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PRODUCTION CORNER # 3
FUNDS AND LOCATIONSby Tim Ritter
Once you have your screenplay ready for others to read, it's time to begin the collaborative process of making your movie. As an independent filmmaker, you'll most definitely have to wear more than one hat when it comes to getting your movie produced, but if you can find a couple of other people who are as crazy and passionate about making movies as you are, it's all for the better. It's important to divide the duties at this point and be very clear on who is going to do what, so there are no misunderstandings later on.
In other words, if you are the writer and director, be sure to make that known. Tell prospective collaborators exactly what positions are available and what credit they will receive. It's important to get things in writing at this point. Generally speaking, these early collaborators will probably be getting very little to no pay and credit is all they will get out of this experience, education aside. And hopefully they are like-minded buddies, because it will make things go much smoother.
An agreement between parties (even friends) can be very simple. For example, if you bring in a producer, simply write something up like this:
IN AGREEMENT ON THIS ________ DAY OF ________, 20___, IT IS AGREED THAT __________ WILL COME ON BOARD AS PRODUCER OF THE PROJECT TENTATIVELY TITLED __________. HIS DUTIES WILL INCLUDE ASSISTING IN RAISING MONEY FOR THE MOVIE, HELPING TO SECURE SCHEDULES, CAST, CREW, AND LOCATIONS, AND GETTING THE MOVIE IN AND OUT OF EDITING SO IT CAN BE DISTRIBUTED INTO THE INTERNATIONAL MARKETPLACE. AT THIS TIME, THERE IS NO PAY INVOLVED, BUT SAID PRODUCER WILL RECEIVE -10% OF GROSS PROFITS DURING SALES OF THE MOVIE, AFTER THE DISTRIBUTION AND BUDGET COSTS ARE FULLY PAID OFF, FOR THE LIFE OF THE PICTURE. CREDIT WILL BE FULL SCREEN PAGE, AS FOLLOWS: PRODUCED BY_____________. FURTHER CHANGES OR AMENDMENTS MAY BE MADE BY BOTH PARTIES IN WRITING AS THE PRODUCTION PROGRESSES.
Both parties then sign this agreement, and you can amend it further if you need to down the line. While this is not some huge, absolute, legally binding thing, this says to everyone you are dealing with that you are taking this seriously and that they should too. It makes things much more professional, and the credit portion will give collaborators a nice incentive to do good work.
This is the stage where you'll want to decide how much to spend on your project. The ideas that I'm trying to present are for no-budget moviemaking, and my idea of no budget is under $4,000.00. In today's climate with so much product and things being so risky, I wouldn't spend more than $4,000.00 on a digital video movie. Yes, your project could go on to become the next Blair Witch Project, but chances are, it won't. So spend as little as possible, tailoring your script, effects, and cast as compact as you can.
How do you raise this kind of money? Well, hopefully you have a day job that allows you the luxury of footing the bill. Save up for a year if you have to, put the dough in a separate bank account. Keep in mind, you have to tailor your script for simplicity, taking advantage of everything and anything around you that you can get for nothing.
Another way to get your budget is by charging things on credit cards. I have done this myself, and if you have to go this route, do so with extreme caution. You always hear about the big successes in this business, the mavericks who have gone out and charged their movies and somehow landed a huge distribution deal, with a studio paying off all their debt. Those guys are one in a million lottery winners, and you don't hear as much about the filmmaker like me, who struggles to pay down their credit cards tape by tape, over a period of six years with 19.9% interest! It took me SIX YEARS to pay off one of my early shot-on-video efforts, so please, don't go haywire with the plastic. Be conservative and try to pay what you can as you go, with cash. I know that sometimes that's hard, and the passion to just get out there and get started is sometimes overwhelming, but sometimes doing things a little slower can save your personal and financial life. If you have family obligations, there's no surer way to put a strain on everything wracking up credit card bills for your dream project.
