How To Make A Movie For $7000 In 7 Days - Joe Burke

Joe Burke, Filmmaker/NYFA Instructor: I If all  I have is a few thousand bucks and a friend's   camera, we're making something. And that was it.   And it's timesensitive. It's so interesting. I I   keep putting myself as a filmmaker into these  projects where it's like it's now or never. Film Courage: For your movie BURT, how  did you come up with the $7,000 budget? Joe: So, great question. Why $7,000 for our  budget? Well, uh, again, little backstory. Tried   for many years to kind of have my follow-up film  to my first feature be something bigger. and with   the mentality of, you know, we got to have money.   We got to, you know, I have friends who are making   their one to$2 million films that are playing  Sundance and selling to, you know, different   companies. And, you know, I was like, I'm like,  those are real movies. I got to make a real movie.    I can't just not do that. And, you know, we tried  and like, you know, I could not have made a movie   for $7,000 years ago. I would not have had the  mindset to think that's even possible. I would   have been like, "No, that's not a real movie. You  can't do it. You need to do this. You need this.    You need this crew. You need this. D that was  younger. But once you get enough sort of nos and   rejections and sort of the industry professional  Hollywood stuff and you start getting so fed up   with waiting for permission, you start loosening  up a little bit and you start being like,   "All right, well, what is another way to do this? "  And uh Oliver and I during the I'll give a little   backstory to kind of tell you how we got to the  7,000. Oliver and I during the early COVID days   when there was like that early lockdown in 2020.   Everyone sort of stay at home for a few weeks.    Oliver went and lived in the desert. He just  rented a little small studio house in the middle   of nowhere for a month and I was living alone and  I said, "Hey dude, can I come sort of isolate with   you for a week and I'll bring some Halloween masks  and some fake blood and we can make a horror movie   in the desert. Let's stay creative. Why not? Just  the two of us. " And I drove out to Josh the Joshua   Tree Palm Springs area or uh Palm Desert area.   I had bought a couple cheap Halloween masks off   Amazon. I bought a 100 foot extension cord because  I had one light, one LED panel light that I could   plug into the side of the house and with that  extension cord move the light anywhere I want.    I had a camera I borrowed from a friend and a  flashlight and I drove out there and I listened to   horror music on the whole drive out there watching  the sunset and listening to this creepy music in   the car and getting inspired. I mean, this is real  quick. I think I spent like four days writing a   quick script, but it was just me and Oliver for  four days. I crashing on the floor at this   little place. He was staying and uh he played the  he was the lead actor and he played the monster   in the mask and he did the whole thing and I was  dping it and doing the one light and it was just   this beautiful fun like it was the first thing  I've made in years where I'm also dping at myself,   shooting at myself, doing it all. It was just me  and Oliver for four days and it kind of took me   back to when I was a kid in high school making  movies in the backyards with my in the backyard   with my friends and it and it turned out  great. It was actually like a little cool like   it's called Desert Quarantine. It's on YouTube if  you want to watch it. You can watch the trailer   as well, but little 15-minute horror thriller. And  it turned out actually for like what it was turned   out really, really good. And Oliver like, "Look,  if we can do this," and he's really, you know,   he's like, "Joe, if you can do this with no crew  and no money, you can do a feature this way. Like,   why not? " I was like, "You're right. I guess we  probably could. " And so, a couple years later,   we're kind of developing this Bert thing. And  he's like thinking like, "Dude, like we don't   need a whole crew. Like, you and Kenji dping it  and we'll get a sound guy. " before we hired Rob,   we just whoever was available, we'll get someone.   Rob came on and it was great. But like that's all   we need. I'm like, "You're right. " And in  fact, originally with Bert, I was going to   actually DP it. I shot the test film myself. I  before Kenji came on board to DP, I was maybe   going to DP it. And I talked to Kenji. He's like,  "Dude, I love this idea. I'll work for, you know,   gas money. Just let me come on and let's do this  movie together. " So, I was so lucky to have Kenji   come on as DP. He elevated the whole project. It  looks gorgeous. But it was just the three of us.    