| In our previous Micro Budget Case Study, we saw how filmmaker Chad Haufschild mastered the art of the $10K budget range with his film WAKE THE WITCH. This week, we’re taking things one step further as we look at Steve Hudgins’ production company Big Biting Pig Productions who have produced a slate of 6 films at $10K each, and to date, have profited on every single one.Now that sounds like a real business model to me! Aside from the fact that Steve is able to earn a sustainable living this way, he gets to do what he loves…making movies!
So on that note, I’ll turn you over to Steve and his ‘formula’ for $10K success….. ### What are the names of your films? SPIRIT STALKERS (Summer 2012) THE CREEPY DOLL (2011) HELL IS FULL (2010) WIDOW (2009) GOATSUCKER (2009) MANIAC ON THE LOOSE (2008)
What are the websites for your fims? Links to all of our films website pages are located here: http://www.bigbitingpigproductions.com/ Our Main Facebook Page is: http://www.facebook.com/bigbitingpigproductions Our Facebook Page for our upcoming movie SPIRIT STALKERS is located here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spirit-Stalkers/144191285659159
What are the budgets of your films? We’ve been able to make all of our movies for under 10,000 each!
How do you finance your films? Out of pocket.
Have you had any ‘names’ in your films? None as of yet, but we’ll be looking to do so with future projects.
Have you recouped or profited yet on your micro budgets? Yes. We have profited off of all of our movies.
How do you market and generate sales for your micro budgets? First of all, we always have a way for people to easily buy our DVDs online. That way when someone asks, “How can I see your movie?” We can tell them exactly where to go. That may seem like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised how many movies are out there that people want to see, but you can’t buy them either because they’re only available to see at Film Festivals or they’re tied up with a distributor who isn’t making it easy to purchase the movies. So, once our movies are available on DVD we always have them for sale on our website. No matter what, people can always buy them there. Then we make them available on other sites as well, such as Amazon & occasionally Ebay. Regionally, we have our movies available in several different stores & locations. Normally we sell the DVDs to these locations for wholesale prices and they simply resell them for profit. Once we have means by which people can purchase our DVDs, it’s a matter of getting people aware that these movies are out there, which is where Facebook comes in very handy. It’s a great way to generate interest IF you’re willing to put the time into doing so. We make a point to try to keep people interested in the entire filmmaking process from pre-production all the way until the World Premiere. We always make a point to have a World Premiere in the town that the majority of the movie was filmed and we sell all of our movies at the premiere. Most people, if they enjoy the new movie and haven’t seen some of our previous ones, will want to buy some of those movies afterward. We also make T-Shirts & Posters etc available at the Premiere as well. And being that we specialize in the horror/thriller genre, we do horror conventions occasionally and sell our DVDs directly from our booth. If it’s a large convention this can be not only profitable, but a great way to gain fans, especially if you’re a company who releases movies regularly as we do. Fans of our previous movies are usually anxious to see our next one. Film Festivals that will allow you to set up some kind of booth or at least do a Q&A of some sort is a good way to generate sales as well. Again, a lot of this is dependent on the size of the festival and the turnout. That’s the way we’ve been doing it with success so far. It’s a lot of time & a lot of work, but if you’re doing solid, original work, there’s an audience out there that appreciates it.
What are some of the obstacles (if any) that you encountered and how did you overcome them (or not!)? Nothing huge at this point. I would say great organization is going to make your life much easier and we continue to get better with this and most every other aspect, with each movie.
What were some of your biggest mistakes or wastes of time/money ? We haven’t made any huge mistakes to really make note of, but there are always areas that can be improved and I think it’s very important that filmmakers recognize that, learn from that and do better the next time around.
What resources or tools did you find most helpful during production, post, and/or distribution? I think it was William Friedkin who said you can learn everything there is to know about making a movie by watching Alfred Hitchcock films. There is so much you can learn from watching other movies. And with the amount of “How to” & “Making of” extras on many DVDs there’s virtually an endless resource of info out there for filmmakers of any level of experience to dive into. Distribution is a whole other story all together. Film Specific is a great resource to learn all the ins and outs of the distribution business and talking to other filmmakers about what they are doing to get their work out there as well is a great place to start. Chris Jones blog has a lot of great info as well. Facebook is also a great way to get word out there. People are going to be more inclined to visit a Facebook page than they are a website, although I think it’s important to have both, rather than just one or the either.
