Low Budget Features Overview


 
 

ESCALATOR TEAMS ANNOUNCED
The New Zealand Film Commission is pleased to announce and congratulate the twelve film maker teams selected to attend the Escalator Low Budget Feature Film boot camp in June:
 
Juliet Bergh, Jessica Charlton, Philip Thomas
(Existence, Submission, The Trolley Boy)
 
Jonathan Brough, Karl Zohrab, David Brechin-Smith
(Pornography, Albaniya, Point Of View)
 
Gary Davies, Mike Hohaia, Rohan Satyanand
(The Void, Drop, Dark Side)
 
Zoe Hobson, Guy Pigden, Harley Neville
(I Survived A Zombie Holocaust, Wellington City Carbon Police, The Project)
 
Gerard Johnstone, Luke Sharpe
(House Bound, Swift Hands Bukachan, Home Surveilance)
 
Carthew Neal, Max Currie
(Actress Wanted, Ctrl Alt Delete, Family of Men)
 
Tom Reilly, Wayne Gordon
(Downgrading, UnDead End, Suspended Animations)
 
Tui Ruwhiu, Bradford Haami, Regan Hall
(Bloodlines, Kiri-Haehae: Skin Deep, Wero: Ultimate Challenge)
 
Bonnie Slater, David Coyle, Paul Wedel
(Mistletoe, Stand Up, Party Film)
 
Ant Timpson, Victor Rodger, Leanne Saunders
(Night Of The Living Palagis, Lift It Up, Swimming With Dolphins)
 
Sally Tran, Omar Crawford
(Vending Machine, Cache to Tape, Cure My Imagination)
 
Steve Whelan-Turnbull, Steve Tamarapa, Jamie Selkirk
(Dan, The Teddies, Wasted)
 
Following on from boot camp, in September four of these teams will be offered production finance of up to NZ$250,000 for one of their ideas.
 
Announcing the selection, NZ Film Commission CEO Graeme Mason said “251 applications were received for Escalator. We have received a wealth of strong filmmaking ideas explicitly conceived with low budget production in mind. I am looking forward to seeing how the teams develop their ideas through boot camp, and like everyone else, am excited to see which four films get green lit.”
 
Escalator was launched in February this year. New applications for Escalator will next be sought in March 2011.  Some general observations and thoughts, which may assist film makers with their future submissions, are attached as a download at the bottom of this page.


WHAT IS ESCALATOR?

The NZFC’s ESCALATOR initiative offers 4 teams of talented, visionary filmmakers a fast track to making a first feature film.

Orson Welles, a pretty visionary filmmaker, said:
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations

In this case the limitation is that the film must be made on a budget of up to $250,000. ESCALATOR is about creative
filmmaking ideas explicitly conceived with low budget production in mind. It is most definitely not about squeezing a bigger budget idea into a low budget framework.

We are looking for edgy, challenging material, expressed with a unique voice and style, by teams that genuinely relish
the prospect of working lean and fast.  ESCALATOR is primarily about having a great idea, a clear plan for how to make
it into a great film on the money and then getting on with it. NZFC staff will be happy to offer advice and support but we are
hoping for a fast turnaround from green-light (in September 2010) to delivery, not an extended period of development. Our
intention is that each of the 4 films will act as a stepping-stone to bigger features for writers, directors, producers and crew.


Who is it for?

ESCALATOR is all about teams. It is open to writers, directors, producers and key crew. Participants must apply in
teams of 2 or more.

This is a great chance for talented individuals to start talking to each other, inspire each other, and establish contacts and networks for their project and/or exciting collaborations in the future.

Directors who have already received feature production finance from the NZFC are not eligible to apply. ESCALATOR is specifically designed to support directors who are ready to step up to their first feature film. The NZFC is open to low
budget applications at any time from more experienced directors through the standard funding process.

Other team members may have feature experience however the idea is to develop talent across all disciplines so we
encourage applications from emerging filmmakers.


The Mindset: what are we looking for?

Low budget filmmaking is very much about how you think.
We will be looking for one page ideas that embrace limitations and turn them into assets.
 
Low Budget filmmaking requires a reboot in terms of thinking about story. Most of the first features scripts that we read
have pretty big ambitions. Few are naturally suited to the low budget approach. Low budget filmmaking requires a mindset
that can create innovative production modes.

Your low budget film can’t have ALL of the following:
  • lots of locations
  • lots of characters
  • lots of dialogue
  • lots of scenes
  • lots of shots
  • lots of night shooting
  • special effects
  • a large crew
  • an extended shooting schedule

But it can certainly have one or two of the above. This might mean shooting with a crew of 5 over 30 weekends. It might
mean making a ‘one shot’ film with a cast and crew of 400 for one day. Turn your limitations into assets!