Another way to raise money is through limited partnerships, where you might draw up a contract and get various people to put a small amount in. Each state has different laws on this and you'll have to get lawyers involved with writing up a contract, but this is a valid route. If you and three friends each want to cough up $1,500.00 a piece to get a small movie made (knowing you'll probably LOSE this money and can afford to do so), by all means do it! But keep in mind, again, that there's no surer way to ruin friendships and cause friction among family members if it's a total loss, because people are (rightfully) protective of their hard-earned money, and what you're doing is chasing the moon, it's a lark, a dream, and very, very RISKY. Again, use caution when involving friends and family in anything that has to do with taking money, and make sure they can afford to LOSE that cash or tie it up for many years.
Here's a sample limited partnership contract, and again, if you use this as a blueprint to raise ANY funds (because this is the kind of paperwork that you can use to raise funds from $3,000.00 to 3 million), you MUST have a lawyer look at it and rewrite it, making sure everything is up to par and legal for whatever state you are creating the partnership in. Each state has different, always changing, rules and regulations on this, an usually you must have a fully incorporated company to venture into this territory, although you can now to D/B/A's (Doing Business As) and individual responsibilities. I'm trying to keep all this very simple so making your movie is fun, but if you take other people's money to make a flick, well, you step into the business world, whether you like it or not. Which is why I always recommend self-financing when possible. Here's a very basic SAMPLE LIMITED PARTNERSHIP FORM:
AGREEMENT made in ___________, ______, on this date of ________, _____, by and between COMPANY OR PRODUCER NAME HERE , as producer of a feature length motion picture in the state of _______ (hereinafter referred to as "PRODUCER"), and INVESTOR NAME(S) HERE (hereinafter referred to as "INVESTORS"), for the purpose of financing and producing a 90-minute, feature-length film currently entitled FILM TITLE HERE. 1. The contribution of the INVESTORS shall be AS FOLLOWS (this is a sample only, let's say you are trying to raise $3,000.00 and you and two other investors are each putting in $1,000.00 to make the movie):
DOLLARS PERCENT A.) Investor # 1 (Your name) $1,000.00 ______ B.) Investor # 2 $1,000.00 ______ C.) Investor # 3 $1,000.00 ______ D.) PRODUCER/PRODUCTION COMPANY shall contribute their time and talents to producing the said film the value of such services fixed at Fifty (50%) Percent and any profits earned shall be distributed to individuals according to a Schedule that will be formulated once the said film is being DISTRIBUTED. (The reason the PRODUCTION COMPANY keeps 50% is for bargaining power with talent and distributors. You can offer contributors "points of profit" for their contributions if you like. I would try to avoid this for small movies, as it is an accounting nightmare.)
The INVESTORS recognize the risk of monetary loss. The PRODUCER shall have full responsibility for any and all liability arising out of the production of the said film. (Think about that one, a REQUIREMENT by law, and you'll see why it's better for non-insured, small films, to finance it yourself!)
2. PRODUCTION COMPANY/PRODUCER shall own all right and title to the completed film and shall be responsible for all creative content and for producing and marketing the same.
3. The maximum budget for producing FILM TITLE shall be TOTAL BUDGET ($3,000.00) which shall be the sum total of capital contributions of the Investors. (Scary here, in that if you don't raise enough money and run out, it's a legal nightmare and in most cases CANNOT be done, so be sure you are raising enough to complete your project!) For each ________ dollars an individual Investor contributes to capital he shall be entitled to ____ percent share of the sale price and residuals earned by the said film limited to the percentages set out in Paragraph One hereinabove. The Investors shall recover their individual respective investments prior to any income distributions to any non-financial contributors involved in producing said film. No investor shall be liable for any loss, debt, or obligations of the Producer during the production of said film. Completion date of the film shall be no later than DATE HERE on a Master Tape of FORMAT HERE , to be shopped for distribution.
This Agreement shall be for the calendar year _______ and thereafter from year to year. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties have duly executed and delivered this Agreement on the aforementioned date. SIGNED, SEALED, AND NOTARY IN STATE OF EXECUTION.