If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently? Not much, because we haven’t fallen into some of the traps and pitfalls that many other filmmakers have. We make movies within our means and continue growing in experience, production values & most importantly in fan base.
What are your next steps from here? To keep plugging away and never stop. To keep giving our current fans more of what they love us for, which is originality in a genre (Horror) that is in desperate need of it and to continue to find any avenues available to get our work known to more & more people and thus gaining more fans. We embrace being independent filmmakers, free to make movies the way we want to make them. ### Got comments or questions for us? Just post them below! ——————– Want more juice on Micro Budget Business Models? Join me for a Virtual Seminar Wednesday, Jan. 25 for Part 2 in my Getting Your Micro Budget Film Off The Ground series. CLICK HERE for more info. (You can listen to Part One from the series HERE). |
Micro Budget Case Study #3: Slate Of Under $10K’s
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1. Where do you find your talent? How do you pay them?
2. How much do you pay your shooter and editor?
3. What format do you shoot in?
Thanks
1. Where do you find your talent? How do you pay them?
2. How do you pay your shooter? and Editor?
Hi Kerry,
Those are great questions!
I’m an experienced actor. I was acting for many years before I ever even thought of becoming a filmmaker. I happened to do quite a bit of theater throughout my region and in doing so, got to know much of the talent pool that was located within a 2 hour radius of our primary shooting locations. So when it came to making our first movie, it was just a matter of spreading the word throughout the acting pool. I also post audition notices on forum bulletin boards at different websites within the state and region that we shoot. Most states have something like this, you just have to look around a bit for the best ones. As we’ve gained exposure as a production company and more people, especially in this area hear of us, the larger our audition turnouts have become.
Now here’s the thing that saves us a TON of money: We don’t pay our actors. What we offer is Film Experience. There are a lot of theater actors in this area who don’t get the opportunity to be in many films and many are happy to be in our movies for free, just for the experience. Now, acting in theater and acting on film is a big difference, so as a director, you really have to be able to direct your actors in order to pull this off. As our reputation has grown, we’ve gotten many film experienced actors who are interested in being in our movies just because they know they’ll be getting some great exposure from it. It really is a win-win situation. I strongly encourage any micro filmmakers to frequent any theaters within a 1 hour drive from your areas to scout the local talent. There are loads of talented actors out there that would love nothing more than to get film acting experience in a feature length film. Scout them, if you see someone you like, talk to them after the show. Give them your card. Contact them when you’re going to have auditions.
Director of Photography & Editing was a similar situation. The DP’s on our first 2 movies were happy to be involved and do it for experience. But I learned a great deal from them on those first 2 shoots and shot a fair amount of the 2nd movie myself on days the DP couldn’t be there. And I’ve been the DP for our movies ever since. And I’ve taught my creative partner and co-producer how to do this as well and with all the experience we’ve gained over doing several movies, we’ve gotten pretty good at it. Being your own DP is a great way to save a lot of money if you’re able to do it. While using experienced DP’s, be sure to learn everything you can from them.
And I think you’re going to start sensing a trend here. . . .my co-producer and I are also the editors! She had some experience with editing when I brought her on and we’ve both just learned a ton from experience as we’ve gone along. We’ve now grown into good, experienced editors. Most editing programs today are not difficult to learn and, as is the case with most anything, the more you do it, the better you get at it. And for micro budget filmmakers, the more you can do yourself, the less money you have to spend.
Would the movies be profitable if you put a price (hourly rate) on all the time you invest in the production and sales process?
So much time goes into so many different aspects of making these movies that I’m sure if the numbers were crunched in the way you mentioned, that they wouldn’t look very pretty! But that’s a short run view of things and we have a long run goal of gaining a large fan base and slowly but surely we’re making progress. It’s just a long process, but we feel like if we keep plugging away and keep delivering the types of movies that our current fans enjoy, we’ll get there. Our fan base grows greatly with each movie we release. We’re realistic. We don’t expect things to happen overnight, but we like the avenue that we’re on. So far things are moving in the right direction.
