A film made under $100,000. Impossible!

Well, no. A daunting task, sure. But yes, good films CAN be made for what we’re dubbing the “Ultra Micro-Budget” price range.

Yes, it takes strategy. Yes, it takes clarity of vision. It hopefully takes talent. And yes, it takes cajónes. But everything on that list also applies to making a film on a bigger scale too. The difficulty knob is just turned up a bit in the Ultra Micro case.

Just ask Felix Werner, co-founder of Modern Media Company and HieronyVision, which has a micro-budget incubator. Werner has seen all sides of the film world, from working on studio fare, to directing indie films, to being a film investor. He believes that the era of shorts is over and making a feature is more important than ever to have a successful career in indie film. That’s why he’s such a proponent of the Ultra Micro-Budget model.

Over the course of the next few months, he’ll be teaming up with Film Independent for a three-part Filmmaker Tuesday series called On A Shoestring: Ultra Micro-Budget Filmmaking. This will include two virtual sessions and an in-person session here at Film Independent HQ. You can see the next event here.

We asked Werner some questions about making a film on an “Ultra Micro-Budget,” to give you a taste of what’s to come at these sessions.

Tell me a little bit about your background in Ultra Micro-Budget filmmaking.

I started as a crew person working on studio films, then my wife and I realized that wasn’t the world we wanted to work in, so we got into independent film, and learned that we had to understand everything from financing and distribution to production. We have a company, Modern Media Company, that’s done a little bit of all of that. We used to own a distribution company that we sold, and we still do a certain type of film funding.

But I realized there’s this massive need for something that’s a little bit different than what traditional independent filmmakers have been doing for the past couple of years. There’s a big gap between the YouTube generation that’s used to creating content in a certain way, and my generation of independent filmmakers that’s also used to doing films their way. And both could learn from each other, quite honestly.

I think the, for lack of a better term, ‘YouTube generation’ can learn from the wonderful storytelling abilities of some of these incredible independent filmmakers, and my generation can learn from the sort of roll up your sleeves, just get it done attitude of these YouTubers.

The people that inspire us the most: let’s start with Sean Baker. He’s the poster child for how this should work. He’s made films under $100,000. He made a film on an iPhone.

Now he’s won Cannes and a bunch of Oscars. I think it’s the best example of where young filmmakers should start and how they should progress.

Even if you take the change of technology from when Sean Baker shot Tangerine to now, the iPhone is a remarkable tool. What we need are filmmakers who understand the aesthetics of that and how to basically get the most out of it. And that they’re trying to tell a long form story, not just disposable clickbait.

It’s the thought behind the camera. And then what you put in front of the camera.

Exactly. So have your story first, your actors. And quite honestly, even though we end up talking about technology, that’s not really not the discussion.

It’s never been cheaper to make a feature film than now. But do you have the eye? Can you have something to say? Do you have a story to convey?

Can you find the right people to convey that? They don’t have to be SAG actors. David Gordon Green or Richard Linklater, for example, chose people off the street, essentially. It’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but people without classically trained acting backgrounds. They had something to say, they found the right people to cast, and then they used what means were available to them.

It’s easier than ever to make something look great. So now you have to find people to tell good stories and find interesting people to convey those.

And Sean Baker, again, perfect example of how he casts and finds people. But he has something to say.

What types of stories work well for micro budget and ultra micro?

We have an incubator program at HieronyVision. We’re in the second year now. And we have a pretty remarkable group of young filmmakers from Yale, Columbia, Wesleyan, Cal Arts, and two who haven’t attended film school.

And what we tell them in our incubator program is, instantly know your limitations. Don’t go over a certain budget range, limit your number of actors that you have, make sure your story doesn’t have too many locations. But again, have something to say, have something that you’re passionate about, and don’t be afraid to be as provocative as you want.

That’s probably the other part that that frustrates me with the social media platforms. They’re so limiting about what they allow to be shown. So you don’t have bold voices going out there being able to put things on YouTube or Instagram, because quite honestly, it’ll get taken down.

We say find stories that you can tell outside of those ecosystems, use the methodology and the roll-up-your-sleeves attitude from those filmmakers, then find alternative methods to distribute.

When it comes to funding for films of this scale, what’s an effective way to pitch financers for micro budget films? And where do you look for finances.

There are two different types of investors that I say that work in independent film: the ones that have little experience, usually family and friends. They put their goodwill out there and help you out. Oftentimes, they get disappointed financially.

