Big budgets but the money is NOT up on the screen!

[levcore]

Originally Posted by CrazyBlu-RayFan

From what I've heard, the animation technology for Rapunzel's hair was a big factor into why the budget got so huge.

Originally Posted by Aclea

Yep - 13 years of development and false starts. Its the Superman Returns of animation.

That said, under John 'unwanted hugs' Lasseter the average budget for an animated feature at Disney rose to $185m.

I think i'll go with the latter on this. Hair animation technology isn't going to bump the budget up to such a ridiculous amount but 13 years of development certainly will.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by moreorless

Again though as I said your often talking about films that don't have to deal with capturing as much in terms of variety of locations/scenes and don't have to spend as long getting sets and set pieces ready.

What you're imagining low budget films doing instead is just as, if not more complicated (spending longer on elaborate blocking with fewer resources, waiting on specific weather, etc). Sets give you more control than locations and even if you're just setting your film in an attic you still need time to dress and light the set before you can shoot.

That's going by the amount of footage that was typically shot for cinema shot on film though.

Something like say Blue is the Warmest Colour I remember it being mentioned there was 800 hours of footage shot. That's probably at the extreme end but I'm guessing the amount of raw footage shot has risen significantly in the digital era for small budget films.

Not a great example - that's a film that went two-and-a-half months over schedule, sometimes on 20 hour days, and didn't pay the crew, many of whom quit. Law suits are still going on over unpaid overtime a decade after shooting, some unions recommend their members not work with the director and the director himself didn't even want the film released in a big sulk. The backers for his next film pulled out because he ran through the budget wildly overshooting when he decided during filming to turn it into a trilogy of four hour films leaving no money for post production. He had to sell off his Palme d'Or and personal belongings to finish just two of the intended three films: only the first was released. After it was a critical failure and a box office disaster not even the streamers would touch the second (finished and screened at Cannes two years after the first came out). The third may never be finished because there's no money left and his reputation in the industry is so toxic he has no new projects lined up.

It's not an example of freedom, it's a cautionary tale of what happens to careers when you take your own sweet time on low budget films. And it ain't pretty. It's not an isolated case either. I've spent enough time in post-production facilities to see many, many lower budget films abandoned uncompleted in post because they went over schedule during shooting (often not even shooting the full film or tearing unshot pages out of the script to try to get back on budget) and didn't have any money left for post or, at best, end up with the director and producers losing control of the film as the completion guarantors or rescue financiers take over.

Lower budgets require more discipline, not less.

[moreorless]

Originally Posted by Aclea

What you're imagining low budget films doing instead is just as, if not more complicated (spending longer on elaborate blocking with fewer resources, waiting on specific weather, etc). Sets give you more control than locations and even if you're just setting your film in an attic you still need time to dress and light the set before you can shoot.

That really seems more like an agreement with my original point, that larger scale productions use sets more because it gives them a greater degree of control compared to location shooting, that they can get what they want filmed more quickly because time is money to a greater degree to them. Creating the set might be expensive but potentially cheaper than taking their large and expensive cast/crew on location and spending more time.

Not a great example - that's a film that went two-and-a-half months over schedule, sometimes on 20 hour days, and didn't pay the crew, many of whom quit. Law suits are still going on over unpaid overtime a decade after shooting, some unions recommend their members not work with the director and the director himself didn't even want the film released in a big sulk. The backers for his next film pulled out because he ran through the budget wildly overshooting when he decided during filming to turn it into a trilogy of four hour films leaving no money for post production. He had to sell off his Palme d'Or and personal belongings to finish just two of the intended three films: only the first was released. After it was a critical failure and a box office disaster not even the streamers would touch the second (finished and screened at Cannes two years after the first came out). The third may never be finished because there's no money left and his reputation in the industry is so toxic he has no new projects lined up.

It's not an example of freedom, it's a cautionary tale of what happens to careers when you take your own sweet time on low budget films. And it ain't pretty. It's not an isolated case either. I've spent enough time in post-production facilities to see many, many lower budget films abandoned uncompleted in post because they went over schedule during shooting (often not even shooting the full film or tearing unshot pages out of the script to try to get back on budget) and didn't have any money left for post or, at best, end up with the director and producers losing control of the film as the completion guarantors or rescue financiers take over.

Lower budgets require more discipline, not less.

I did say it wasn't a typical(but well published were we actually got to hear about the amount filmed) example BUT I think the fact he was dealing with anything like that amount of footage seems to suggest digital maybe increasing how much smaller scale productions can record.

Again if your working on location with unpredictable and challenging lighting then the ability to record almost as much as you want and have instant feedback on it does seem like its going to be a significant asset to a small scale production, maybe moreso than larger scale ones.

Going back to Kechiche it does seem to stand out to me that his career moved more towards visually ambitious films when he was shooting digitally. Comparing Secret of the Grain to Blue is the Warmest Colour or Mektoub My Love there does definitely seem to be more focus on visually ambitious shooting to me in the latter two, especially natural light shooting.

As you say though lower budget films are going to have less of a "too big to fail" factor to them, if they do go over budget its more likely they will be canned entirely. My argument wasn't that they were able to push their shooting schedules more but rather that within those schedules they may have more ability(and inclination) to spend time shooting ambitious naturally lighting scenes.

Part of this I spose is my own experience as a photographer were I think digital does definitely provide a strong aid for shooting in natural locations. I don't have experience working on large set shoots but I can imagine that for them the advantage of film over digital might not be quite as great.

[Gacivory]

How much footage recorded isn’t a new thing to digital. Malick and Elaine May are notorious for escorting tons of footage. Using multiple cameras to film multiple takes. It’s a discipline thing. It’s one-off the many things I like about both Deakins on their podcast. They will correct people saying digital leads to people never stopping recording. I’ve been working in camera departments on low low budget sets. We always stop recording in between takes. occasionally something simple like throwing something on the ground we will do a series without stopping recording. But it’s rare.

[Monterey Jack]

Originally Posted by CrazyBlu-RayFan

From what I've heard, the animation technology for Rapunzel's hair was a big factor into why the budget got so huge.

Worth every dime.

[Richard Graham]

Alot of smaller budget films are used to launder money.

Claim a $10 million budget, spend $3 million, cook the books. $7 million in a Swiss bank.

I mean, you think 50 Cent just suddenly decided to start doing movies with Bruce, Deniro and Sly one day?

[ChrisDilke]

The Call of the Wild. Not a bad movie, but if you’re gonna use a good chunk of your $125-150 million budget on a CGI dog, you could at least make it look convincing.

[Yeti4928]

Total Recall (1990) looks kind of cheap for such a huge budget. But maybe that was the point?

[mpstjohn]

Originally Posted by Yeti4928

Total Recall (1990) looks kind of cheap for such a huge budget. But maybe that was the point?

I kind of appreciate how cheesy it looks at the time, though to this day it seems an odd choice given the material. I mean its Philip K Dick, the guy who gave us Blade Runner and they looked at this thought to themselves "Yeah, get that Arnold guy to play an everyman who's actually a spy" and the goofy aesthetic plays into that.

I appreciate conversely the worldbuilding of the remake, despite its flaws, I feel you can really see the money on the screen better there and bought Colin Farrell in the lead (particularly with Hawk as his alternate identity in the Director's Cut).