How did you find your audience? Did you already have a strategy for release or did you kind of wing it after the films were made?
I don’t see streaming options on your website. Have you examined monetizing through Youtube and Channels like Koldcast, Hulu?
And what have your conclusions been please?
Finding an audience is just another process and it gets easier with each subsequent movie that we release. But when we first first started out, step 1 is to get the cast and crew to spread the word as best as they can. That’s a great starting point. It’s like the old shampoo commercial where “they told two friends and they told 2 friends and so on and so on and so one.” So word of mouth in that fashion was and still is always the place to start. Facebook can be a powerful tool and we’ve gained many fans from creating pages, both for our production company and movies. We also have a mailing list option on our website, so if anyone hears about us and visits our website, they can join our mailing list. We then send out a “latest news” mailing once per month, just to keep everyone updated on all the latest. We’ve had success at gaining fans from having our movies reviewed at many different horror/thriller websites, which is just matter of finding them, contacting them and sending in a screener. Of course movies need to get a largely positive review from most reviewers to get people interested, but that’s out of your hands. You just have to make the best movie you can and hope for the best as far as that goes. Being that we specialize in original story ideas and have a reputation for twists and turns and bringing something fresh to the genre, our movies have been very well received within the genre, so that’s helped. We do some horror conventions/film festivals as well where we set up a booth and sell our movies. That’s where basic marketing techniques come in. We’re there to sell our movies, but also to make sure those that haven’t heard of us yet, leave there knowing who we are by passing out information in addition to the straight person to person DVD sales. Taking time to talk to people about what we do. Who we are. What they can expect from us. There’s really nothing like face to face time with fans or potential fans. But you have to kick it over to salesman mode in these situations, something many filmmakers don’t want to deal with, but that’s part of the game when it comes to micro film making. And it’s definitely a big plus that we make movies regularly. We are always either promoting an upcoming movie, a newly released movie, a former movie in one way or another, so our name is out there a lot. And the great thing is, once we get a new fan, they are usually interested in all of our previous movies that they haven’t seen yet and all of our future movies that have yet to be released.
And yes, we always have a strategy for release, but it’s constantly changing as we learn more and more. We’ve experimented with distributors in the past, but so far have always had more success via self distribution thus far, but I think it’s important that you constantly look for fresh ideas and keeping your options open when it comes to anything that may help get your movie out there. But our major and steady goal that never changes is to gain as many fans as we can. Not for the sole purpose of selling as many copies of our latest movie as we can, but to have somebody else who will be anxious to see all of our future movies as well. Overall, we just keep chipping away.
Hi Dean, thanks for the streaming question. Our movie Maniac on the Loose is available on most streaming outlets including iTunes. Hell is Full is available on youtube’s channel as well as the Android Market. These have all been set up via digital distribution. It’s been a nice extra outlet to give more people a chance to see our movies, but financially it has not been a money maker to date. I’m currently looking into self distribution options for streaming.
Steve: Sure, but it’s not really fair to use the term “profitable” if you’re talking about projects where you don’t get paid for the work you put in. It’s like acting a distributor but without comission. Of course it’s a good deal for a producer having a distributor that works for free. But is that a ssustainable business model. Of course not! At some point you need to charge someone for your work.
Larger budgets may not always break-even, but on the other hand there you might be able to add a production fee and get paid upfront during production. Even if you have a long term goal you need to put a price on the time you put in for long term invstments, before you can claim you’re “profitable”.
Thanks Tomas for your thoughts. When you talk in terms of movie profitability, you’re talking about money invested vs money made. We’ve made more money than we’ve invested, especially on our last two movies. Anyway you slice it, that is profitable. Profits are payment. And our profits are increasing with each movie. I’m not proposing that our model is right for everyone, I’m just sharing what is working for us thus far.
I disagree. Normal accounting paractice in the movie business is do define break-even as when the revenues recoups all cost for marketing, distribution and the negative cost (not to be confused with the costs for prodcution budget). So unless you have actually recouped all deferred payments and capital costs you have not reached break-even and/or made a profit. Ofcourse if you set a side all normal accounting practice and don’t account your working hours you can “make a profit” very quickly, but then it’s more of a non profit project from the very start so why bother talking about profits at all? I mean if you where a carpenter and didn’t account your working hours but only expenses you would also be very “profitable” – but still you would be able to make a living out of it.
