Fast, Cheap & Under Control: Lessons Learned From the Greatest Low-Budget Movies of All Time: Fast, Cheap Filmmaking Books, #1

INTRODUCTION

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it … This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.

George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

Don't take this wrong, but our friend Mr. Santayana could have been referring to many independent filmmakers when he penned those famous words.

Over the years I've come to believe that some independent filmmakers are, on occasion, a bit too independent for their own good.

They insist upon taking what they believe to be the road less traveled, when a quick glance down at all the footprints surrounding them would reveal that many others have hiked that same path and made all the same errors they're about to make -- and a few more to boot.

Now, I don't want to start this off with a rant. I'm all for artistic expression and singularity of vision. I just don't see a need for every generation of filmmakers to re-invent the wheel, when the previous generations did a fine job on the wheel and came up with the pulley and lever in the bargain.

Other filmmakers -- with as little money, as little time, and just as many pressures as you'll be facing -- have achieved remarkable feats in the low-budget arena. They overcame the same problems you'll be facing, and some that you could never have imagined.

The filmmakers profiled in this book learned from their experiences, and there's no reason why you shouldn't benefit from their education.

That's the purpose of this book.

Each of the thirty-three movies highlighted here offer a handful of lessons, ranging from nuts-and-bolts concerns to larger issues of methodology and philosophy.

Some of the films and the filmmakers are household names. Others may be unfamiliar to you. But they all overcame the odds, got their vision on film or tape, and learned some important lessons in the process.

There's not a day that goes by when I'm working on a film that I don't draw upon something I learned making my first one, Grand Theft Auto.

Ron Howard

That statement from Ron Howard, made almost in passing on the commentary track of the Grand Theft Auto DVD, was the starting point for this book.

It got me to thinking, if someone as successful as Ron Howard learned lessons on his low-buck Corman classic that he's still using today, what other lessons are just waiting to be unearthed from similar small-budget gems?

As it turns out, quite a few.

There's considerable wisdom to be found in these pages, and I can say that without blushing, because very little of it is mine.

The lessons you're about to learn come from the mouths of the filmmakers themselves. Some lessons might seem obvious to you. Others may set off a series of light bulbs over your head, in a sort of domino effect as you connect their problem with your problem and suddenly realize a solution you hadn't considered.

You may find some lessons that simply don't apply in your universe. And other lessons that flat-out contradict each other. Such is the pluralistic nature of filmmaking.

In the end, however, most film productions are more alike than they are different and I think you'll be surprised by what you can take away from these low-budget classics.

The process of re-watching these movies, chatting with many of the filmmakers, and assembling these varied thoughts has certainly re-energized my interest in the world of low-budget production.

And having the rare opportunity to talk, one-on-one, with some of my filmmaking heroes was certainly a highlight of the process.

For example, nothing beats the experience of calling Roger Corman's company, saying I was calling for a scheduled interview with Mr. Corman, and then hearing the words, Call me Roger. What can I do for you?

Or chatting by phone with Henry Jaglom as he drove through snarled Los Angeles traffic … or with Alan Cumming as he walked his dog through the noisy streets of Manhattan … or with Edie Falco as she spoke softly, trying to get her new baby to fall asleep during the interview.

In those instances when I couldn’t get on a filmmaker's schedule, I've gathered their thoughts from other extant sources, cutting and pasting the best of the best. And, rather than overload the book with footnotes, I've assembled all the sources in the Notes section in the back for easy reference.

Feel free to be as non-linear as you like in reading this book. You can read from the beginning … or start with the movies you already know … or dive into a movie you've never heard about.

Whether you read in a linear or non-linear fashion, you'll find that a handful of lessons are repeated throughout the book, a few with dogged consistency. These repetitions are intentional, as I found that many filmmakers learned the same lesson for different reasons.

For example, the reason Henry Jaglom follows The Family and Friends Plan is worlds away from why Darren Aronofsky subscribes to that notion. And the lessons learned about endings (All's Well That Ends Well) by the filmmakers of Clerks and The Last Broadcast are as different as … well, as different as Clerks and The Last Broadcast.

So, if you want to compare how different filmmakers solved the same problem, refer to Chapter Eight (The Lessons Redux), which cross-indexes all the lessons.

I've had nothing but fun putting all this information together and I know my next movie will be better for all the ideas I've had the opportunity to sift through within these pages. I hope you find it beneficial as well.

Now, stop reading this fluff and get to the meat!

