On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 09:50 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Alex Hudson home@alexhudson.com writes:
For example, even the cheapest independent film is realistically going to cost ~$100k.
This is a bad example since the only reason films cost so much is because copyright law has become completely broken due to the lobbying of a small number of very rich companies.
To create a film, you have to pay people to write a script or screenplay, hire the equipment to film it, hire people to film it (skilled operators, actors, directors), rent an editing suite and editor to edit the film, create any music needed, rent a sound stage to create any other audio needed, and that's all before you get to marketing and distribution.
The costs I'm mentioning are the costs of creating an independent film. With the best will in the world, I don't see how much of that cost is attributable to large film companies. As a pretty obvious example:
http://orange.blender.org/theteam
No actors, no cameras, no filming costs. I count over fifty people involved with that production, before you count those credited institutionally, virtually all of whom donated their time, the rendering farm was donated, people pre-ordered DVDs and/or donated money to the cause. Regardless of all those donations of time, it still full-time people employed to work on the film. Totalled up, all this donation of time, services and money would easily surpass $100k - I would bet employing six people along probably cost nearly that.
And this isn't even a film, it's a short. Costs don't rise linearly with running time, but they certainly rise.
So on what basis is $100k expensive for a film?
Cheers,
Alex.