet only has 300 shots -- some as long as ten minutes. It's a slow, methodical film. The final scene is a half hour long group conversation around a conference table. I can imagine that programmers, who are watching film after film for day after day, understandably start to lose the ability to appreciate subtlety and nuance.
I'm pretty sure, that in spite of its single screen opening that it will continue to grow based on the reviews. For a no-budget film with little, if any, marketing money, reviews tend to be your sole marketing. But sadly, film critics are seldom generous to small films. They seldom appreciate the aesthetic of grunge and I feel are suspicious of films without a more traditional release.
I haven't seen IN THE FAMILY but I felt like this was worth sharing so that folks can know that even being rejected by 30 festivals, doesn't mean your film can't find an audience.
IN THE FAMILY trailer from Patrick Wang on Vimeo.
Here's the New York Times review:
IN THE FAMILY is almost three hours long, yet only has 300 shots -- some as long as ten minutes. It's a slow, methodical film. The final scene is a half hour long group conversation around a conference table. I can imagine that programmers, who are watching film after film for day after day, understandably start to lose the ability to appreciate subtlety and nuance.
I'm pretty sure, that in spite of its single screen opening that it will continue to grow based on the reviews. For a no-budget film with little, if any, marketing money, reviews tend to be your sole marketing. But sadly, film critics are seldom generous to small films. They seldom appreciate the aesthetic of grunge and I feel are suspicious of films without a more traditional release.
I haven't seen IN THE FAMILY but I felt like this was worth sharing so that folks can know that even being rejected by 30 festivals, doesn't mean your film can't find an audience.
IN THE FAMILY trailer from Patrick Wang on Vimeo.
Here's the New York Times review:
MOVIE REVIEW
In The Family
Joey (Patrick Wang), left, and Cody (Trevor St. John), right, with their son, Chip (Sebastian Brodziak), in a scene from “In the Family,” a 2011 film written and directed by Mr. Wang.
Yours, Mine and Ours, Defined for a New Era
By PAUL BRUNICK
Published: November 3, 2011
You’ve probably heard little about “In the Family,” a remarkably fresh and unpredictable drama set in the American everytown of Martin, Tenn. This off-the-map independent production was rejected by 30 festivals before its October premiere at the Hawaii International Film Festival and is now playing on a single Manhattan screen as a self-distributed release.
More About This Movie
“In the Family” is the first film by its writer, director and low-key leading man, Patrick Wang, whose creative background is in stage acting and dramaturgy. Not surprisingly the film boasts more than a few memorable performances — by Elaine Bromka, Park Overall and Kelly McAndrew, among others — and one truly remarkable turn by the stage great Brian Murray, as a grandfatherly Southern lawyer with a voice as smooth and warm as a tumbler of bourbon, a role worthy of Will Rogers.
Yet Mr. Wang’s slow-reveal psychological drama isn’t just a showcase for his excellent ensemble cast. Beautifully modulated and stylistically sui generis, “In the Family” is also one of the most accomplished and undersold directorial debuts this year.
The story is both topical and timeless: a searching, present-tense study of evolving cultural values in the heartland and an unsentimental portrait of a family devastated by the tragedy of an early death.
Six-year-old Chip Hines (Sebastian Brodziak) lost his mother at birth, but his father, Cody (Trevor St. John), began dating again not long after. To the surprise of everyone in this traditional Southern family, including Cody himself, his new partner was a man — a man of Asian heritage, no less — named Joey Williams (Mr. Wang). Joey is a contractor by trade and a Tennessean by birth. He dresses down in duck jackets and denim and drives a red pickup truck. When he ambles over to introduce himself, with his easy smile and slightly down-home drawl, his voice sings with a kind of plainspoken poetry. Joey Williams is his full and legal name, not short for anything, and it’s a pretty good handle for such a straightforward and uncomplicated guy.
Beyond some lightly comic meet-the-parents awkwardness seen in a Thanksgiving Day flashback, the members of the extended Hines clan welcome their new in-law to the family — some politely if uncomfortably, some with relaxed warmth. The exception is Chip, who openly and unambiguously embraces Joey as “Dad.” But when Cody gets in a fatal car accident, Joey’s loss of a partner is compounded by a rapidly escalating custody battle with Chip’s sister (Ms. McAndrew), who secures legal custody of the boy to raise him as her own.
What follows is difficult to classify generically: it is too carefully distanced to be a melodrama, too personally specific to stand as a civil-rights allegory (an expected third-act courtroom confrontation is derailed in a fascinating way). What makes “In the Family” so elusive is that it is structured less by story events than whisper-soft subtleties of characterization and unspoken social subtexts. You will, for instance, not hear one overt reference to sexuality, race or gay marriage.
The film’s oblique cultural politics remain a tantalizing mystery. In interviews Mr. Wang has cited a meeting with the civil-rights lawyerEvan Wolfson as an inspiration for “In the Family,” and one might see the film as a cultural conservative plea to extend traditional marital values and legal rights to same-sex couples. And yet the film’s ending does not reconstitute the traditional family as such but rather suggests a more expansive and even progressive idea of what “family” might mean. Scenes unfold in contemplative long takes and carefully framed, deep-focus compositions. The style is too dramatically focused and pictorially unfussy to be classified as art-house minimalism. It is also too deliberative to be mistaken for a Hollywood prestige picture. Mr. Wang betrays his theatrical background with a slightly plodding tendency to begin and end scenes with arrivals or departures. But while some heads and tails could be trimmed, the pacing works quite well.
Though Mr. Wang’s directorial eye may be untrained, it is extremely acute. One senses that he is rediscovering the rules of cinema on his own. This is a career to keep an eye on.
IN THE FAMILY
Opens on Friday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Patrick Wang; director of photography, Frank Barrera; edited by Elwaldo Baptiste; music by Chip Taylor and Andy Wagner; production design by John El Manahi; costumes by Michael Bevins; produced by Andrew van den Houten, Robert Tonino and Mr. Wang; released by In the Family LLC. At the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 2 hours 49 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Trevor St. John (Cody Hines), Patrick Wang (Joey), Sebastian Brodziak (Chip Hines), Brian Murray (Paul Hawks), Park Overall (Sally Hines) , Peter Hermann (Dave Robey), Susan Kellermann (Marge Hawks), Elaine Bromka (Gloria) and Kelly McAndrew (Eileen Robey).
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Sample ultra low line expenses
These are final expenses for a SAG Ultra Low Budget feature shot recently over 22 days in Los Angeles. These are the expenses of just production costs (and a bit of preproduction expenses which are essentially some scouting costs, etc). The total budget here is $91,000. Salaries for cast were $100 a day as per the SAG ULB contract, and $75-$100 for crew. We also had about six full time volunteers helping out. Our camera was a Red 1 and our G&E package was supplied by the gaffer. We used a payroll service that charged a flat fee. We paid extras $25 a day. We paid overtime (time + 1/2) at 12 hours.
This may help you as your considering a potential budget. You can tell that there were no stunts or FX involved in this project and that most wardrobe was provided by talent.
This may help you as your considering a potential budget. You can tell that there were no stunts or FX involved in this project and that most wardrobe was provided by talent.
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