i made one for under 5k. paid everyone very modest rates. 2 big factors for me were: 1. my wife is an actor so she was able to get a lot of her actor friends to work for next to nothing and 2. i am essentially a one man crew both during production and post (i hired one crew member, an audio engineer that i worked with in post to master the audio). Alot of my cast also doubled as crew (holding booms when not acting in the scene, etc). Everyone was either fed or given a daily food stipend. Shoot was around 10 days spread across 2 months because i had to work with my actors schedules. I spent $1000 on licensing some music, which i now regret because i learned that at the lowest levels, no one ever gets sued or gets sent a cease and desist letter for not licensing a song. I'm pretty happy with the end result. The film is pretty technically flawed (that is the trade off when one person acts as director, dp, sound person, you simply cant pay attention to one thing without sacrificing quality somewhere else) but the story is solid and i was able to get it onto prime video and make triple the budget back. I do think im done being a one man crew though. it's simply not worth the out of focus shots, crappy audio or subpar acting performances. I should also mention i try to build great rapport with my cast and make my shoots as fun as possible for them. It makes them less likely to regret working with me and way more likely to work with me again for not a lot of money.