_________________________________ _________________________________ (Producer) (Investor)
Anyway, that's a SIMPLIFIED and SAMPLE copy of getting involved with contracts and money. It gives you an idea of what to expect, and you'll already be spending funds on a lawyer if you take this route, unless a friend or family member is an attorney and willing to waive charges.
You might ask yourself how you figure out how much money you need to make your movie. This is done by BREAKING YOUR SCRIPT DOWN, and if you wrote your screenplay with a limited budget in mind using resources you already have access to, well the problem is already solved.
But you'll still want to break your script down for shooting and budgetary reasons. On a low-budget movie, you'll want to film between 5 and 10 screen pages a day, if possible. For a 100 page script, this will give you a total of ten to twenty shooting days, which will generally be ten hour plus days each. When this "principal shooting" is completed, you can schedule "pickup shot" days that might cover additional special effects or exterior establishing shots. You want to get the bigger "cast and crew" days out of the way as quickly as possible, while you have the momentum.
You will shoot your script completely out of order, and this is done for strictly location reasons. For instance, you might have a scene that takes place in a cabin, and the action keeps cutting back there on pages 1-12, 24-33, 40-50, and so on. You simply group all those pages together and shoot all those scenes at once, having the cast change costumes for each portion that might require this. That's why it's important to have a CONTINUITY PERSON on set, someone taking pictures of wardrobe, hairstyles, and the set with a digital camera, so everything cuts together right when you put the movie together later on.
Once you have all your scenes grouped together by LOCATION, decide how fast you want to shoot. For first-time directors, start out with five pages a day and go for that. If you find yourself getting ahead while shooting, that's all for the better. But once you have your LOCATION SCENES torn apart in five or ten page increments, you'll have each day's shooting pages at your fingertips. This is where you'll break down the script, using index cards, a cardboard PRODUCTION BOARD with interchangeable pieces, or by computer.
From each day's script pages, you will cull the following information: CAST NEEDED (the players for the day), WARDROBE (what everyone wears), PROPS AND SPECIAL EFFECTS, and LOCATION. Additionally, you'll see how many crew members you need, too, unless you are planning to shoot, light, and do the sound yourself, which can be done.
Once you have all this information WRITTEN DOWN with the SCRIPT PAGES ready for each day, you'll be able to get an idea on your budget. Ask how much you're paying each cast member (if anything), and multiply that times the days you're using them. Wardrobe expenses? Figure it out there. Prop costs? Write it out. And transportation issues---how much will you be spending in gas to get somewhere? Food, how many people will you be buying food for on each day? What will you be serving, can you get any restaurants to donate chow for credit? During this BREAKDOWN, you will be able to come up with a general PER DAY expense, and know exactly how many days you will need to use each cast and crew member, as well as each location. Take your time here, because a mistake this early in the game could be detrimental to the production. Go over everything with a fine tooth comb, and do all this BEFORE you sign any paperwork with investors.
Also think about your music costs (will you be doing it yourself? licensing the music? using library stock?) and editing. Does a friend have computer editing or will you have to pay by the hour? If you plan to buy DESKTOP editing computer software, better build that into your budget or have the cash to buy it for yourself. Think about every aspect of the movie, will you have to pay someone $20 to use their home for a few hours? Is it hot out, will you need sodas and water on the set? All this stuff adds up, and fast. Buying pizzas for a ten people a day, twice a day, for twenty days can get expensive, even with coupons! Add it up and you'll see...
Once you have your script completely broken down in each and every category, you're ready to LOCK IN LOCATIONS next. I always do this even before casting the movie, because this is one of the most important things to have done. Everything depends on having the right place to film, so it's senseless to cast a movie, especially a no-budget one, and not have this done before anything else. Why? Because if you cast a movie, and everyone is excited to do it, and suddenly there's major hangups in finding places to shoot, everyone will lose interest REAL QUICK and you'll have to start all over. I know many people who have fully cast a movie, before they did their script breakdowns and secured their locations. Guess where you can see those movies? NOWHERE, because they didn't happen! So take your time and lock in those locations, make sure they're available and easily accessible. Also never be afraid to alter your script for a good location, the script will never be written in stone once you start shooting. Be ready to change on a whim to get your project done.
