Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick only two.
How often have you heard this adage? Maybe you have even said it yourself, especially if you have worked in the corporate video world and have dealt with clients who expect blockbusters on b-level budgets.
It is a popular and often hilarious meme, and an educational Venn diagram illustrating a reality check. If you want something fast and cheap, it won’t be good. If you want something cheap and good, it can’t be fast. Sure, you can create a great video or film with little money, but the trade off for not spending big is you’ll need to spend a lot of time and patience to achieve greatness.
But I am here to tell you that good, fast, and cheap is indeed possible in filmmaking. As micro-budget filmmakers, if we were to believe otherwise, we would be crippled with doubt before we even attempted to make a film.
“I have this great idea for my debut feature but I will only make it when I have the 1.2 million budget I need.”
Or:
“I have been editing my no-budget feature film for three years now. It is almost finished. Just a few more tweaks.”
I think we have all talked to filmmakers who have uttered the above statements or similar. I won’t lie, I have even been the latter filmmaker myself. But good, fast, and cheap should be the default modus operandi for most filmmakers and this is why …
Filmmaking is a brutal industry.
For every widely successful directorial debut that launches careers, major festival accolades, and widespread prestige (and profit), there are thousands of films and filmmakers who never get close to moving the needle.
Most films, in fact, don’t even turn a profit.
But if you keep your budget low (ie. cheap) you have a much better chance of making your money back for yourself or your investors. If you make your film quickly and if it doesn’t find the financial success or prestige and recognition you hoped for, that is okay. Go make another one. A cheap film. A fast film. Another shot at the basket, another crack of the whip, another film out in the market and another chance to make money, build your network, do what you love. And then go on to make yet another film after that.
What you are doing by making films that are fast and cheap (and good) is building a body of work. And it is this body of work that has a much higher chance of building your career than any single film can.
Sure, you may have a dream project that is going to take more time to develop and more money to film. And that’s fine, we have these too, and we keep working on them in the background. But in the meantime, get out on set, make other films, make quick features at low cost, and see what can happen when you ‘do’ instead of ‘talk’ and build a reputation as an active filmmaker with a catalog of films behind you.
You may still have doubts. So let’s take a closer look at what exactly good, fast, and cheap can be.
First, the most contentious aspect; what exactly is good when it comes to art? This is entirely subjective and what one person enjoys and considers ‘good’ or ‘great’ may be horrible to somebody else. For example, I would not consider myself a fan of horror, and I invariably roll my eyes at yet another young filmmaker making a slasher with a masked villain hunting horny teenagers, but for the many fans of the genre, this might just be the type of film they want to see.
So let’s remove taste from how we define ‘good’ and treat the term more simply. Are the shots framed properly? Exposed accurately and lit well? Is the dialogue clear? Is the acting convincing? Is the audience immersed in the story? In other words, are the technical and filmmaking craft aspects of the work apparent? If so, is this not good by default?
Today, the technology is available at such low cost that almost anyone can make a technically good film, and all the how-to videos you need to learn how are available for free on YouTube. And if you are in any major city you could throw a stick in a crowd and likely to hit an aspiring actor who can give you a convincing performance. You can do ‘good’ on the cheap.
So let’s add fast to the mix. Good, cheap, and fast. It isn’t easy. But there are countless examples of it being done that illustrate it is possible.
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) by Roger Corman filmed in record time.
B-Movie master Roger Corman shot the original The Little Shop of Horrors in record time and it has gone on to be considered a cult classic, spawning a musical and a remake. Corman and writer Charles B. Griffith purportedly wrote the script over the course of a single evening, writing in all-night Hollywood coffee shops. The film was cast with stock actors that Corman had used in previous films and they rehearsed for three days before filming began. Principal photography took only two days and one night, with other material shot over two successive weekends. Corman used three cameras at once and shot every scene with only one take. The total budget for the production was approximately $30,000.
Then there is Joe Swanberg, a favourite director of ours, who build his entire career on good, fast, and cheap. He made seven films in 2010 alone. He would spend less than a week making each feature and then turn around and sell them to New York based indie distributor IFC. He admits that none of these films alone made much money, but cumulatively, they kept him fed, clothed, and brought him the funds and time to make his next film. His prolific output got him noticed and today he is considered a major figure in the mumblecore film movement and has the luxury of working with bigger budgets and partners like Netflix for his projects.
There is also a whole festival dedicated to this concept called the 48 Hour Film Project. It is an annual film competition in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, and have 48 hours to create a short film containing those elements. The competition has been active since 2001 and runs events in 130 cities.
There is a Melbourne chapter, and when I used to run the Made In Melbourne Film Festival I would receive entries from this event. I was impressed by the quality of the films and would often program a handful of them, these quickfire, no budget 48 hour films screening side by side with shorts from other filmmakers that may have taken months or even years to plan and create.
And finally, our first feature, Friends, Foes & Fireworks, which began our whole journey into improvisation and micro-budget filmmaking. No doubt, you have heard us mention it was filmed in a single night. The total cost was $11,000, mostly spent in post production. The film has been praised for its authentic acting and strong story and I like to think it is good at the very least.
Good, fast, cheap. This concept was the building block that began our current path, and led us to where we are now, making the films we want to make full-time. So not only is it possible, I encourage it, and for many filmmakers, I believe it is a necessary process to be embraced. Try it. You may be surprised where it leads you.
Written by Ivan Malekin