Occasionally I'll be a producer for hire on a larger budget movie, but with Blumhouse Pictures, we mainly focus on micro-budget, under-$5-million-dollar movies. That's what we're in business to do, and that's what we're in business to make.
When you make a movie for a really low budget, it makes you really strict. You have to plan things down to the tiniest detail.
I love making cheap films. I really do. What I've found is that I work better when it's both a fairly low budget and a short schedule. It focuses the mind, and it's a better atmosphere.
At the end of the day, the less money you have, the easier it is to make a movie.
And that's another reason to make this movie: We can put plays on film now, at a relatively small cost, and they will reach an audience they would never have reached otherwise.
Economically, it's more expensive to make movies. I hope digital movies change that.
I know what I'm talking about and I've never been over budget, in 70 films.
Most of my music videos were made for under $200.
I love the new technology in terms of giving access to doing more independent work. When I first started out, any film had to rent from Panavision and the expenses were humongous. Now, given the advances in technology, you can put out extraordinary quality filmmaking at nothing like the price it used to be.
That's why my attitude, even on my larger-scale movies, is to make them cheap. The less these things cost, the better for everybody.
When I tell my American counterparts that my budget was $200,000 per episode, they burst out laughing. To us that's a big production, to them it's a guerrilla shoot.
My mother gave me this book called Feature Films at Used Car Prices by a guy named Rick Schmidt. I gotta credit the guy, cuz he gave me the most practical advice. It empowers you.
I've made movies that cost less than one car chase. But that's part of the pleasure of doing it, pushing yourself in new directions.
Some people make movies and think, "Well, I'll just keep asking for more money if this isn't enough." And then there are other people, like Clint Eastwood, who always come in under budget.
A big part of the equation for 'Winter's Bone' was making it for so little that we owe nobody. We had a guaranteed loan and were able to pay it back.
