Australian films could be cheaper: Stuart Simpson
According to director Stuart Simpson, whose award-winning debut El Monstro del Mar! was made with $50,000, Australian films are low budget compared to other countries, but they could be made for even less.
“Australian films have lower budgets than comparable films anywhere else in the world, but you can definitely make something for a lot cheaper than $2 million,” Simpson told Encore.
El Monstro del Mar! will have its NSW premiere on September 11 as part of the Sydney Underground Film Festival. It recently won Best Film, Best Female Actor (Nelli Scarlet) and Best Cinematography (Stuart Simpson) at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival.
These are great achievements for a film that is just starting its journey and is currently without a national or international distribution deal. Simpson admits that when he started working on El Monstro del Mar! , he didn’t know much about the business side of filmmaking and he didn’t want “any outside influence”, so he didn’t even contemplate looking for funding or a distributor. He didn’t even know that his planned 40-minute short would end up being “a much bigger monster”.
Yes, I’m sure everyone can get their budgets down – just ask all the cast and crew to work on a deferred fee basis.
Unfortunately this looks like its budget really was $50,000…
How do people expect to create a sustainable film industry if everyone expects crews to work on deferred fees? As an occasional option it’s possible, but for serious and experienced professionals – It’s unrealistic and insulting for this to be a long term strategy.
mmm…yeah budgets could come down everybody worked for nothing, but by the look of it this could have done with $50,000 thrown at the script..at the very least, but hey at least he knows his genre, well done for effort and for just getting the thing shot and out into the world
Take some of your own medicine Stuart. This looks like it was made for $10,000.
It ain’t The Host, but at least he made it.
Looks like a top of the range student film!