How to Decide Which Movie You Should Make on a Tiny Budget

Making any movie is hard. It’s literally a whole production, filled with countless moving parts and people trying to make a film with little money and even less time. But the most difficult question any filmmaker faces—and 90% of directing is answering questions—will be deciding what movie to make.

Faced with the blank page, your imagination can seem like the only limit. Sadly, a budget is vastly more limiting, and if you’re planning to make an independent film, it’s best to try and keep yourself focused on what you can actually pull off. That’s why I’ve always been partial to building ideas out of available resources. From short films to my first featureGlue Trap, I love to start from a place of what do I have access to that will make a movie look more expensive. It’s a lesson stolen straight from Robert Rodriguez, whose book Rebel Without a Crew should be required reading for any budding filmmaker.

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Locations are an obvious place to start. Nobody wants to see another indie shot in someone’s under-decorated apartment. Maybe your buddy works at a restaurant that doesn’t mind filming after hours—or even just taking over a small corner as long as you don’t bother the customers. Public spaces belong to the public, and hey, that’s you, right? As long as you keep the cast and crew small and minimize the production’s impact, you can get away with a lot. (Ask for forgiveness, not permission, especially if you can pass for a film student). And if you shoot incognito with a smartphone to really avoid the need for permits, like Sean Baker did with Tangerine, you could even shoot your movie in a location you don’t have access to. Like, say a Los Angeles art gallery that had no idea you shot a short film there one afternoon in the 2010s, to use a completely hypothetical example.

My parents have a cabin in the woods a couple hours from where I grew up, so I had a location. And because the phrase “cabin in the woods” automatically connotes bad vibes, a horror movie felt like the natural path. In the spirit of trying not to spend money, I wrote a script that relied more on tension and discomfort than gory special effects.

Of course, I was lucky to have that location. But even before I settled on this project, I knew I wanted to make my first film back home in Virginia. (Originally I had written a sprawling urban mystery I planned to shoot all over Richmond; alas the novel coronavirus quickly scuttled that run-and-gun production that relied heavily on local businesses and public spaces.) The Old Dominion rarely gets to play itself in anything more contemporary than the Civil War, and I’ve found friends, neighbors, and strangers back home far more open to lending their spaces and places than the jaded civilians in more entertainment saturated cities.

Whenever possible, look beyond Los Angeles and New York. Many aspiring filmmakers end up in one city or the other for work—I’m certainly no different, having called both cities home. But these entertainment meccas are not only expensive to shoot in, their landscapes and skylines have also been seen a zillion times onscreen. Simply by filming outside those two cities in our vast United States – or, sacré bleu, perhaps even another country depending on your background – your film will look more unique. And as such, more expensive. Plus, local film or tourism offices might be eager to help a hometown hero, just as the Virginia Film Office supported Glue Trap.

Locations might be the obvious way to make your film look substantial, but they’re far from the only natural resource. Consider artist friends you want to collaborate with and write toward their particular talents. Just as the cabin setting helped decide what type of movie I would make, actors I knew gave the film a similar preordained shape. The original lead actress is wildly charming, so I could write a tough cookie of a character that she would make more palatable for audiences. And our original lead actor is a fantastically talented musician, so it was a natural choice for his character to play guitar.

Of course, independent film often moves in fits and starts, and production delays led to both roles being recast. Nevertheless, having particular performers in mind helped with writing the script, and our talented leads Brittany Bradford and Isaac W. Jay made those characters their own. Thankfully, the film’s antagonist remained played by her original inspiration Gloria Bangiola, whose background as a trained opera singer made it an obvious choice for her character to sing on screen.

There are artists other than actors you can write for. One of my longest collaborations has been with my friend and composer Erik Larsen. Some of our best and dumbest short films only succeeded because I knew he could whip up whatever pop facsimile the material required. Having his talents on hand always opened up possibilities—and saved my ass when we decided after our first cut that actually, maybe Glue Trap did need a score.

For years after high school, my friends and I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project. Every team had one weekend to make a film after being assigned the same prop, character, and line of dialogue (thankfully we all got different genres). I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the perfect education for making films with what I had. And because we had to work so fast, I often didn’t realize what our films were “about” until after we made them.

Writing for specific resources forces you tap into your artistic subconscious more than you might with a script that starts purely from a place of self-expression.Ari Aster has discussed how his second film originated after being approached by Swedish financiers to direct a folk slasher film. At first he couldn’t find his way into the story. Then he made Midsommar.

With the location, genre, and cast of Glue Trap preordained, writing the script surprised me as I found myself processing past relationships amid a stew of 2020 anxieties. Much like my characters, I too felt trapped as the world seemed to end around me... and here I just thought I was writing a cabin in the woods movie. Even without Scandinavian money, I made a film I would have never set out to write, and I’m so glad I did.

Glue Trap is available for rental and purchase on digital and VOD.