It seems I underestimated the importance of this trend. Microbudgets ($250,000 or less) have been a major launching pad since long before the nineties. If your short films don’t get into a major festival (and even if they do), this may become a route for you.

Here’s a list of directors and their first feature films which fall into this category:

John Sayles, Return of the Secaucus 7 ($60,000)

Bryan Singer, Public Access ($250,000)

Spike Lee, She’s Gotta Have It ($175,000)

Christopher Nolan, Following (6,000 pounds)

Darren Aronofsky, Pi ($20,000)

Todd Haynes, Poison ($250,000)

Robert Rodriguez, El Mariachi ($7,000)

Tobe Hooper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (< $300,000)

David Lynch, Eraserhead ($10,000)

Wes Craven, The Last House On The Left ($90,000)

Kevin Smith, Clerks ($25,000)

Neil Labute, In The Company of Men ($25,000)

Richard Linklater, Slacker ($23,000)

Jim Jarmusch, Permanent Vacation ($12,000)

George Romero, Night of The Living Dead ($114,000)

John Cassavetes, Shadows ($25,000)

Satayajit Ray, Pather Panchali (Under $40,000)

Gus Van Sant, Mala Noche ($25,000)

One objection that’s always raised in these discussions is that these figures don’t reflect how much it cost to finish (some) of these films. But the reality is, from the filmmaker’s side at least, it was enough to find someone who would pay to release the films.

Another interesting point here is that many, many of these films were shot ON FILM for less than many graduate thesis films cost.

Just as a clincher, here are Peter Broderick’s 9 principles of ultra-low budget filmmaking:

THE REVISED RULES OF ULTRA-LOW BUDGET

Although significantly enhanced by digital tools, much of the original ultra-low budget framework remains unchanged. In my 1993 article “Learning from Low Budgets,” I listed nine rules-of-thumb for microbudget production. Let’s examine how these rules have evolved from the early days of the model when every low budget feature was being shot on film until today when the vast majority of ultra-low budget features are made digitally.

Hell or High Water Commitment - A committed core group, determined to make a movie come hell or high water, is still essential.

No Nonsense Resource Assessment – Filmmakers start by assessing the resources they have and those they are certain they can find. It is essential to accurately determine the money, equipment, locations, crew, and post facilities that will definitely be available to the production.

For any digital production (especially one designed to be transferred to film), it is important to carefully research a series of technical issues (e.g. the best format, NTSC vs. PAL, audio recording to camera or DAT) to determine how the necessary image and sound quality can be achieved.

Realistic Scripting - The script is often written after the resource assessment. But whenever it is written or modified, it must be possible to make the scripted movie with the resources available. Shooting digitally rather than on film usually reduces the budget thus reducing the risk of running out of money during production.

Imaginative Financing - Every conceivable method is used to minimize and postpone expenditures. Digital makes both easier. It reduces the cost of production by eliminating the cost of film stock and processing, and camera rental. Digital also postpones, and in some cases eliminates, the cost of making film prints if filmmakers use digital projection at festivals. They often decide not to make a film print if theatrical distribution isn’t an option.

Recruiting Cast and Crew - It is essential to find capable cast and crew who will work for little or no compensation while enduring the rigors of ultra-low budget production. Shooting digitally may make it easier to attract actors who want the opportunity to give their best performances. For digital productions it is important to find a talented DP, who is either experienced in digital cinematography or committed to learning the fundamentals.

Pragmatic Planning - “Budgeting, scheduling, and other planning must me done carefully to maximize the use of limited resources and minimize problems.” This is especially true for digital production. As part of the extra technical research required, tests should be done prior to production. After a lab is chosen, footage should be shot using the designated camera under anticipated lighting conditions. Then the lab should transfer this footage to 35mm, and project it for the director and the DP. This makes it possible to optimize the camera settings in advance, and enables the director and DP to know exactly how their digital images will ultimately look on film. When shooting digitally it is also necessary to have a realistic plan about the audio postproduction path (especially if using PAL).

Guerrilla Production – Ultra-low budget production on film is usually short and intense since only a small shooting ratio (eg. 5:1) is affordable. When shooting digitally, the camera (or cameras) can be on most of the time leading to 20:1 and 30:1 shooting ratios. Using small digital cameras and a small crew enables inconspicuous production in real world locations, making it possible to capture reality rather than faking it. Owning a digital camera allows greater scheduling flexibility. When I asked Gary Winick when he was going to finish shooting his first digital feature, Sam the Man, he replied, “Tonight if it rains.” Digital production can also be much longer, with more shooting days spread over an extended schedule.

Extended Postproduction – Postproduction on film can require significant amounts of cash for equipment rental, lab work, negative cutting, etc. This money is often raised in bits and pieces dragging out postproduction. Digital post is less resource intensive since more steps can be done on a desktop computer. The length of digital post is usually determined by creative rather than financial needs. Digital allows relatively quick and inexpensive recuts and can raise the question – when is the movie ever done?

Boundless Opportunism – Ultra-low budget filmmakers have to be able to create and take advantage of opportunities. Digital production allows more opportunities for creative choices throughout the process.

He goes on to discuss the formidable distribution hurdles facing microbudgets, which in my good spirits I’ll refrain from commenting on. You can read his whole article here.

