At the weekend I attended a function at Pinewood Studios (that's my step-son Jonathan) and had the opportunity to see one of the Harry Potter external sets. Photographs are forbidden, but the experience really brings home to you the difference between a micro or low budget film and a Hollywood funded movie.
Acres of scaffolding, flats, decking, tracking, camera cranes, snow, barriers, window decorations, a pub interior, a church front - with tower, a derelict house, a row of house fronts - with snow on the roofs, a bend in the road by the churchyard, the churchyard, more house fronts and a bridge to nowhere - part built! I thought to myself how many pages of the script did this represent? One, two maybe as many as five in one hundred and twenty pages! But the scariest thing of all was that the set is still up… I believe the film is in post, so the set is deserted but still standing, what British Indie Filmmaker could afford that? The gap in production values is like comparing a teardrop (and it does make you cry!) and the ocean, so it is simply amazing to think that so many modest budget films turn out to be great! And of course if a modest budget film is a box office success the ratio of cost/returns is equally amazing. I believe that if we get the right funding for Babbage then this could be just such a film. So watch this space!
Acres of scaffolding, flats, decking, tracking, camera cranes, snow, barriers, window decorations, a pub interior, a church front - with tower, a derelict house, a row of house fronts - with snow on the roofs, a bend in the road by the churchyard, the churchyard, more house fronts and a bridge to nowhere - part built! I thought to myself how many pages of the script did this represent? One, two maybe as many as five in one hundred and twenty pages! But the scariest thing of all was that the set is still up… I believe the film is in post, so the set is deserted but still standing, what British Indie Filmmaker could afford that? The gap in production values is like comparing a teardrop (and it does make you cry!) and the ocean, so it is simply amazing to think that so many modest budget films turn out to be great! And of course if a modest budget film is a box office success the ratio of cost/returns is equally amazing. I believe that if we get the right funding for Babbage then this could be just such a film. So watch this space!
A Question Of Content is now in the Cannes 2009 sfc catalogue!