Thank you Steve, I’m happy for this article and the time and response you’ve interjected.
Tomas should chill out. It’s obvious we’re not talking about the standard business model herein.
Indie filmmakers like me are trying to determine what information we can apply herein to our own situations.
If a true accounting of Steve’s time were to indicate that he is only making $10 an hour, in my opinion that still beats ‘slinging-hash’ in this rotten economy and this horribly oversaturated film market.
Right, when you take into account all of the costs that you mentioned, we are making a good profit. Now life for us as independent filmmakers is kind of a 24 hour a day job. We do a lot of the jobs that big budget films delegate to many people. That’s just the way it is and it’s never ending. Now if we want to, we can break that down into an hourly wage, but who is to say what the magic number for such a wage is, to officially determine the “profitability”? The ones who would know best in that regards would be the producers. The filmmakers themselves. Again, for us, this has been working so far and in an increasing way. Fortunately, we only expect it to get better as we continue. Again, it’s never been my intent to say “this is how it’s done” but rather just to share our experiences with other filmmakers and those who are interested. Take it as you will.
Thanks Dean. I’m glad you enjoyed the article and the continued dialogue. Yes, when it comes to independent film making, especially on a micro budget level, it’s a bit of a different beast and difficult to compare to more of a Hollywood or really any larger budget movie in that sense. So I completely understand that some people are going to have differing opinions in regards to “worth”. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I have no problem with that. Again, I’m just sharing experiences and if it’s helpful to just one person, I think that’s great.
Sorry, wasn’t my intent to cause any dispute here. Just that to me work is work (what you get paid to do) – and a hobby is a hobby. An artist that sells paintings just enough to cover his/hers expenses isn’t making a living as an artist. If you don’t account for your working hours, then to me you’re not doing business – it’s a hobby! Might be that your hobby is “profitable” enought to recoupe all expenses, but it’s not profitable enough as in – it would make a sustainable business model.
When it comes to profitability, whether something is a hobby or not is irrelevant. At what point is any artist “profitable?” Is it if he sells his/her painting for X amount of dollars or is it if he sells his/her painting for Y amount of dollars? It’s all subjective. What you may view as an acceptable profit may be different from what somebody else views as an acceptable profit. Ask anybody who has taken a loss on something. . . a profit is a wonderful thing.
Ok, so we define “profit” very different, but lets put it like this: Could you make a living out of this business model you’re using? Do you make enough profit to pay your rent, put food on the table and provide for your family in other ways?
I wish African filmmakers could learn from Steve. This is because in Africa many of our filmmakers struggle to raise funds for their productions and end up not making their movies. If possible Steve should hold some sort of workshop in South Africa to help some of the directors and producers from this side make more movies and earn a living from it.
I’d love to do something like that. The biggest problem with the scenario you described is filmmakers trying to do something that is beyond their means. If someone can’t get the necessary funding to to make the movie they had in mind, then go back and adjust the script so that it can work with the funding you currently have. I see this all the time. Filmmakers waiting and waiting for funding to make their movie and suddenly 3 years has passed and the movie still hasn’t been made. That’s a load of experience that filmmakers are missing out on. For example, if the script calls for a 10 car pile up and there’s no way you can afford that, adjust the script or tell the writer you need the script adjusted in a way that still includes the purpose and excitement such a scene may possess, but explain to that it needs to be done in a more affordable way. The bottom line being to find a way to make your movie.
Steve,
Thank you soo much for your inspiring article. I’m totally motivated to finally make my movies. I’ve written three screenplays (1 or 2 locations) No 10 car pile ups
. great tips on how to get the actors and DP. I do have one question I hope you can help me on. What kind of camera or cameras do you use? Do I rent them or buy used? How dos that part work? Also can you give some tips on getting locations to allow you to fil? Any paperwork needed? I live in NY state about 20 Mins from NYC. Thank you so much and best wishes. This is great stuff.
