NationStates Jolt Archive

Hi, my name is James.
I'm a wannabe Steven Spielberg and love making low budget action films with friends. :mp5:
Does anyone have any good ideas for a cheap film? :sniper:
I have a knackered car to use and the actors will be payed nothing.
Post your ideas. :gundge:

Funny thing, I write screenplays as a hobby.
I have never written an action script before.

Hi, my name is James.
I'm a wannabe Steven Spielberg and love making low budget action films with friends. :mp5:
Does anyone have any good ideas for a cheap film? :sniper:
I have a knackered car to use and the actors will be payed nothing.
Post your ideas. :gundge:

Spoof remoake of the car chase from Ronin.

Hi, my name is James.
I'm a wannabe Steven Spielberg and love making low budget action films with friends. :mp5:
Does anyone have any good ideas for a cheap film? :sniper:
I have a knackered car to use and the actors will be payed nothing.
Post your ideas. :gundge:
porn!

Do a series of short films, like a soap (but with an actual point), preferably involving some cool supernatural stuff, a modern version of Call of Cthulhu maybe?

porn!
Two, no three, no wait FIVE foxy super-women who are, in the eyes of the unsuspecting public, mild-mannered porn stars.

Opening scene: Pizza deliveryman knocks on apartment door. Door is answered by scantily clad hottie who apparently has insufficient funds to pay for said pizza.....

petrol bomb the car

Do a John Holmes Retro porno. I am available for work as your lead stud/private dick. You can even use that car in some sort of car chase thing.

Make a movie about a wannabe dare devil. Make this main character die in the end from crotch related bleeding. It is brilliant!

Here's some don'ts:

DON'T try and shoot above your budget. Tell a story, don't try and immitate a blockbuster. You don't have the money and it will show.

DON'T write what you don't have. If I see another microfilm with 18 year olds playing 'seasoned burn out cops' or some such I am taking your cameras away until you learn. If you have an 18 year old cast, write an 18 year old story.

DON'T use the mic mounted on the camera. Just don't.

DON'T let your friends improvise. It's only funny to you, and only if you're there. Script, re-write, reherse, re-write some more.

DON'T forget about lighting. The video doesn't look like your eye. Do tests.

DON'T show it to other people if you decide to ignore the above. Making something for fun is cool-but once you subject other people to it you have to at least try. Otherwise it's like showing people you went to the bathroom all by your self when your 20.

Do an obviously low budget spoof on something like, Jurassic Park, using toy dinosaurs. They're always funny. And Btw, use lego men for all the stunt scenes, and really bad dubbing to give it that extra cheesy look.

But seriously, Blaire Witch style movies are cheap, and are actually quite good for viewing, just change the storyline

I've got a good idea. How about a film where the protagonist desperately seeks to make a friend but all attempts to reach out to others are stymied by magically appearing conveyer belts and walls, symbolizing the futility of truly understanding others.

hmm... a defunt car, and a group of people.

howbout a Mockumentary about life after the Apocolypse... a Mad Max meets Micheal Moore type spoof as the lone(?) enforcer seeks to rebuild his country. can take items from all the Post Apocolyptic films
Damnation Alley
Water World
Mad Max
Road Warrior
Thunderdome
Postman
and throw in some of your ideas

A Post Apocolypic COPS show show.

"Yeah, we're patrolling whats left of a great nation, but even tho you got people scratching out a living, you still need law and order.. you know... the fact that we keep looters and warlords from taking over means we're doing our job."

(Over Radio) we have a 23-98 spotted by the old state hospital... all units respond.

"23-98... that's a mutant attack... some poor hamster probably got too close to the Radiology department again... [sirens are turned on] damn... this is gonna be rough... I lost my sister to a mutant hamster..."

that kinda thing.

Just go to a nursing home and give an apple to an old man with no teeth. Film as he tries to eat it. Play sad violin music, have a voiceover describe the futility of modern life. Last scene have a wilted rose fall into a storm drain. Film it in B&W, write Fin at the end and you have a potential Oscar Winner.

How about this, it is the future in a world where there is no more oil and any cars that exist are battery or hydrogen driven. A guy and his girlfriend find, in an old abandoned garage an "antique" car with a full tank of gasoline - what do they do?

Do an artsy movie that doesn't really make sense and has no plot.

