Random low budget advice

Advice for low budget filmmakers. This is just the stuff I can think of off hand--stuff I've read over the years. Not intended as comprehensive or well-thought-out. May be wrong. But, for whatever it's worth:

At the script writing stage. Don't put in uniforms of any kind, special vehicles like police cars, vans, fire trucks, ambulances, unless you happen to own any of these. No animals, no children, although those may not apply to extreme low budget or no-budget movies where you wouldn't hire wranglers or tutors anyway. No stunts, including things you may not think of as stunts. Anything an actor may not want to do is a stunt.

No guns. Although I'm not sure----I've seen very good movies filmed with prop guns with computer generated muzzle flashes and shell casing ejection. As long as you're not running around in public with them, I would think it would be fine.

Try to use locations that are close together. If there's a location that looks good but is noisy, use it anyway and dub the sound.

Do the script so supporting players can come in and shoot all their scenes in a single day.

People used to film without sound and dub it all in later, but that doesn't seem necessary with video.

Roger Corman advised a director making his shooting schedule to figure out how much time it will take to make the film perfect. Then calculate how much time to make it good. Then how much time just to get it on film. And go with the last one.

Film a scene in one shot and you won't have to shoot coverage.

You can film a conversation in one shot by having one actor in close-up facing the camera and the other actor in the background talking to his back.

If there are scenes that aren't directly related to the plot, shoot them quickly---don't waste much time on them---because they'll likely be cut out in the end anyway.

If can be faster if you shoot everything outdoors.

Film nude scenes first. If you wait, actors can change their minds and can't be replaced.

If you don't allow actors on the set for more that three hours at a time, you won't have to feed them.

Time is money. Anything to speed up filming.

Try to have only two actors per scene, or at least have only two speak per scene. I'm not clear on why. I read that somewhere.