Low budget stuff

I wrote just a couple of entries ago about Ray Dennis Steckler, how he would film without a script. That way, instead of having to look for actors, props and locations to fit the script, he would start his production by looking around at what he had available to work with.

It makes sense to me. It seems like a good idea. Recruiting actors and finding props and locations seem rather elemental, steps in the process you should be able to cope with. But if you can eliminate them, why not?

I've read lists of things you shouldn't put into a movie script if you're making a low budget movies. Things like stunts, guns, uniforms, special vehicles of any kind, crowd scenes, children, animals, anything an actor may not want to do, like nude or sex scenes.

Another thing I read said to make all the dialog between two people at a time, but I didn't get the reasoning there.

One book advised that you write the script so you can have each supporting actor do all his or her scenes in one day. I was reading about a low budget comedy made somewhere called Tetherball. They paid Andy Dick and Dustin Diamond to come in for one day each.

Film in the cheapest possible format. If it's a made-for-video movie, film in 16mm, not 35mm (if you insist on using film instead of digital video.)

If you have a location that looks right but may not be usable due to background noise, use it anyway and dub in the dialog, although I know people for whom that theory didn't work.

I would try to figure out locations that didn't require permission.

I watched part of a family film once. The opening scene was a kid in school being paddled by his teacher. For some reason, the poor kid was being punished outside. I realized they had probably filmed it without permission. They got to use a real school but they filmed outside while the place was closed. They didn't have to pay or even ask to film inside.

Chroma key is cheap and easy. It might be something to get some use out of it. Look at old episodes of Dragnet and see how they make use of rear screen projection. They would film establishing shots on location, then all the dialog scenes were done in a studio, often with a rear screen projection. This can be done so easily now.