How about this, it is the future in a world where there is no more oil and any cars that exist are battery or hydrogen driven. A guy and his girlfriend find, in an old abandoned garage an "antique" car with a full tank of gasoline - what do they do?

Duh.... They have sex in it.

Do an artsy movie that doesn't really make sense and has no plot.

Exactly!

How about this, it is the future in a world where there is no more oil and any cars that exist are battery or hydrogen driven. A guy and his girlfriend find, in an old abandoned garage an "antique" car with a full tank of gasoline - what do they do?
Actually, you know-this is a really good idea. And you can film the whole thing in the garage, maybe find some spots of urban decay for establishing shots.

Really, I like this idea. TG me (or the guy who came up with the idea-probably him/her first) if you want help developing it. There are huge blank spots right now but you can do some interesting things here.

If the car has to be in the film, it should be about a road trip.

...at least half of the cast has extensive head bandages and carries a large bottle of pills.

no, maybe have one actor play all the roles...




AND USE A TRIPOD!!!

Actually, you know-this is a really good idea. And you can film the whole thing in the garage, maybe find some spots of urban decay for establishing shots.

Really, I like this idea. TG me (or the guy who came up with the idea-probably him/her first) if you want help developing it. There are huge blank spots right now but you can do some interesting things here.
Except (sorry to break the suspension of disbelief), Gasoline doesn't work like that. Gasoline degrades rather quickly (otherwise you wouldn't need to put preservative in/drain snowblowers) The car would never work - if only because the fuel system was varnished tight.

Sorry. Cool concept, bad tech. :(

Except (sorry to break the suspension of disbelief), Gasoline doesn't work like that. Gasoline degrades rather quickly (otherwise you wouldn't need to put preservative in/drain snowblowers) The car would never work - if only because the fuel system was varnished tight.

Sorry. Cool concept, bad tech. :(

Since when does a movie have to be absolutely faithful to physics - it's called suspension of disbelief.

A Post Apocolypic COPS show show.
Cops: Beyond Thunderdome But make it more reno 911.

Everyone loves mashups. The beauty is that which you are using as the base material has already done the hard work building in the cultural awareness.

So many thing one could do.

The kid from Where the Wild Thing Are grows up into a disillusioned slacker with a crappy car who's just trying to make his way in the world, by the way he still wears a scaled up version of the costume.

Survivor 1984, A Clockwork Survivor

more generally...

Vincent Gallo has made movies about his absolute hatered of Buffalo (it wasn't well made but it made me laugh), and about a long uneventful drive with blowjob which no one saw.

Evil Dead and shaky-cam.

Learn to make gallons of syrupy cheap, not great looking, fake blood. Doesn't look real, just use more, no one will care.

Since when does a movie have to be absolutely faithful to physics - it's called suspension of disbelief.
I know that. That's why I mentioned it. However, for suspention of disbelief to work you have to either (A) be so far out there that the suspention is possible even for the educated (Zap Guns and Intestellar/galactic flight) or (B)calculated to be beyond the comprehension of most of the viewing audience (infinite shot/silenced revolvers).

Most people are quite aware that old gasoline is bad gasoline. 100 year old bullets may work just fine, but 100 year old gasoline will be useless. That is a level of disbelief you can't get past.

If you want advice on how to be cheap, El Mariachi (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104815/) should be the first film you turn to.

(edit) It has a lot of advice on how to be thrifty.

Wannabe Spielberg? Do a mock version of "Duel", with the truck chasing the car for no reason. It could work...

How about an expressionist film, they don't have enough of those. Done right it could look really good and be quite cheap. Don't try for action films, the studios produce action films with horribly stupid or inane plots (Stealth, I'm looking at you) but good special effects. You can't compete with that you poor poor person.

I suggest you make an expressionist film about something the studios won't touch with a ten-foot pole because their "experts" don't think it will sell or be "extreme" enough. Something about human sexuality in a very thought provoking and realistic way...

I have it!! A gnome suicide! Gnomes are talking on the edge of a bridge, one wants to jump because he is a crack head, and on pot(ya see cause their made out of clay) Make them talk with speach bubble cardboard cut outs, and at the end push him off the bridge!

Make a porn flick and say it's abstract.

