Props for trying to get hype by claiming this was made for $70, and bigger props for taking advantage of a gullible media. But I don't believe for a second that you didn't have to pay for city permits, or property and life insurance, and why would the makeup artist from X-Men 3 break union ranks to work for free?
Don't get me wrong, the film still looks pretty great for a low budget movie, but I am betting the actual budget is somewhere around $40,000.
True dat! It's the same thing as everyone touting around the internet that the LOTR fan film "Hunt for Gollum" was made for a paltry $3000. (YEAH RIGHT!)
I agree with you. With "Colin" the likelihood that the 'production' budget may had been only $70 is possible, however after insurance, clearance reports, title registration & copyright fees, I'm guessing their costs went up a bit.
Still, can't wait to check it out. Also, congrats to you Mr. Marc Price for recieving more praise than Q.T. at Cannes ths year.
I doubt they had any permits on this film... surely, like Clerks all the copyright stuff would of been obtained by whoever decides to distribute it? Therefore it was made on a budget of 70dollars...
shareit does work that way. it is not a matter of doing it on the cheap, it's illegal. if there were to be a horrible accident and God forbid someone died, the producers would be charged with manslaughter. if this was a talking heads character piece, then I would say they could get by, but having extensive stunt work, and effects, it's just not sane to do that without going through the proper channels.
shareJerrod do you work in film???
Well I do ..... you would be surprised at how many people do work for free outside the union esp on indie films. but it happens also in hollywood why did Jim Carrey work for almost nothing on number 23 cos he loved the script (God knows why)
Also in the UK the union's are not as strict as in Canada or the USA so you can work on whatever you like without it effecting your union day rate.
and for your insurance questions if everyone had there own liability insurance then surely they were all covered.
Im just saying when something good comes along everyone is ready to bash it and doubt that it is true maybe it cost a little more then £45 to make but 1000s surely not Marc Price would be shooting himself in the foot if he was laying about it costing close to nothing as account records could be dug up.
Maybe Marc Price has a lot of friends in the rite places who helped him out its called comadarie .....
Well, I do work in film and I'm telling you there's no way a feature film can be made with 50 quid. I made a 3' short a few months ago, everybody worked for free, location was free, and I still put 250 dollars out of my pocket.
And anyway, just because Marc Price didn't put HIS money on the film, it doesn't mean there were no production costs. If that was the case, Spielberg could claim that his last movie cost nothing, because he never paid a cent for anything in it!
If actors paid for their makeup, transportation and meals, that's a cost, for instance. It doesn't matter who paid for it.
Anyway, congratulations for making a low budget movie, it's certainly not an easy task, the 50 pounds were pure marketing genius, and I just hope it's up to the buzz.
They made the film for self interest, a hobby.
share"But I don't believe for a second that you didn't have to pay for city permits, or property and life insurance, and why would the makeup artist from X-Men 3 break union ranks to work for free?"
I agree with you that they spent more than $70 [here are a few costs for you: Feeding a cast and crew, buying a program to do special effects, going to France, renting a hotel room, paying a publicist to get your movie promoted], but none of what you're saying is true. You can shoot without permits [generally speaking, permits are not required for handheld filming at all]. You can shoot without insurance (bad idea, in theory, but you can certainly do it). And make-up artists love horror movies and are often willing to work on them for cost (and, given that the cost was $0 because it was leftovers from 'Wolverine', fair enough). The union *might* fine the person, but that's a stretch.
I made a low-budget short film with lots of extras.. got them with a cheap add and a lot of messages on social networking sites, I just asked that they all bring their own food cos I couldn't pay to feed everyone... Maybe the filmmakers did something similar...
shareThat's exactly what Marc did, alexander50, he put out messages using Facebook and MySpace and had an army of volunteers working on the film for free, providing their own equipment, transport, food etc. (although he does admit to shelling out some of the £50 for tea and biscuits for the crew!).
There's a good on-set report here:
http://www.horrortalk.com/reviews/Colin_Onset/Zombie_sunday.htm
shows how much passion and commitment was put into this by everyone.