And then there are the sort of professional class of investors who are savvy to all the things that go on, but they tend to be a little bit less risk averse. And they tend to look for things that are a sure bet. And that tends to be a little bit more the B movie world.

We’ve been both. Though we never do “B movies” we have worked in certain types of funding, like gap funding, that are far more secure ways to fund independent films. We started off doing straight equity investing. I wouldn’t say it was family and friends, but we were naive to how we approached it. And we’ve learned a lot.

We have gone to many film fund financing forums where a lot of agents and people are there trying to lure equity investors to participate in their films. And we have been those investors but now we shy away from that because we had not great experiences.

What I think is a much better model is to say to these investors, well, rather than you become part of a piece of a film where you have zero control, you can’t even track where the money’s coming in or where it goes, why not be involved in a smaller film where you can be 100% involved? You make 100% the financial commitment to that film, it’s a much easier proposition.

And then for investors, we say, be smart. Equity investing is the worst type of film investing to do to be honest, in terms of a safety standpoint. But if you do it on a smaller film, and you have 100% of the involvement in that film, that at least gives you a clearer picture of what’s going on. And then you know what you’re getting. Yeah, you might lose your money. Only invest in films if you’re prepared for it to go south. It’s a very tricky, murky investment.

With budget this small, when it comes to actually making the film, it’s only natural that as a filmmaker, you have to make some sacrifices. What are some things that you feel are worth fighting to keep for micro budget film?

I still go back to knowing your parameters. You have to understand whether unions are involved or not. I think that’s very tricky.

You want the best person performing and directing your film, right? You can fix writing that is challenging if you have a really good actor and director. However, if you have a great script, but your actor can’t deliver that and your director can’t deliver, then it’s really a waste, which is a shame because great scripts are hard to come by.

You’re currently working on a project about your father, the actor Oskar Werner, Teixl. What are some microbudget techniques you’ve used on that project?

So we filmed the main portion of this documentary in seven countries in six weeks, drove 4,500 miles with a crew of 3-4 people that included me.

One of the biggest things that we think in micro budget filmmaking is, no one can be precious, everyone has to be willing to do everything from cooking to cleaning to carrying the bags. Whatever it takes. There can be no prima donnas, no great auteur theory. Everyone has to do everything, be a multitasker, and have multiple skills.

My crew that I generally work with can do everything. I jokingly say they’re like a little Navy SEAL team, you can drop them in anywhere creatively. And the three of them can get together and pull together a whole movie from development through post production, through marketing. And that’s super helpful. So having the right crew.

We’re also absolutely committed to an all-digital workflow.

Even drones are a fun thing. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, did you get that great drone shot?’ Well, we think drones can be used far more effectively like mini cranes. You do a slight raise of a drone six feet, and all of a sudden you get movement in the camera, and it doesn’t have that sort of static look. So we’ve used it instead of a dolly we’ve just flown the drone straight across, but you will think it’s a dolly, not a drone necessarily.

That’s the practical stuff that we do.

That’s very creative. That’s a great way to use the tools that you have.

You spoke about marketing being a huge aspect of the filmmaking process. How should you get your film scene or aim to get it seen?

The biggest mistake that independent filmmakers make when they are putting a project together, and this goes back to financing, is they need to have 50% of what your production budget be there for marketing and distribution, in case you have to do it yourselves.

And then they need to have one dedicated crew person who is filming them filming and making sure you have enough content. That’s probably the biggest mistake we’ve done in our micro projects, we get so busy, and we’re so small, that we forget to film ourselves filming. So we didn’t have enough BTS. I think that’s incredibly important.

But more important than anything is have a budget for it, be prepared to distribute your film yourself.

And look, there’s so many great success stories. The number 1 right now is probably Hundreds of Beavers, right? They had an alternative distribution strategy, and I think they just passed the $1 million distribution mark, which is fantastic.

One important point that I want to make is that we strongly discourage people from doing shorts anymore. If you want to do a few shorts just to get your feet wet, and you do them in film schools, fine. But I think it’s one of the biggest pitfalls in film schools.

Everyone needs to have made a feature film who wants to be a filmmaker. And that’s the way to get started. That’s the way to launch your career and have people be willing to give you more money for the film that you might really want to make. But you need to start small.

That’s why we encourage the micro budget start. And we jokingly say that we’re where the French New Wave meets Y Combinator, or Roger Corman meets Dogma 95, you need to have those mentalities– small, lean– but just get it done.

 

 

To learn more about Felix Werner and HieronyVision, click here. To attend the Filmmaker Tuesday series On A Shoestring: Ultra Micro-Budget Filmmaking, click here.