1) Watch your budget, if you don't respect it, it'll kick you in the nuts.
2) Cast appropriately.
3) Recognise your limitations. You can't make your movie look like the Matrix, don't even try.
4) Pre-Production is 90% of the film. Plan it like your life depends on it. Have back-up locations, go through endless readings with your cast, production meetings should be just that, productive. Storyboards help enormously.
5) A good script will save you like nothing else. Make sure it sounds good and the story is entertaining. Or, (if you're going art-house), make sure it grabs the audience by the guts and pulls them along.
6) Action sequences are extremely difficult to pull off convincingly on a low budget. If you plan it beforehand, however, and rehearse it endlessly, you can make some pretty awesome stuff.

BTW, don't even think about doing a documentary on "How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse", that's mine!

see the movie Bound, by the wachowski brothers, very good and not a big budget film.

Except (sorry to break the suspension of disbelief), Gasoline doesn't work like that. Gasoline degrades rather quickly (otherwise you wouldn't need to put preservative in/drain snowblowers) The car would never work - if only because the fuel system was varnished tight.

Sorry. Cool concept, bad tech. :(
Next you'll be telling me that we can't fly across the galaxy, swords can't be made of light, or if a spy is famous for being a spy he would make a really bad spy.

Really, that little element is removed with one little line of dialog and it can be as much bullshit as the author wants ("Lucky we discovered that soaking dead rats in gas preserves it.")

You'd be suprised where an audience will follow you. (Road Warrior, didn't seem to shackle that franchise.)

Perhaps there could be some futuristic perservative in the gasoline, or it could be kept in some sealed airtight container which stops it from going bad. Also, if those who discover it are teenagers or young adults then the gas need not be more then 20-30 years old. The kids would have grown up in a world without cars (except only in the memories of society).

hmm... a defunt car, and a group of people.

howbout a Mockumentary about life after the Apocolypse... a Mad Max meets Micheal Moore type spoof as the lone(?) enforcer seeks to rebuild his country. can take items from all the Post Apocolyptic films
Damnation Alley
Water World
Mad Max
Road Warrior
Thunderdome
Postman
and throw in some of your ideas

A Post Apocolypic COPS show show.

"Yeah, we're patrolling whats left of a great nation, but even tho you got people scratching out a living, you still need law and order.. you know... the fact that we keep looters and warlords from taking over means we're doing our job."

(Over Radio) we have a 23-98 spotted by the old state hospital... all units respond.

"23-98... that's a mutant attack... some poor hamster probably got too close to the Radiology department again... [sirens are turned on] damn... this is gonna be rough... I lost my sister to a mutant hamster..."

that kinda thing.

That sounds really good, thanks for the post!

Just do a "zombies attack [your town]" thing. They're always fun. :p :D

Just do a "zombies attack [your town]" thing. They're always fun. :p :D

Zombies are boring and ciliche. With machines everyone sees it coming. There needs to be something new and ambiguous, like the Angels from Eva. Something that we can relate or transfer onto....

No, no, make a film version of the NS musical (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=436675).

No, no, make a film version of the NS musical (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=436675).
Yeah and you can combine that with the main idea before this, Porn! You have a scene where a 'topic' is 'posted' and it has porn in it then the mods dressed in nazi uniforms 'Deat' the person and the 'thread'.

Here's an original idea: make it a story about a rag-tag band of misfits who learn to set aside their differences and come together in the end to overcome impossible odds, and learn a little something about themselves along the way!


Oh wait... that's every movie :P

Here's an original idea: make it a story about a rag-tag band of misfits who learn to set aside their differences and come together in the end to overcome impossible odds, and learn a little something about themselves along the way!


Oh wait... that's every movie :P
Fry: What does that character do?
Bender: Usual human stuff. Lives, loves, learns.
Fry: Boring...

ok, but seriously, what about a documentary-style movie on the art of sacrasm? it'll be laced with humor, and you can find people who will be glad to espose their pseudo-intellectualist philosophies about mouthing off.

The Wizard of Hoz.

Dress Dorothy in a blue and white plaid mini skirt with white knee-high stockings and a tiny white blouse. Add midgets who smoke crack, make the good witch a pothead, the wizard a pimp and the wicked witch of the west a drug dealer. I guarantee viewers.

Do a really bad porn. It'll be funny and give you something to masterbate to!

Why don't you do a Survivor spoof? You could have a Cheerleader, a drug dealer, a pothead, a redneck, and a guy with a mullet.