We are looking for low budget films that are bold, personal and distinctive because we want them to be noticed on a tough
and crowded playing field. A huge number of low budget films are made every year, all over the world, and most of them
receive no form of distribution whatsoever. So maybe also consider these questions:
  • Why am I making this film?
  • Who is my audience?
  • How will I reach them?
  • Why will they care?
  • Who has done this before, successfully, and how/why did they succeed?

There is a Chinese proverb that says:

When the wise man points to the stars, the fool sees only the end of his finger.

We don’t want to be that fool, we want to see the stars you are aiming for but we will also need to believe that you know
how to reach them!


How will it work?

There are two stages to the ESCALATOR selection process.

In the first stage teams will be asked to submit 3 ideas, each as a one page synopsis, along with a one page CV for each member of the team. From these applications 12 teams will be selected to move through to the next stage.

The second stage is a bootcamp that we are presently aiming to run in June 2010. Up to 3 members from each team will
spend 3 days immersed in an intense workshop on every aspect of the low-budget mindset. Local and international indus-
try professionals will discuss key topics and will work with teams to help them refine and focus their ideas.  All bootcamp attendees will have their travel and accommodation paid for by NZFC.

After the bootcamp teams will have three months to work on ONE of their ideas and then submit a second stage appli-
cation. This will include a script, budget, schedule and statement on their low-budget methodology/ethos.

These applications will go to an independent panel made up of 4 filmmakers and 1 NZFC representative. This panel will
select the 4 teams that will each receive up to $250,000 to make their film.

The 4 selected teams will be invited to choose and attach senior industry mentors to their project for advice throughout
the process. The NZFC will provide teams with a modest amount of extra funding to put to this end.

Principal photography on the films should commence within 6 months of the date of the offer. The dates for final delivery
of the films will be decided on a case by case basis.

NZ Film will not be able to distribute the finished films but teams will be offered advice and support to develop their own
festival and distribution plan.  The NZFC will provide a modest amount of ring-fenced funding on film delivery to assist with marketing materials.


The Nuts and Bolts

Eligibility criteria:
  • Applications must come from teams of 2 or more
  • Applicants must be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents
  • Documentary projects are not eligible
  • Directors who have received NZFC feature production financing are not eligible to apply
  • Individual projects that have received NZFC development investment are not eligible


Applications should be sent electronically in one document that includes:
  • A completed application form, available for download here
  • A one page synopsis for each of your 3 low budget film ideas
  • A half page statement on low budget methodology/ethos for each idea
  • A one page CV for each applying team member
 
Tips for writing a good one-pager:

Condensing a feature length story into a one page synopsis is tough work even for the most experienced of writers. We
are open to all approaches, but these pointers might help:
  • Think about a good movie you’ve seen recently and try to write the spine of the story in three or four paragraphs 
  • One definition of a dramatic story is that ‘someone wants something badly but is having a hard time getting it’
  • Some dramatic stories aren’t about what someone consciously wants so much as about what they need, though they probably don’t know it to begin with. If yours is one of these then think about how the audience will know what the character needs
  • Write a logline that encapsulates the story. A good logline for a film with a strong dramatic premise will usually answer the questions: Who is the central character? What is their problem? What, or who is making the problem difficult to solve? And how do they ultimately deal with it?
  • Write the 1-pager in three or four paragraphs that take us on a character journey through:
    • The beginning, status quo, the ‘undisturbed life’
    • The problem, inciting event, the thing that disrupts the ‘undisturbed life’
    • Decision – what does (do) the main character(s) do now?
    • Struggle – a series of escalating complications that often ends in that ‘all is lost’ or ‘long night of the soul’ moment
    • Climax – where the question raised by the problem is finally answered, not necessarily in a positive way
    • Resolution – the fallout from the climax, which should suggest how the audience will feel when they leave the cinema
  • Try not to end the synopsis with a teasing question mark, or dot, dot, dot… We need the whole story here. We want to know how it ends!

We appreciate that you may be writing a synopsis for a film idea that you have not yet developed into a script. We know that everything may ultimately change but we still want you to present your idea as a story with a beginning, middle and end so that we can judge whether it is built around a genuinely dramatic premise that is likely to keep an audience enaged for 90 minutes.

Escalator was launched in February 2010.  To coincide with the launch NZFC hosted a workshop by low budget director Eran Creavy on the making of his film Shifty.

Shifty is a sharply scripted, witty, urban thriller, from writer/director Eran Creevy. Set on the outskirts of London it follows themes of friendship and loyalty over the course of 24 hours in the life of a young drug dealer, the charismatic "Shifty".  The film was made under the Film London Microwave initiative for feature films with a production budget of £100,000 (NZ$225,000). It was released on 50 prints in the UK in April 2009 and then sold over 50,000 units on DVD .

For further information on the film plese see the press kit.

Deadline
2011 applications for Escalator will be sought in March.