I've made a dozen low-budget movies and still find myself learning in the quest for cool locations. I'd like to share some of the info and shortcuts with everyone, which hopefully include some first-time film/videomakers.
The first thing I'd like to say is, again (and I can't say it enough!), if you have zero budget dollars behind you, you have to think about locations while writing the script. Think about what you have around you that's available for free, and who you know. For instance, if you have a buddy that owns a used car lot, write a scene in your script that takes place at a used car lot. It's pretty simple, really. Obviously, your own home is an ideal place for a location, especially for indoor scenes where a character may reside. But if you want to add production value to your flick and take it beyond the status of "backyard", you'll have to do some negotiating.
This can be pretty smooth sailing, really, because lots of people are receptive to being involved with a movie. If you're making a movie with possibly objectionable content, obviously that can be a hindrance against you at certain places. Your choices are either finding somewhere else or building a set. Building a set is costly, so you might consider what I sometimes do: just tell the person the truth. If they don't want you to shoot on their property, it's better to do it somewhere else. Generally, if you sign your movie up with a bigger distributor, they will require that you provide actor releases, copyright info, and location releases from everywhere you shoot, just to protect themselves from lawsuits.
The Location Contracts that I use are simple and to the point. It's probably a good idea to get a location contract signed at ANY location, even a friend's house. That way you have more leverage against them if they decide you can't shoot there when everyone's already arrived and you're unpacking your gear. You may not win the battle, but at least you have something to back you up. Also, if you don't finish a scene at a particular location and the person that owns the property didn't sign a contract and doesn't want you back, you're pretty much out of luck! There's nothing worse than having to reshoot entire scenes because you lost a location, and yes, I've had to do that before!
My Location Contracts read like this: PERMISSION IS HEREBY GRANTED TO (THE FILMMAKER), TO USE THE PROPERTY AND ADJACENT AREA, LOCATED AT (LOCATION ADDRESS), FOR THE PURPOSE OF RECORDING SCENES (INT. & EXT.) FOR SAID MOTION PICTURE (TITLE), WITH THE RIGHT TO EXHIBIT ALL OR ANY PART OF SAID SCENE(S) THROUGHOUT THE WORLD; SAID PERMISSION SHALL INCLUDE THE RIGHT TO BRING PERSONNEL & EQUIPMENT (INCLUDING PROPS) ONTO SAID PROPERTY, AND TO REMOVE AND CLEAN UP THE SAME THEREFROM AFTER COMPLETION OF WORK. ANY UNREASONABLE DAMAGES CAUSED BY THE PRODUCTION WILL BE FIXED, REPAIRED AND/OR CLEANED WITHIN REASON, AT THE PRODUCTION'S EXPENSE. "PRODUCER" SHALL NOT HOLD PROPERTY OWNER RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY PERSONNEL INJURIES THAT MAY RESULT WHILE SHOOTING ON THE PREMISES. THIS PERMISSION IS GRANTED FOR A PERIOD OF (# OF DAYS, TIMES) AT THE AGREED UPON PRICE OF (EITHER A SMALL MONETARY FEE OR SCREEN CREDIT).
Then everyone signs the contract. That's pretty straight forward and everyone's interests are pretty much protected. If an accident does happen on a private homeowner's property, their homeowner's insurance will usually cover an injury, even though you've technically "waived" those rights. But at most private locations, the owner's insurance would help out in the event of a problem. If you're doing really crazy stuff, though, you might want to check the policy out or get an attorney involved. In a sue-happy world, it's sometimes better to be safe than sorry.
Now comes some shortcuts and tips I've learned over the years. What I've done is listed the movie I made, and what we did to get locations and what I learned in the process. (These flicks were all filmed in South Florida.)
