It is easier said than done. In essence, that is what makes a great low budgeter “easier said than done”. You can say you are going to make an incredible low-budget-movie. You can even see it playing out in your mind. But when you try to get all the talent, props, camera gear, lighting, environment, crew and authorities together on a project, you will realize the ultimate reality: Money is what ties it all together. So, when you see a low budget movie that has good points, maybe some good acting or some good special effects, yell “Bravo!” because I can guarantee it was either genius or a complete accident.

• I’ve seen special effects in movies so simple but effective that they have to be applauded.
• I’ve seen real tears in scenes that didn’t necessarily call for tears, but the end product was great.
• I’ve seen camera mistakes that give the entire scene a personality of its own.
• I’ve seen lead actors quit in the middle of a movie and require a complete script rewrite.

To me the great low budget movies are very creative in telling a story, when the story is way more than the film budget will allow. I mean everyday life is too boring to reproduce on screen. Some efforts show some friends making small talk and racking off some college banter and they laugh at each others jokes, then they drink some beers and smoke some joints and talk about life and their future… Who cares? That is the crap that makes it so difficult to sell real efforts. If I hear the phrase “canon fodder” in a script again my head will explode.

For instance a $10,000 movie that has a scene in it where a 747 crashes into a mountainside, or an avalanche scene shot in Arizona. To me that is creativity. Writing a 60 million dollar movie and trying like hell to put it in the can for the price of a nice used car. The imagination and ingenuity that is required to complete such a feat is why I love watching these movies. They make us pay attention to every shot to see how they did it. You never know what is real and what is not real. Sometimes the effects are believable and sometimes they are not. Either way, if they keep you following the story the effect worked.

I had a deadline on the micro-budget-movie called “Ravage” at one point where I was to find a police scanner that could be destroyed with a squib. After looking high and low in every pawn shop and radio repair shop in town (before ebay by the way) it was a lost cause acquiring one. So, I looked through magazines and found a Radio Shack catalog with an actual size photo of a police scanner. I glued the photo to a painted box and also painted over some buttons and the logo. The director had to angle the camera in a way that the shadows on the photo were consistent with the scene. We placed the squib on the prop and the actor shot the radio with a blank gun and at the same time we blew the squib. Done and in the can! That is of course a small example of things that have to be done on a low budget set, but necessity will dictate the outcome.