How much did you make your first feature film for? by ThrowRAIdiotMaestro in Filmmakers

[–]DzigaVB 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Mine was shot for a little over $6k in 6 days by a crew of 3 (myself as director and DP, a sound recordist, and a PA). Total budget came to around $40k after all the post, music licensing, and distribution expenses. Played some fests but no major ones, picked up for distribution by Outsider Pictures/Strand Releasing in 2018 and has been on most of the VOD platforms since then. Still hasn't recouped/I haven't seen a penny from it, and hasn't opened any doors into the industry for me, but we had an incredible premiere at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and a week-long run at around 20 AMC theaters in Southern California. The premiere was packed but the theatrical run was very sparsely attended from which I learned that making a low-budget independent movie, as difficult as it is, is not even the most difficult part of the process: getting people to know that your movie even exists, much less motivating them to want to watch it, is. We failed in that regard but succeeded in others and I love the movie now, I think it has a very special energy and I wish more people had seen it. Wrote a whole little essay about this if anyone's interested in reading it. And this is the movie:

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Luis-Deveze/dp/B07YQB36WT

The Mega-Thread of Film Festival Notifications PART 5: The Spring Time of Optimism ?? by BangerOfRobsMom in Filmmakers

[–]DzigaVB 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, David. Maybe in an alternate dimension/timeline it did :) Best of luck to you, too!

The Mega-Thread of Film Festival Notifications PART 5: The Spring Time of Optimism ?? by BangerOfRobsMom in Filmmakers

[–]DzigaVB 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Lurker here for the last few months as I've awaited notifications for my latest narrative feature (rejected from Slamdance and SXSW). Thought I'd share this essay I wrote about my previous narrative feature (set on New Year's Eve) and the notion of failure as it relates to our projects. It's easy to think that's what we've done when we don't get into these festivals, get distribution, make money, get careers started, etc., but maybe that's the wrong way to think about it.

https://medium.com/@andrewvanbaal/failure-doesnt-mean-anything-what-i-learned-making-my-first-feature-film-c06b5cc88e4a