Truth Or Dare? had quite a wide variety of locations, including a mental asylum, car chases, wooded area scenes both day and night, a car crash, city streets, a restaurant scene, and offices. A majority of the movie was shot at a local Community College. This is a key ingredient to making a movie: keep all your locations close by. Travel time wastes time and energy. The college was receptive for credit and a small payment. We got all the office scenes, an empty room to build the "psycho ward," plenty of offices and hallways, a baseball field, another field in surrounding campus woods where we blew a shed up, and lots of streets surrounding the college for our car chase scenes. The restaurant was easy, you always find places that will let you film in off-hours for a credit! Think about where you frequent, and may know the owners personally!
Killing Spree had minimal locations. It was set pretty much at one house, like Night Of The Living Dead. This home was the producer's home. It was a good thing I had him sign a location contract, because right in the middle of shooting (THAT'S RIGHT, HALFWAY DONE, SHOOTING ON 16mm FILM!) he kicked us out of his house! He felt the crew was mistreating his home and blood was getting everywhere and he'd had enough! Fortunately, I had him on the dotted line for providing the location, and satisfied him by drawing up a new contract with a couple of "cleaning additions" added to it, along with a "Location By" credit for him! This is an extreme example of why having a contract is so important. This producer was a good friend of mine, my best friend, and I never expected this to happen.
Also, something else I learned on Killing Spre e was, AVOID BLANK WHITE WALLS AS YOUR BACKGROUND FOR INTERIOR SCENES. At the time, I wasn't thinking about set dressing too much, and to me, the lack of interesting backdrops cheapened the look of this $75,000.00 movie. Put up paintings, find wood paneled homes, ANYTHING. It's called PRODUCTION VALUE, it adds to the movie when you have neat lighting or interesting and unusual homes. I mean, at the time, I thought, "this is realistic, everyone has homes with white walls." Even so, dress your sets! Add curtains, paintings, whatever. Strive to find rooms that are DIFFERENT or LIGHT IT with different colored (gelled) lights to get rid of that harsh white background! I mean, part of the reason shows like Miami Vice were so successful was because of the wild sets and interesting backdrops and most of that was achieved economically. I always have a "beach scene" in my movies- it's free and it looks awesome, expensive, especially to people who don't live near the ocean. Remember, think about things you live near (landmarks, etc.) that are public places where you're not going to cause too much of a commotion and use these areas for PRODUCTION VALUE.
With Wicked Games , Palm Beach County tried to sue me on the old FREE beach scenes. They wanted to charge me to use the beaches for even a static shot of someone walking along the beach! How? By requiring filmmakers to purchase a one million dollar insurance policy to film or videotape on public beaches! I took this public, got a TON of publicity, and the bureaucrats backed off. My basic defense was asking the question, "Do we plan to have every tourist with a camcorder purchase this insurance policy?" Common sense prevailed and reaffirmed public places as public places, with no location contract required. (As long as you weren't staging a gun fight or something! But check out what we DID do in the movie on the beach: foot chases, a girl gets killed while sun-tanning, and several character conversations take place on the ocean! I got away with as much as I could!) Also, I practiced what I preached in trying to light "white-walled" scenes with blue gels and yellow tints. Also, use extreme close-ups to avoid shabby interior backgrounds like motel rooms, etc. Speaking of motel rooms, we rented a lot of motel rooms for various scenes, and as long as you're quiet and don't make too big of a mess, this is always an option for creating offices or bedrooms. I also began to ask cast members for help in finding locations, and I got a great response! Dedicated thespians really want to help out all that they can. Also, think about where you work and how you might incorporate it into a movie, and ask your boss! All they can say is "no!" in a worst-case scenario! Most no-budget moviemakers inevitably end up shooting scenes at their "real jobs" at some point in time.
