I have been thinking of writing this article for a long time now. It is an awkward, potentially controversial topic, especially with what is going on with film crews around the world protesting set conditions and working hours and lack of pay. It’s about money. It’s about low rates. It’s about deferment, working for exposure, volunteering, using students on set, or any of the other short cuts producers use to indicate “no pay”. It’s about the perceived exploitation producers put cast and crew through to create movies. And the fact that everyone feels underpaid and is putting their hands in the air saying “please sir, can I have some more?”
Money, money, money.
And it is completely understandable. Everyone deserves to be paid properly for the hard work they do on set, for the years of training and experience they bring to their craft, for the skills in camera or sound or production design or acting they bring to each project.
But the reality is most films don’t make any profit. In fact, Noam Kroll argues 98% of films actually lose money. And statistics from distributors, highlighted by this video from Movie Marketing Makeover, seems to support this assertion. Analysing 1658 films reveals that 85% of films make less than $1000 per quarter. 56% percent of films actually make less than $100 per quarter, so that is only around $33 per month. But no doubt they cost a whole lot more than $33 to make and market.
So most films will fail and see only pennies in income. One of the main reasons for this is oversaturation — as technology has made it so much easier to make films it means there are simply too many being made today. Thousands and thousands per year. Supply far exceeds demand and this means films are simply not as valuable as they once were. So filmmakers, especially in the indie world, are left fighting for scraps at the rapidly shrinking table of audience attention.
The death of DVD and the rise of streaming hasn’t helped. Filmmaker Shane Ryan has seen this personally. Between 2007 and 2009, he had four films selling on DVD. Since 2012 he has had 20 films released via streaming. He has calculated that the streaming films bring in only 0.0065% of what DVD did. So working 10x harder still results in significantly less income.
Yet one thing that hasn’t decreased anywhere near as much as potential profits is the cost of making movies. Sure, digital may be less expensive than film, but equipment and rentals and locations and props and post production and deliverables and transport and marketing still typically add up to thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. And here is the elephant in the room. The cost of labour, if you are paying cast and crew according to any union mandated rates, is higher than it has ever been.
The cast and crew of Choir Girl
On Choir Girl, a film I produced in Australia with a $700,000 budget and following MEAA (the Australian union) rules, the cost of wages was almost $300,000 alone. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am happy to pay the cast and crew properly when the money is there. I much prefer this and I wish all productions were like this.
But sometimes the money simply isn’t there. So I get frustrated when I see a filmmaker attacked or mocked on social media if they dare post an ad seeking cast and crew for “low pay” or “deferred” or “volunteer”.
This happens far too regularly and this debate seems to have been going on in the film world for decades — are you exploiting cast and crew by asking them to work for free? Are you comfortable going down the micro-budget road as we do and opening yourself up to attack from frustrated cast and crew who have been exploited in the past, or are sick of being asked to ply their expertise for no or very little money? Is it morally acceptable to even ask?
Many in the industry will howl you down and say the cast and crew who accept such an offer are bringing wages down for everyone and making it the norm to expect things for free. After all, Netflix, Amazon, and the streamers have already trained the audience to expect to watch films for next to nothing, so if we ask cast and crew to work for free are we not contributing to the problem and devaluing our whole industry?
There is, sometimes, a black and white view to working for free or less than standard rates in the film industry. Some say never work on a project unless you are paid properly. And there is a lot of exploitation, a lot of empty promises, a lot of films not worth your time, so I can understand this point of view. People may have been burnt or taken advantage of in the past so their stance on these jobs becomes a hard no.
My point of view is nothing in film, or in life for that matter, should ever be black and white. I’ve been making films for 15 years now but I’ll still volunteer or accept a low wage to help a friend, or if the project is right, or exciting, or there is something else that may be beneficial for me. Namely, making connections. Sometimes, it actually does lead to bigger and better things.
A number of years ago I made a short film called Zina. There was no budget and everyone volunteered, from production to post. I needed a sound designer. One young sound designer approached me to do the job but he insisted on being paid. I literally had no money at the time — I was eating with food vouchers from the Salvation Army. Another sound designer, Gerard Mack, stepped forward, a much more experienced hand, and he was willing to help out and do the job only because he liked the project and wanted to build a connection.
The cast and crew of Zina, all volunteers.