The Beginnings of Microbudget

In 1998 a hopeful article in Moviemaker Magazine summed up the rising phenomenon of microbudget features:

Many of the most talented American independent filmmakers began by making ultra-low budget features. During the 1970s and ’80s, very low budget films launched the careers of David Lynch (Eraserhead), Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), John Sayles (Return of the Secaucus 7), Wayne Wang (Chan Is Missing), Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise), Spike Lee (She’s Gotta Have It), and Gus Van Sant (Male Noche). Because they were made on such tiny budgets, these films were regarded as exceptions, not models that other filmmakers could follow. In the mid-’80s the availability of money from home video companies enabled a number of filmmakers to raise $3 million for first features. But this money soon dried up, and by the early ’90s it was harder and harder to find money for first features. Made for $27,000, Rick Linklater’s Slacker was a precursor to the ultra-low budget wave. (The Film School alums among them: UCLA (Burnett), AFI (Lynch), NYU (Jarmusch, Lee) and RISDI (Van Sant)).

Next Wave Films, the fund described in the article, was created by the IFC to help filmmakers finish low-budget films. It now appears to be defunct. Its website, last updated in 2002, has that tumbleweed feel of late-nineties ghost-sites.

In 2010, twelve years later, the microbudget feature world has swelled enough for Sundance to add a new micro-budget section to its festival, entitled NEXT;

The new section, also referred to by the symbol <=> by the Festival, highlights new films that have been made on very low budgets. Rather than vehicles to make money, these films are proudly modest. But make no mistake, this group of filmmakers is not limited by a low budget – they made their films this way by choice.

The studios have also taken note after the success of Paranormal Activity, with Paramount announcing a new micro-budget feature division:

Clearly dazzled by the fact that it could gross more than $100 million on a movie that barely cost $15,000 to make, Paramount Pictures is set to launch a new production wing devoted to films budgeted at less than $100,000.

These are but two of the major waves being made by micro-budgets, spurred by ever-falling production costs. These developments are slow to take hold at film schools, including UCLA, where students often spend small fortunes to make esoteric short films, the pinnacle of which is the thesis film.

The Thesis Film in the Era of the Microbudget

The thesis film is often an extremely expensive endeavor, ranging anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000. UCLA’s biggest thesis grant is the Bridges Larson Production production grant, which offers $25,000 to one lucky candidate with an extensive (i.e. undergraduate) theater background. I once read that at AFI there is a limit of $100,000 for a thesis film budget; I have already heard of two films here at UCLA that, albeit unintentionally, hit the six-figure mark.

This begs the question of how micro-budgets, now an accepted fact in the film industry, are figured into a film-school education;  at UCLA, generally speaking, they aren’t. NYU has a well known Columbus/Vague production grant of $100,000 that only NYU graduates can compete for. With production costs what they are now, what was intended as seed money for a feature can now actually become the feature itself. UCLA has nothing comparable to the Columbus/Vague grant, although realistically UCLA does cost about $100,000 less than NYU, depending on how much you spend on your films, and provided you are not an international student.

In light of these developments the thesis film has become a smaller piece of the film-directing career puzzle. Many years ago students attended film schools because the high cost of equipment made them the only viable means of making films. In those days the thesis film, shot on 16 or 35mm, was the largest project most filmmakers could conceivably produce as a means of enticing studios, investors and producers into considering feature projects.

The 2007 edition of Film School Confidential, the only remotely up to date guide on film school education, has a section about life after film school. In it they discuss the reality of the low-budget feature as a stepping stone to the paid feature. They recommend shopping around your thesis to festivals to get to know programmers for your first DV (now HDV or RED) feature;

“Wait, what?” we hear you ask. “Feature? What feature?” This would be your self-financed feature shot on DV. We’re sorry to have to break this to you, but it’s the way the film world has reshaped itself in the digital-video era. You’re going to have to make a feature on your own before anyone else will give you money to make one.

Later in the book they discuss the process of putting your first independent feature together.

So with this new step, where does the thesis film leave you in terms of a career? Film School Confidential would argue, as have a number of other filmmakers, that it gets you some prestige, maybe some meetings, and contacts with programmers for when you return with your microbudget feature. The thesis film will always be an important part of film school, particularly as a culmination of everything learned while in school. For the vast majority of student filmmakers, it will not produce any (monetarily) meaningful directing work, and simply guide them to the next step of making the micro to low-budget feature shot on digital.

For certain people with specific expensive genre and aesthetic sensibilities, the expensive thesis film will still make sense, but for the majority of future independents, the microbudget, festival-ready film will be the next step in their filmmaking career. Therefore ideally the thesis film, and any student film for that matter, should be kept as cheap as possible. Instead of the 18 to 30 minute unprogrammable opuses we are currently seeing, the future of the thesis film is the reasonably cheap 10 minute and under short film.

One of my favorite examples of this is The Most Beautiful Man in the World by Alicia Duffy. The film was her thesis at The National Film and Television School. It premiered at Cannes and is a powerful, visual and brief short. She recently returned to Cannes with her first feature, All Good Children, which I’m very excited to see.

The Film School of the Future

The film school of the future will prepare filmmakers to write, direct and produce a no-budget feature. Ideally every student in that school would leave school with a fully developed, budgeted, scheduled and cast microbudget film in addition to a number of polished feature scripts and strong short. A major advantage of film school is the network of passionate and talented students you meet. These people make the ideal candidates to rotate through each others’ micro-budget films when they leave school.

Mr. Moneybags, Student Film Financier

In America, with little government subsidy of the arts and declining support of education in general, a student’s first feature film is not going to come from subsidies like in Europe. It will also not come from a person a friend here likes to call “Mr. Moneybags;” a mythological, monopoly-man figure who appears at film festivals to offer student filmmakers a million dollars to make their first features.

As young filmmakers we will first have to prove our talents through inexpensive means of getting our stories on the screen. Film school is a place to start learning the discipline of filmmaking, and that includes budgeting. Even with a half-billion dollar budget money remains an issue. We might as well learn to control them while they’re in the thousands.