PART I

CORMAN & COMPANY

No one in Hollywood has launched bigger directing careers on smaller budgets than Roger Corman. In addition to the directors profiled in this chapter (Coppola, Bogdanovich, Demme and Howard), Corman can also lay claim to providing solid starts for the likes of Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Joe Dante, Paul Bartel, John Sayles and others.

Most only worked with Corman once or twice. You work with Roger until he can't afford you anymore, Sayles explained.

Be that as it may, Corman practiced what he preached. The low-budget techniques he insisted his directors follow were all based on his own experience behind the camera, and he has generously provided those lessons to several generations of filmmakers.

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

There are very few people in the movie business who are, quite literally, legendary.

Know this: Roger Corman is legendary.

Consider the following small sampling of Corman stories that have been told and re-told over the years:

His first movie as producer, The Monster From The Ocean Floor, cost $12,000 in cash, and went on to make a profit of $100,000. It was shot in six days. The original title for the film was It Stalked the Ocean Floor, but the title was changed, Corman said, because the distributors felt it was too cerebral.

For another early film, Five Guns West, he devised a story about five men whose job it was to head West, but they had to avoid being spotted by the Indians along the way. This story structure allowed Corman to buy stock shots of Indians riding past, which he then intercut with shots of his actors watching them, providing more production value (but not a lot more cost) for his small-budget western.

Corman is known for always carrying an airline pilot’s handbook, so he can check weather patterns and determine if a location is a good bet for a rain-free shoot. He offered weather advice to Francis Ford Coppola before that director started shooting Apocalypse Now in the Philippines. Coppola ignored the advice and his movie was shut down by a brutal rainy season.

For his movie Atlas, which he shot in Greece, Corman paid for 500 soldiers but only 50 showed up. Undaunted, he altered his big battle scene and re-staged it as a hand-to-hand battle, allowing him to shoot tight shots and disguise his lack of extras. He then added some dialogue for the military leader, who declared that his theory of warfare was that a small band of efficient, dedicated, highly trained warriors could defeat any sized army. In his autobiography, Corman referred to this speech as his theory of filmmaking.

He achieved his personal best number of camera set-ups -- seventy-seven -- in one day on the film The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent. Shots were set up so quickly that, according to actress Abby Dalton, one of the Viking girls in the background raced through a shot with her sunglasses on. No one even noticed.

Fast. Cheap. And mostly under control.

Roger Corman knows how to make a movie for a buck, and he has passed that knowledge onto several generations of filmmakers, while at the same time helping some of the biggest Hollywood directors begin their careers.

I think it's a worthwhile thing to help a young person of some talent get his start in films, Corman said. It's enjoyable and stimulating, and I generally have made money at it.

One of the greatest examples of the Corman filmmaking philosophy at work is his film, The Little Shop of Horrors. It was shot over two days (under the working title, The Passionate People Eater), using existing sets, followed by a couple nights of second unit photography.

The Little Shop of Horrors, the story of florist Seymour Krelboin and his man-eating plant, Audrey Junior, is an early black comedy most notable for a way-over-the-top performance by Jack Nicholson as a far-too-willing dental patient.

The story was later adapted as an Off-Broadway musical and then a movie musical; however, lyricist Howard Ashman wisely changed the plant’s name to Audrey Two, recognizing that there are actually very few interesting words that rhyme with junior. He did give it a shot, though, in one song rhyming junior with petunia. You see what he was up against.

It was done partially as an experiment, Corman said of Little Shop. "It succeeded, and then I went back to a normal style of shooting, because you really can do better work with a little more time.

I sacrificed too much by shooting that fast, Corman admitted. For instance, I was using two cameras simultaneously, photographing from two different angles. If two people were talking, I'd have a close-up on one person and a close-up on the other.

In order to get coverage from two cameras simultaneously, Corman was forced to employ a bland lighting style, a compromise he doesn’t recommend.

Because it was a comedy-horror film, you could use flat lighting, he said, but the lighting clearly suffered. In any other type of film, the bad lighting would have hurt the film.

Despite the fact that The Little Shop of Horrors was something of an anomaly for Corman, it does provide a number of key lessons – one of which was that Corman would never again shoot a movie that quickly.

I did it almost as a joke, he said, simply to see if I could do it. When I finished, Bob Towne, who is a good friend of mine, said, 'You should remember, Roger, making films is not like a track meet. It's not how fast you go.' And I said, You're right, Bob. I'll never make a two-day picture again."

Rehearse

How much value does Roger Corman place on rehearsing? Consider the following statement about pre-production on The Little Shop of Horrors:

You can hire an actor by the day or by the week, Corman explained. But hiring an actor by the day is more expensive, so I hired all of the actors for one week, and we rehearsed Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, and then shot Thursday-Friday.