We clicked, and he did a fantastic job. A couple of years later, I would produce Choir Girl and this time there was significant budget as mentioned above. The first young sound designer approached me again to do post production sound on the feature. I said no. I gave the job to Gerard instead. Five years on I am still giving jobs to Gerard whenever I can.
Of course, some will argue that no film must be made and no filmmaker is entitled to free or low-paid labour so they can make their film. This is true. But nobody is entitled to mandate that you are not allowed to volunteer or accept a low rate or a deferred payment to work on a film. Or that a filmmaker is not allowed to ask.
Others will argue it is the producer’s job to raise the money. Crowdfund. Apply for a grant. Find an investor. All possible, all difficult, and not applicable to all films.
Crowdfunding
We’ve already established to pay people properly the bill could be hundreds of thousands. Well, only 0.6% of the 78,000+ projects launched on Kickstarter have managed to raise over $100,000. Your odds, to say the least, aren’t great.
Grants
I don’t have all the statistics on the various grants out there and how many applications they receive. But does anybody have any doubt that each grant receives many more applications than they award? Hundreds more? Thousands more? And many grants have limited application criteria: be it country, gender, age, or subject. How many grants are available to your cash-strapped indie filmmaker who wants to make a fun horror film? I think the answer would be close to zero.
Private Investment
This is an interesting one as we are currently seeking private investment for our film To Hold the Moon. It is an improvised, lesbian romantic drama. I originally budgeted the film at €250,000. But as I did revenue projections for the film, comparing it to similar budgeted films in the same niche, I quickly realised no film at this budget range in this genre actually made a profit. So how does one approach an investor with this information and in good conscious pitch a project that will almost surely never recoup their money?
The answer, for me, was to slash the budget to €140,000, as low as it could possibly go while still capturing the essence of the story we wrote and love. Cutting scenes, cutting locations, cutting days and cutting the size of the cast and crew. And cutting wages too. Not to zero — we still always want to pay our cast and crew something — but reducing the rates to figures so low that we risk opening ourselves up to the same complaints permeating the industry from cast and crew. Exploitation.
It’s almost a no-win situation for independent producers. Sure, there are the dishonest producers out there that do take advantage of cast and crew. There are producers that exploit people’s desire to work on set, on film, the so-called “dream job” that can quickly become a nightmare of impossible hours, conditions, and demands. But many producers are simply trying to do their best to create art and tell the stories they feel compelled to tell in an industry that is financially demanding, resource intensive, and full of gatekeepers.
It goes back to the art v commerce debate, doesn’t it? Is filmmaking all about art, or is it about business? Well, it is both, but it is also unrealistic to assume every tiny project under the sun has the means to afford the prohibitive cost of becoming a mini major production. It is disheartening to see that creating for the love of creating and working with like-minded collaborators who are willing to sacrifice proper rates for the joy of filmmaking is frowned upon.
Just consider, most indie film production is technically illegal in the United States because by not paying people minimum wage you are breaking labour laws. But why can’t we truly collaborate on a film? Pool our talent, our resources, our equipment, our ideas, and yes, even our money. And if the film goes on to actually make money, then we all share, equally, in that money.
Maybe I am being way too idealistic. I know life and bills and the need to pay rent and the desire to make a living from doing what we love can easily outweigh this collaborative utopia. But if money is all that matters, go work on a commercial. Crew on that Hollywood production that comes to town. Take a job in corporate video. I have done all three and they pay well. But I don’t expect the same fees to edit the short film Carol made on a weekend as I do to edit a commercial for Coca-Cola.
It’s easy to forget the vast majority of us joined the creative industries because we love it — if I wanted to get rich and stay miserable I would have finished my commercial law degree. So I’d rather see filmmaking be accessible and see more great ideas come to life, rather than place roadblock after roadblock in the way of artists telling stories together and taking enjoyment from the act of creating.
This is filmmaking. You may only participate if you have this much money.
No.
There needs to be room for all types of projects, from Hollywood to that tiny micro-budget feature. And people need to be free to decide which projects they want to be part of without judgement. And honest producers (and yes they are still out there), need to be free to ask for collaborators for their projects no matter how much budget is available without fear of mob derision.
There are too many films being made today. But nobody should be denied the joy of making their film and telling their story solely because they don’t meet the money threshold. Everyone should be free to participate in creating art.
Written by Ivan Malekin