Creep had some of the best locations of all my movies, in my opinion. The story was written around areas I knew we had access to. The lead actor knew a guy who owned a dairy farm way west of town, and we staged the opening car crash and prisoner escape scene there! The smashed up cars were free, by the way, towed there by a company that provided them for screen credits and cameo roles. The office and cabin scenes were lined up again by the lead actress, who had friends with cool places. The production value of the office scenes are excellent, particularly the ones with the expansive window views of Palm Beach in the background, with sailboats cruising along the waterways. The cabin scenes were filmed at a cool house with dark paneled walls, no dreary white backgrounds in sight! There was a scene in an abandoned church that we filmed, and we convinced the caretaker/actor to let us use it in exchange for a small role in the movie.
We needed to do an intense scene with two actors in a graveyard, so our solution was to create fake tombstones out of wood and put crosses and such in the background, lighting everything in eerie blues and reds. Add fog from dry ice and a small "fog machine", and you can create quite a haunting atmosphere! Sometimes, you have to improvise and adapt for certain script needs.
There was a scene that took place in a convenient store, and the one we had locked in fell through at the last possible minute. Just a few hours before filming was scheduled to start, we lined up another store. That quick! The key? Some cash for the clerk (who signed the location contract) and that we had to shoot around any paying customers.
Another location coup that we stumbled onto while making Creep was the building that blew up in the end. This scene came out awesome, and wasn't originally in the script. I found out a local hotel was going to be demolished by the city. The was no ordinary hotel- it was a historic twelve story building! So we immediately had aerial footage shot of the building before they blew it up.
A few weeks later, they were scheduled to dynamite it for the public. I showed up with the producers, and we mingled in to press spots with our cameras, and got shots of this "public spectacle" from every angle possible on every format of film and video that we could. With cool editing, we got a spectacular ending, an explosive ending, for next to nothing! I rewrote the script and added this scene in. I mean, if we would have been paying to demolish a building, it would have been a $50,000 shot! And you thought it was impossibly to get huge explosions on a micro-budget! Check around, they do stuff like this all over the country, all the time. (Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer 2 shrewdly incorporated burning exercises performed by local fire departments!) The key is timing, find out when and where, and then good editing. For people who don't live in your area and don't know the circumstances under which you got your public domain shot, it'll look you spent an arm an a leg on certain thing. It's all part of the illusion of making movies.
With the Ransom segment in the sci-fi movie Endangered Species , everything was done pretty much guerrilla-filmmaking style. In other words, show up and shoot! Mostly we filmed in state parks where we posed as (aging) college students making a short flick. We got plenty of "deep swamp" woods scenes like this and lots of scenes with rundown, burned-out buildings in public areas where I just framed out the busy highways in the background...
As I've made more and more movies, I've learned more and more shortcuts. On a very recent production, we found an old motel that wasn't very crowded and talked to the owner about shooting a movie there. He was very receptive and we were able to successfully negotiate a good deal that satisfied everyone. The motel was private property and had insurance, so that wasn't an issue. We ended up shooting 60% of the movie on this property, agreeing upon a price of $60.00 per day for anything within reason that we needed, and promised to put up any out-of-town actors or actresses in rooms there at the regular rate. We used the manager's motel apartment for one character's home, a winding hallway for various corridor chases, a big empty room was dressed for a police interrogation scene, the back lot and surrounding streets were used for road scenes, and they closed off various public areas and restaurants for us during off-hours so we could get a variety of sequences completed! In terms of location accessibility, this was one of the best shoots I've ever had. Everything was right at our fingertips!
One final trick that I learned shooting everything at one place was the use of tight close-ups. If your location is questionable, like the office we set up for the patient/shrink conversations we had, shoot extreme close-ups of your actors in conversations. That way the audience will concentrate on the story and acting and not on your possibly chintzy (or repetitive) backgrounds!
I hope these stories and ideas have inspired you to going out and achieve your vision on tape or film. Don't let a thing like "not being able to find the right location" stop you. There is always a way, whether it's in your back yard, in the garage, at a friend or neighbor's house around the corner, or at a motel down the road. The key is in the way you execute the shots, dress and light your sets, and edit it all together. After all, in the end, everything is designed to achieve one thing and one thing alone: a twisted illusion!