Let’s do the math. He is paying the actors for five days’ work, yet he puts them in front of the camera for only two of those days, opting to use the majority of his time to rehearse.

Clearly, Corman found value in rehearsing. In fact, rehearsing is just the beginning of his preparation process, all designed to keep things moving while saving money.

Be Prepared

If Roger Corman has a mantra, it’s Be Prepared.

I'm a strong believer in pre-production and preparation, he said. "I want to be able to come onto the set and shoot.

"Ideally, everything is worked out in advance. Practically, it never quite works that way. You always are faced with new problems, or maybe you get a better idea. But at least you have your framework before you shoot.

On a ten-day shoot, or a 20-day shoot, he continued, "you don't have time to create from scratch on the set. As a matter of fact, I don't think you should do that anyway.

My number one rule is to work with your actors in advance, so you and the actors are agreed on at least the broad outline of the performance. Then to have sketched out, if not all of your shots, most of your shots, so you have a shot plan in advance.

Despite his seeming fanaticism about preparation, Corman is the first one to advocate changing your plans if a better idea arises.

Be flexible, he advised. Even though you've done all your preparation, don't stick absolutely to the preparation if it doesn't seem to be working. Know that you've got the preparation, but situations change, so be prepared to change with the situations.

In short, strike a balance between having a plan and recognizing when circumstances suggest that the plan should be altered.

I'm a believer in both instinct and preparation, Corman explained. "I think you have to go in prepared and then you have to be able to throw away your preparation, if something better occurs.

But if you go in just with the vague hope that something brilliant will happen on the spot, you could be in a lot of trouble.

But We're Just A Student Film, Officer

There’s a tendency among independent filmmakers to try to make their productions seem bigger than they actually are, such as printing up fancy letterhead and trying to look like a mini-major.

Corman advocates heading in the exact opposite direction: Think (and look) small. His reasoning?

If you're young and starting, you get a tremendous amount of help, he said. I was still claiming to be a student filmmaker ten years after I was making films. Don't bypass that; don't get into the trap of trying to say, 'If I pretend I'm from Metro, I'll be accepted better.' Go the other way and say, 'I've got a little amount of money, and I'm trying to get started.' In general, people will be glad to help you.

Although he did use the student film excuse for years, time (and graying hair) eventually required him to provide a new version of the story. When I was young, I said we were all students, and we were able to get by with it. A little later, as I got older, I said I was the teacher and everyone else was the student.

Keep Moving

If time is money, and Corman’s goal is to save as much money as possible, you’d think that he’d want to save as much time as possible. And you’d be right.

That’s why he advocates keeping things moving on the set – really moving. Hopping, actually. As soon as you’re happy with a take, move to the next set-up. And then the next. And the next. And the next. And don’t dawdle between any of these steps.

You waste a lot of time after you get a shot, where you're congratulating everybody, discussing the shot, and so forth, he said. "And that shot is already yesterday's news. You've got it.

So what I do is I say, 'Cut, print, thank you.' Then maybe one sentence saying how good it was to the actors. And then, 'The next shot is over here.' And we're on to the next shot.

Write To Your Resources

The final lesson from The Little Shop of Horrors is one of scale, of understanding -- and exploiting -- the resources you have on hand. Or, to paraphrase Dirty Harry, a filmmaker's gotta know his limitations.

One of the key reasons Little Shop works as well as it does is that it was designed for the budget Corman had. He didn’t overreach with his expectations, and at the same time he made sure that all the money (what there was of it) made it to the screen.

I've been quoted as saying 'Make the most of what you've got,' he said, "which I would translate as 'Use what you have around you.'

"I've found from experience that working with low budgets, you're better off taking the elements at hand to make the best low-budget film you can, rather than taking your money and trying to pretend to make a big-budget film.

"I think you're more likely to fail doing that and I think you have a greater chance of success if you recognize the limitations of your budget, your schedule and so forth, and try to work within those limitations.

I feel that any script can be made for any budget, he continued, "but the result will be somewhat different. You can make Dr. Zhivago in six days for fifty thousand dollars, but it's going to look somewhat different. I feel you're better not to trying to make a spectacle on a low budget. You're better trying to work in depth on a subject that lends itself to your budget."

In short, be realistic about what you can achieve, and then put all your efforts into doing the best job possible. And realize that many of the limitations you may face have been faced, and overcome, by Corman.

I'd like to have unlimited time, unlimited budget, he admitted, "but it has not worked out that way. So there's no point in fighting the fact that you've got three weeks to make a picture, and there's no point in spending half of three weeks bemoaning the fact that you've only got three weeks.