Low/No budget FILMS are made all the time w/o insurance.
shareTo be honest, I don't really believe the $70 thing, but what I'm truly curious about is, is the film any good? There are any number of multi-million dollar movies that are monumental wastes of money. Even if "Colin" cost $7000, if it's a good film, that's still a major bargain and Mr. Price should still be commended! Promoting how expensive your picture is or how inexpensive it is, doesn't matter if it sucks.
shareWell I received a phone call from a friend asking if I would like to be in a zombie movie. I went over to Tooting on a Sunday afternoon, met up with my friend who knew Mark and we walked over to his place. There were about 6 of us that afternoon, and we all put on a bit of fake blood, picked up our chosen weapon, and walked out on to the streets of Tooting.
For about 2 hours Matt gave us direction as to what he wanted us to do. It was generally really good fun. I didn't get any tea or coffee, or biscuits. I can't imagine that Matt spent any money at all that afternoon.
I only Matt the once, but he was a pretty cool guy, and he remembered to put a credit in for me on the film. I know Dan who did the music for free as well. There was no make-up artist when I was there. I think the make-up was given to Matt for free by the person who worked on Wolverine. I'm not sure if the person actually worked on the film, but I could probably find that out.
Up to the point when Matt Price first showed film at a festival in Wales, I believe that all he had spent was £45 ($70). That's was when a film distributor saw it, liked it and picked the film up. Whatever they spent on it after that, who knows, but it's not really part of the film budget in my opinion.
"I can't imagine that Matt spent any money at all that afternoon. "
That's because most people don't actually know how a film budget breaks down or where the money is actually spent.
Did Mark print out copies of the script for anybody? Did he include the cost of the paper and ink in his budget? Did he drive anywhere in his car? Did anybody else that were considered "producers" drive anywhere? The cost of gas plus a milage fee should be included. Public transportation instead to get to the set? Again, that should be included in the budget.
Anytime that the director or producer ate out because they were on location instead of at home, part of the budget. Even the electric bill for wherever they were charging the cameras and editing computers is technically part of the budget on a real film. These are all things the director paid for out of pocket, yes. You could say he donated it to the film. But they're still part of what was spent to make the film.
People ask where all the money goes in a films budget, and while it's true that some Hollywood films have inflated and ridiculous budgets, at the same time it's also true that hundreds of thousands are spent on simple logistical things that are absolutely necessary. Dry cleaning, printer paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies so you can leave your locations prettier than you found them, tons and tons of props you'd never imagine needing...
The idea of a movie made for seventy dollars is a great little media fairy tale. But it's flatly untrue.
The director didn't keep careful track of his expenses because he wanted to make the film and he threw his own money into the project. That's fine, directors do that all the time. But that doesn't give them headlines on CNN, so they just pull out a few receipts and say it was less than a hundred dollars.
Ok, the day I was there, no one had a script. Mark just told us what he wanted us to do.
He didn't drive anywhere, we just walked up the road from his house. Took about 10 minutes where we found a fairly quiet street, where we were not directly outside someones front door.
He didn't give us any food, and nor did I expect him to. I was just filling some time on a Sunday afternoon and having some fun.
True, the scene I'm in didn't require me have say anything, or to know the story (I was told to imagine seeing my best friend being eaten by Zombies, once I stopped laughing, I addopted a serious face).
I don't really understand why you are attempting to put Mark down. $70 is just a headline figure. Just accept that he's made a decent film "very cheaply" and don't let it worry you whether it's $70 or $270. It's still a great achievement.
You have no clue how truly independent, barebones cinema is made.
shareI agree with EddieAdamsFromTorrance. Plenty of "independant, barebones" films are made thus, and even some higher-budgeted films, for that matter, which I find interesting. One example off the top of my head, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463985/ ). Quite a few shots of Sean and Twinkie walking around the streets was done without permits, and in the commentary Justin Lin even--if memory serves--mentions having to run a few times because they were almost caught.
Another example in that film are of Sean's dad's home. That was a real neighborhood, though it's also kind of a subversion of the idea in that it was going to be torn down, and the residents really wanted it to be captured on film so that in a way it would continue even after its destruction.
Still, at the end of the day--while I'm not sure Colin was in fact filmed for seventy dollars, I can totally believe principle photography was a guerrilla-style shoot where permits and licenses weren't an issue.
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Sometimes You Plant Seeds For Trees You Will Never Sit Under
> The union *might* fine the person, but that's a stretch.
As Hawking once said, "Wrong again, Albert!"
