My company researched micro-budget movies years ago. For example, we had several discussions with the filmmakers behind Kaaterskill Falls (2001), a movie that cost $27,500 to produce. The idea is that if you can get the production costs low enough and you have a compelling story concept, it's almost impossible not to recoup costs and make a profit.Apparently the success of Paranormal Activity had a bigger impact on Paramount than we initially thought. The studio is launching a new division called Insurge Pictures that will be specifically focused on "micro-budget" movies (news on indieWIRE). The division has been given $1 million in funds to spread across 10 movies with $100,000 budgets each. This fresh new idea is said to be the creation of Amy Powell, the SVP of Interactive Marketing at Paramount. They're also trying to build a community via the official website, which hasn't yet launched. "We want to try something different and deconstruct the Hollywood system." Read on!
Insurge Pictures won't be looking for films from film festivals, but rather looking for filmmaking teams to produce their own projects. "They hope the movies will serve as a low budget proving ground for new talent and intend to release the movies theatrically." Part of the distribution process will involve new "grassroots" marketing approaches like the Demand It campaign for Paranormal, which I'm not sure will succeed again unless the movie is actually good enough. Their bio blurb on Twitter says: "We love talking about everyone else's movies, so we decided it would be awesome to create a new distribution label to find and share our own movies with all of you. And here we are - Insurge Pictures, an official division of Paramount Pictures."
Clearly budget constraints figure into the story concepting process. You need to think about a single primary location, minimal characters, a severely restricted shoot, etc. But as Paranormal Activity proved - once again - if you come up with a cool concept that embraces your budgetary limitations, you have the makings of a winner.
What do you think about Paramount embracing micro-budget movies?
H/T to Jeff Messerman for sending me the firstshowing.net link.
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7 comments:
I think this is great and a good concept to try. Do you know if advertising budgets are in the 100k budget?
Although Paranormal Activity was shot on a low budget, I am sure they spent a good amount on all the advertising.
Dain, that is development, production, and I would think post costs, not P&A.
This is a great idea. It'll be interesting to see how they decide to pick their ten projects. I hope it's not an online voting system (simply because those become a contest of "who has the most popular blog with the most readers").
I have bookmarked that page for potential future use!
Mitchell Riggs, who co-wrote and starred in KATTERSKILLS FALLS, is a friend of mine, he's directed several of my plays ... a very good guy.
He got an indie spirit award nom for that picture, if I remember right.
Fantastic. Hopefully Insurge will prove its worth and Paramount can coax other mega-studios to do the same.
It would wonderful if in the future we have a terraced Hollywood -- several levels of budgeting, several levels of story. And it will force some to economize their stories, take out the crap that inflates budgets. However, if this studio format does succeed, we may simply see more and more films that should just be plays. I'm hoping producers can keep their films cinematic.
I like the idea. It seems like a good melding of Indie & studio sensibilities.
The production is Indie-minded: Keep the costs low (& hopefully take some creative chances).
The marketing is Studio-minded: Start with an appealing genre concept & market the shit out of it.
Hopefully the studio will really support the filmmakers from start to finish and not leave them flapping in the wind half way thru.
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