You simply go out and do your best shot in three weeks.

DEMENTIA 13

You're stepping off a cliff when you start to make a film.

Francis Ford Coppola

Given the impressive list of filmmakers who got their start with Roger Corman, it’s clear that the man has an eye for talent. And, when it came to Francis Ford Coppola, Corman got an eyeful.

Francis came to me as a film editor out of UCLA film school and then advanced rapidly, Corman recalled. He is one of the most brilliant all-around filmmakers I have ever met. When I say all-around, I mean that not only can he write and direct, but he can also edit, function as cameraman, and do almost every job connected with filmmaking.

The first assignment Corman gave Coppola was hardly auspicious. I had bought the American rights to two Russian science fiction films, Corman said, "which had wonderful special effects, but they were filled with outrageous anti-American propaganda. And so I hired Francis to re-edit those films, and delete the anti-American propaganda.

"And then he went along and worked with me on several films as my assistant, particularly on a Grand Prix Formula One race car picture called The Young Racers, in which we traveled from track to track."

In order to make that traveling throughout Europe and England possible, Coppola turned his inventive mind to a prototype of a design he would employ through much of his career – the mobile studio.

Francis and our key grip built racks and various compartments into a Volkswagen microbus, Corman explained, "so that the microbus was actually a traveling small studio. We used that, with a crew of six or seven professionals, and then we would hire local people.

When the picture was finished, I had to go back to do a picture in the United States, but it occurred to me we had an efficiently functioning crew and everything in the microbus, so we could stay and do another picture.

That was when Coppola stepped forward with a bright idea.

Make Your Own Opportunities

The secret of all my getting things off the ground is that I've always taken big chances, Coppola said. We were in Ireland with a movie crew that was just begging to be utilized. While the other guys my age were all pleading, 'Roger, let me make a film,' I simply sat down and wrote a script.

At the same time, Coppola also connected with an English producer, told him the script idea and sold him the rights to the as-yet-unmade film.

Essentially, I sold the English rights for a movie which did not exist, recalled Coppola. And with the $20,000 he paid me and the $20,000 Roger put up, I was able to direct my first feature film -- based on a script it had taken me three nights to write.

Corman was impressed, as much with the script as with the chutzpah of the would-be filmmaker himself.

"He came up with a very interesting idea for Dementia 13, Corman recalled. It was a very interesting psychological suspense story. We took one idea from Hitchcock, which was that the leading lady would die early in the film, just as she did in Psycho. I always thought that was great, because nobody ever expects the leading lady to die halfway through the film!"

Utilizing a few cast members from The Young Racers and a studio provided for free by his English backer, Coppola shot the film in nine days, with the addition of some pick-up shots that he grabbed later in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, which stood in for the picturesque Irish countryside.

The result is an interesting, if oblique, film that benefits from a cast that is stronger than the script. Dementia 13 is probably best known today as the movie in American Graffiti that the kids are watching at the drive-in, which is fitting, as it never strives to be anything more than a scary popcorn picture.

"The film was meant to be an exploitation film, a Psycho-type film, Coppola explained. Psycho was a big hit and William Castle had just made Homicidal and Roger always makes pictures that are like other pictures. So it was meant to be a horror film with a lot of people getting killed with axes and so forth."

Despite its exploitive beginnings, Coppola looks back fondly on his first feature. I think it showed promise, he said. It was imaginative. It wasn’t totally cliché after cliché. Very beautiful visuals. In many ways, it had some of the nicest visuals I've ever done.

Coppola acknowledged that the film got made due to his willingness to do whatever was necessary to break into directing – a willingness that he finds lacking in many of today’s would-be directors.

I meet a lot of young filmmakers, because I'm interested in them, he said. "And they're all very lazy. They come and they want you to pay them to write the scripts. The first job I did for Roger I was paid $250 and I worked six months for that $250. No one's willing to do that anymore. I would have done anything. That's the difference.

Roger was always straight with you, Coppola continued. He never gave you any false hope. He was always very precise about what you were going to get and do. It was a fabulous opportunity for someone like me - it was better than money.

TARGETS

Roger Corman doesn't like to waste anything. So when he discovered that a famous horror actor owed him a couple days work, he wasn't about to let that opportunity slip away.

Enter Peter Bogdanovich.

Like Francis Ford Coppola, Bogdanovich got his start in filmmaking by working as an assistant to Corman, who recognized talent when he saw it.

Peter had a great knowledge of film, Corman recalled. "He had written some added scenes for