Anyone, union or not, can do whatever they want if they do it for free. It's their spare time. The union only prevents people from doing the same work FOR LESS MONEY.
This was probably made for $70 the same way "El Mariachi" was made for $7000. Getting all the footage shot on prosumer cameras and edited on a home computer can be done incredibly cheaply.
But the onus of putting out a quality product en masse is on the distributor that buys the property (and will be taken out of the purchase price, I assure you).
Before it can be distributed widely, via theatrical or straight-to-dvd release, will likely require a proper sound mix, a digital upconversion, professional color correction, etc. And none of those will be cheap.
From what it sounds like, this is a movie worth seeing, and it will cost more to get the release it deserves.
If everyone was happy with putting this on Youtube for folks to watch for free on a small computer screen, then they could get away with a final cost seventy bucks. But if you see this distributed professionally on dvd or, fingers crossed, the big screen, just know that's not the reality. Tack on another couple hundred grand, easily.
In the UK its not like in America where u need permits. And often indie/low budget films will just blag their way through things. We blagged a couple of stuff on an Indie we made as well.
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Darkness Now online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NixUM5ieKN0
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Does the equipment (Camera, film etc...) account for part of the budget? That alone would come to more than £45. Total hype, comepletely untrue, but, great publicity.
Life isn't a rehearsal, so make this one your best performance
I just don't see any reason why he would lie about it, as somebody else said, somebody could easily check and then he'd be proven to be a liar, knowing that fact, I don't see why he'd risk it.
Besides the fact that I'm sure somebody already has checked.
If you know the right people who are willing to bend over backwards for you, then I don't see why it wouldn't work out to be that cheap?
I saw an interview with the Director on BBC or Sky News, and he was talking about the film he made. He still works his day job in courier company, so the reports of a tiny budget could be to the figure reported.
He said he borrowed most equipment needed, and most of the budget was to buy zombies teas and coffees here and there.
It's being shown at the Fright Fest in London this year over the August Bank Holiday, seems to sold out pretty quickly....
You don't need to buy 'film' anymore.
It was shot on a digital camera. I've got one of those and if a mate wanted to borrow it, Id let him! (As long as I could bea zombie!)
Does the equipment (Camera, film etc...) account for part of the budget? That alone would come to more than £45. Total hype, comepletely untrue, but, great publicity.
I work with Colin Price, Marc's father. (Yes the film was named after him.)
We work in a steelworks in South Wales, UK where Colin is a Union rep.
Believe me when I say Colin is not a man to lie so I believe him when HE says that the film was made for £46!! (Most of which was to buy the crow bar to use as a prop.)
MOST of it was used for a crowbar!?? A crowbar costs about £12, and that's for a new, larger one. Smaller ones can even be had for around £6 delivered from Amazon... Since he's making such a low budget film where he's blagging the cameras, make-up and effects, etc, why not blag a simple crowbar? Surely some friend or neigbour could have lent him such a basic, primitive piece of equipment, no? Or buy a used one for less than a fiver from eBay! Seems like an unusually wasteful use of cash on such a tight shoestring budget.
shareI watched the film this evening (only about the second cinema screening in the UK. The director did a Q & A afterwards and he is a modest and, it seemed to me, honest guy. ). You can see it was made for very little money. It's obviously shot on a cheap camcorder in a shoot and run style. This is not a low-budget industry movie. This is a film shot outside of the industry by a few people who begged, borrowed and got favours. Wannabes and film students do it all the time. The only difference here is the scale of the maker's ambitions and their determination to achieve them. There is a lot wrong with the film (many shots and scenes are long, too long, or way too long) but there are talents at the heart of it and I hope they go on to do other things. Definitely a nice try.
share[deleted]
I've made 3 (multi-award winning) feature length indie comedies and have NEVER gotten permits or insurance. So anyone saying you have to have that stuff are completely clueless and have probably never even been anywhere near a low budget film set in their life.
I have not seen this film, but if there are enough passionate people working for free on a project you can make a feature for $70. Not sure how good it would be, but it's definitely not impossible.
My lowest feature was $3800 (also made a $5000 and an $8000). $3800 was our most recent and it had better sound and picture than the first two. Technology prices are coming down. You can get a great camera for $500. Get a cheap boom mic and lighting kit, a couple hundred for a solid editing program and PRESTO = solid film for super cheap.