[dbspin]

Filmmaker here - Parasites budget was in the 10 million range. Paranormal Activity's initial budget was in the 15K range (tiny, even when it was shot 15 years ago), a further 200k was spent on post production and reshoots when it was picked up by a major studio. This doesn't count the many millions both had spent on marketing - which is often up to twice a productions shooting and post budget.

High end filmmaking has gotten 'cheaper', in that you can use virtual production to simulate environments etc. And undoubtedly shooting 'digital' is cheaper than film development. Although nowhere near as much cheaper than you might think, once the cost of a DIT and professional colour grade is thrown into the mix. However the standards of both independent film and TV production are enormously higher than they were 15 years ago.

It's not that it's impossible to make something cheaply - I'm involved in the kino kabaret movement, where amateurs and professionals alike join together to make effectively zero budget films over a weekend.

However - the cost of producing a decent film has not dropped to a few thousand. Quite the opposite. Given the high production value of contemporary indies, it's inarguably more difficult now to make something that will play festivals and sell to distributers for an 'ultralow' budget.

Moreover, lots of the budgets you see quotes are as low as they were because the film was effectively subsidised by a small production company. In other words, everyone worked for free and used borrowed gear, often worth hundreds of thousands. For reference a fully kitted out Arri Alexa 35 or LF is over 90k euro to buy, and over 1k per day to rent.

A decent budget for a short film is in the 40 - 50k range, once everyone is actually getting paid for their time. Couple of million dollars / euros would be a low budget film, with favours pulled in and everyone working for less than half of their rates for commercial work.

[unity1001]

> High end filmmaking has gotten 'cheaper', in that you can use virtual production to simulate environments etc. And undoubtedly shooting 'digital' is cheaper than film development.

That proposition would mean that the reason why majority of the last decades' top budget movies were rehashed crap was because of the exorbitant profit margins and exorbitant money paid to stars rather than anything related to the movies' production. So it was just a case of capitalism hollowing out things for profit like in any other field.

> However - the cost of producing a decent film has not dropped to a few thousand.

I don't think anybody ever made that argument. What people say is that things became much cheaper and therefore democratized. Which is in line with what you said.

[dbspin]

> I don't think anybody ever made that argument.

The original post in this thread advocated for making hundreds of indie films vs one film for twenty million.

> That proposition would mean that the reason why majority of the last decades' top budget movies were rehashed crap was because of the exorbitant profit margins and exorbitant money paid to stars rather than anything related to the movies' production.

It's more complicated than that - at the top end film budgets are vastly higher than they were a decade ago. Regularly topping 200 million. But more importantly, studios have making far fewer films and pining their success as a business on a 'super' hit driven model. This is almost a separate industry than film at this point, with grosses in the multiple billions before merchandising is taken into account. It's not really what the original article is about - they're talking about hit 'indie' films, in the 20 million ball park.

Arguably the issue with movies of the last decade has been the creation and duplication of transmedia franchises at the expense of making standalone original films.

[abetusk]

$20M / 100 = $200k

[unity1001]

> The original post in this thread advocated for making hundreds of indie films vs one film for twenty million.

That doesn't mean that each indie film would cost $10k. Not that someone couldnt pull off a good movie like that for $10k. However, more people being able to make movies from $10k or whatever low amount would mean more chances of good movies being made.

> But more importantly, studios have making far fewer films and pining their success as a business on a 'super' hit driven mode

Yeah. Profit maximization instead of risk taking. The same problem everywhere - gaming industry has been consolidated in the hands of few big companies which started making endless rehashes of previously successful games to suck out more money from gamers instead of making new things. Profit maximization. Capitalism.