by Branden Wittchen
With the upcoming world premiere of my debut feature film, Meat Daddy, at Sydney Underground Film Festival on the 12th of September, I figured this is a good time to reflect back on the wonderful making of this (almost) no-budget film.
So how much did it cost?
About half of Paranormal Activity‘s initial budget without even adjusting for inflation. In other words, it would be difficult to buy a road-worthy used vehicle for the budget we had. The catering alone for a single day of filming on a Hollywood blockbuster costs anywhere from 3 to 10 times the budget we had. I call it Almost No Budget because it technically had budget, but it’s so low I don’t think you could even call it micro-budget.
Why Make the Film for (almost) No-Budget?
Knowing that it takes on average 7 years (from development to distribution) for the average independent film to get made in Australia, I think the answer is obvious. Seeing as Meat Daddy is a black and white arthouse surreal horror/comedy with some incredibly taboo scenes that push the boundaries of “good taste”, this was probably the only way to make the film. At least it was the only way to make the film how we wanted. Which includes black and white cinematography, a very unusual framing style, a mostly atonal music score, a lot of intentionally awkward dialogue, and deadpan performances. Let’s face it, movies like Eraserhead – our guiding light and key influence – are not made through traditional funding or studio systems. So rather than dilute the script into something more mainstream and wait years and years just to be told no over and over again, we decided to make it with what little money we had ourselves.
So how did we do it? How did we pay Cast and Crew?
To start off, we kept cast and crew to absolute bare minimum. Which meant a total of 16 incredibly talented people who were willing and able to wear multiple hats for the entire shoot. Those 16 cast and crew all volunteered their time in return for shares in the film. I am fully aware that there was no way this film could have been made like this without the cast and crew agreeing to this. Luckily, we found a great group of mostly friends who I went to film school with or have worked on previous short films together who were more than happy to give up 2 weeks of their life for this crazy project, knowing full well the (financial) risks involved.
Because the cast and crew were working for back-end points, we knew that the schedule would need to be as short as possible. Damien Grealy (producer) and I worked out that with a really tight schedule and a lot of pre-planning, we would be able to shoot the film in 14 days straight – plus a half day shoot that couldn’t be filmed at our main location. This worked out perfectly as it also kept our largest cost, catering, down as well.
14 days to shoot an entire feature!? How?
A lot of planning. Guy Crofts (cinematographer) and I spent weeks planning every shot in the film. First, we shotlisted the entire film. Then we visited the set and took lots of photos and diagrams. After that, we did a digital previs of every single shot in Blender. We worked out framings, lens choices, camera movements, everything. Then Guy went away and created lighting setups in Blender for every scene as well. On set during the shoot, we had a booklet of all of these shots from Blender that we could refer to. A lot of things changed on the day, but having that incredibly detailed plan to start from, really sped things up. Even with that planning though, there’s no way we could have achieved this without an incredibly focused and efficient crew and of course Damien (who was also first AD) keeping us on track with that tight schedule.
How did we afford the location?
Luckily, the script from page 1 was written to work with what little budget we had. Which meant it was designed to be filmed entirely at one location – which we luckily got for free as well. The cattle farm that the script was originally written for ended up not being viable but luckily our sound design assistant, camera assistant, and location manager Clay Schreiber knew somewhere else. Clay’s parents happened to own a holiday farm down in the Northern Rivers area that they were happy to let us use for two weeks. This location also served as the entire cast and crew’s accommodation for the shoot. We are of course forever grateful to the Schreiber family without whose generosity this film would not have been possible.
What about camera, lighting and sound equipment?
The majority of it was gear we already owned or stuff that we were able to rent off friends for incredible discounts.
And costumes, props, and prod design?
The budget for production design was almost zero. The actors’ costumes were mostly sourced from their wardrobes – excluding some necessary items like the Victorian colonial boy costume that Luca Steele McLean wears – and the props were almost all donated or lent by/from the cast and crew.
Post-Production
Well, I edited the film myself and the rest of the post-production was completed on the deferred compensation system as well. Luckily, the team at Aldergrove Studios who I’ve worked with many times before were willing to let us use the studio for free for ADR, foley, and sound mixing too.
Was it Worth It?
Absolutely! The film turned out better than I had hoped thanks to the amazing work that the cast and crew did, and the experience of making it was incredible. Sure, you have to accept some limitations when making a movie for a budget this miniscule but, we had no money-people to answer to and made the film we wanted to make in the way that we wanted to make it.
Meat Daddy premieres on Saturday 12 September at the Sydney Underground Film Festival, tix here.