Hi Rob,
Thanks a lot for the kind words. I’m really glad to hear you found this helpful. We own a Panasonic HVX. Renting cameras is usually pretty expensive. If you’re able to, you’re definitely better off buying. There are a lot of good cameras out there that you can get for a decent price. Everyone has different preferences when if comes to cameras. You just have to do some research and go with what you can, that is affordable within your budget.
Locations wise, you just have to ask. A lot of places will be happy to let you use their place. We have many movies under our belt and a very good reputation, so that helps a lot for us, but you would be surprised what being polite, honest and simply asking can get you.
Whenever you use a location, you always need to get the owner/manager to sign a location agreement. You can google that and see many examples of the kind of agreement you will need.
I hope that helps you some for starters.
Thanks for the info in the article and all the follow up Q&A, it was really useful to me and I shared it on my Facebook group page http://www.facebook.com/groups/PhillyEntNetwork/ in case you are interested in joining our group. Film Specific is a sponsor and several of our members are members of FS. As a producer-director I can relate to what your saying and I have been searching for money for a feature film for about 2 years and as frustrating as it is I am reserved to the fact that I’ll likely make it this Spring with next to zero budget as you have done. One good thing is that its a horror film so there is an obvious audience domestically and internationally so I’m sure we will make a profit by your standards as well as mine. Keep up the good work.
I’ve notice that all of these movies sound like it is being recorded through an on-board mic (sometimes sounding distant and off axis). Why not just spend another $1,000 on a really good production sound mixer? Another $2-3000 on a good audio post house or sound editor? That way your movie will sound up to par with most of the movies getting distribution. Congratulations on all your successes!!!
Thanks a lot Stephen, I’ll definitely check out the group on Facebook. There’s so much filmmakers can learn from each other.
A side note on the horror genre. While there is a large horror genre fan base, be sure not to take them for granted. Low budget horror films are a dime a dozen and there are millions of them out there. Unfortunately, most of them are all the same. In my opinion a mistake a lot of filmmakers of low budget horror make, is to just copy your standard Hollywood horror film formula, which results in the same old thing you see everyday, but on a lower budget to boot. What horror fans want, is something fresh. Something original. Something different. That’s one of the reason’s we have gotten a following. Our movies are known for their originality and their twists. Being independent filmmakers means we don’t have some studio hanging over our shoulders telling our shoulders telling us what we can and can’t do. My advice is to embrace that and push the envelope. That’s what horror fans want.
I would never use an on board mic as they are just too low quality. Our sound equipment has improved as we’ve gone along and you can really tell the difference with our last 2 movies. The prices you’re quoting for post sound simply isn’t in the budget, but again, we’ve been able to come a long way and you can tell a huge difference in our last two movies, where the sound is far superior than our first few. Again, just an example as to how we continue to improve in every aspect as we go along. The more you do something, the better you get at it.
All in good time I’m sure! I have a lot of credits as a production sound mixer in horror films. I know the one way to really scare an audience and bring them into the picture is a fantastic mix.
I’d be interested in submitting a resume/ equipment list and my reel for production sound for any future projects you have. I have family in Kentucky and I’ve always wanted to work there.
Are there crew calls on your website?
Thank Michael. We usually do crew calls around the same time we begin casting calls for our movies. There’s 2 ways to best keep up to date on that and that would be by joining our mailing list at our website. We send out a monthly update, which includes any casting/crew calls when we get to that point in pre-production an the other way is to “LIKE” our facebook page. We update that regularly.
http://www.facebook.com/bigbitingpigproductions
I am new to the “Blog” thing but man am I glad I stumbled across this one. I recently completed my first web series with a budget of $5K. We have been using social media to promote “Damned” and thus far have recorded over 10,000 viewers between Facebook, Vimeo and the actual website. I would love to know how can we go about getting our project into the larger markets like NYC and L.A.? To view the site and check us out go to http://www.damnedthefilm.com and please feel free to give feedback on our little project. Again thank you for this blog site and I will certainly pass it on!
Kevin Troy
Hi Kevin, glad you found us!
When you say get your film into larger markets like LA and NYC….do you mean theatrically? Or how?
Hi Stacey,
Yes theatrically. We are fighting for more exposure in a larger market.
Have you checked out all the resources on http://www.FilmSpecific.com yet? We talk extensively on how to self release your films theatrically…
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