And it was that mentality that we learned kind of  reminding myself shooting this movie in the desert   years prior few years prior that I was like,  "Yeah, you don't really need a ton. At least I   feel like I didn't. " And that was it. And so when  Oliver said, "Hey, I talked to my mom and sister.    They're willing to give us some of his friends. I  have a little bit of money. " And Oliver put some   of his own money into the original number was  six. And then he was like, "I got seven. "   And I'm like, "Let's do it. " He's like, "How  many days on the phone? " I'm like, "Right away,   seven. Seven days. That sounds 7K, 7 days, done. "  And then a month later, we're on set and we shot   it. Can you break down how you spent the $7,000?   Yeah. Um, well, I took 6,000 for a directing fee.    Uh, no, I'm kidding. Um, no, we uh the things  that we spent on um you're always going to pay   your sound person, you know, production sound.   Uh, we got a great deal, but still, of course,   honoring and paying them. Uh, so that was a little  chunk. We had a couple hard drives that we had to   buy to gather all the footage. Um, craft service,  buying lunch, of course. Uh, we did pay Steve   and Bert uh a day rate um for their time. Uh,  Steve worked five days, Bert worked seven days,   so paid them each a day rate. We also gave Steve  money to shoot in his house for uh, five days. So,   Steve got that. Um, we bought some props and some  stuff we had to, you know, use in the movie. Uh,   some production design stuff, some props, a couple  other little knickknacks. And then at that point,

uh, there was, yeah, a couple of little things,  but that was basically it. I mean, it wasn't Yeah,   it was kind of just like enough to kind of get  by on it. Was it as simple as just $1,000 a day?    Yeah. I mean, that was sort of how I was looking  at it. I was sort of um you know I feel like   and again I love the story that Bert's coming  out and that people are kind of talking about the   $7,000 in seven days and we had the LA Times do  a beautiful you know story on it that Katie Walsh   uh wrote for the LA Times and that's like the  headline of how we made this movie and I I   wanted to inspire everyone but there is a little  bit of a there's a little bit of a secret to it   and the secret is the experience leading up to  this moment right it's the idea of like making a   bunch of short films and making a first feature  years back and just sort of like teaching film   school and getting better in the classroom. Like  there's a lot of practice that goes into being   able to be like, "Okay, I'm practicing so much.   I can now remove all the elements and just take a   few little things, a camera, a light, two friends  that can be my crew and seven days to shoot it   and actually get it done. " Right? So, what am I  trying to say? Uh, it's a lot of experience to go   into making something with nothing, if that makes  sense. And so, uh, yeah, I mean, I it was just an   educated guess. I was sort of like, I've done this  enough where I'm like, we're not going to be able   to stretch the money too far. I think seven days  we can do a lot if we're shooting two cameras.    And it was just sort of a number that sounded  right, felt right. It was completely made up. It   wasn't like I did a budget and then decided seven  days. It was on the phone call where I was like,   I got some money. What do you think? I'm like,  let's just do it. How many days? Let's do Let's   just do seven days. That feels It just felt right.   It was like we can do five days at the house and   two days outside of the house. And we stuck to  that. It just sort of worked out that way. And   and it was fine. And we never went over  our time. We never had long days. We never went   into overtime. It was, you know, the 12-h hour day  or whatever it was. Simple. Um crew, you know, the   crew uh you know, and I would send call sheets.   I mean, I'm sending a every night. I go home from   set and I send a call sheet to the next day. The  call she's going to Oliver, Rob, and Kenji. That's   it. But like here's the call sheet and here's  all the shots we need to get tomorrow in the   order that them. I kind of just had  a list of like here's tomorrow's goals. All these   shots in this order. very specific, very detailed,  so we knew what we're getting into. And because   we shot two cameras, it allowed us to do it. Like,  if we had one camera to shoot this whole movie, it   probably would not have be a 7-day shoot, frankly,  because we needed the two cameras. Um, that's   another little secret. But yeah, I mean, that's I  mean, it's not really a secret. It's just how   we did it. You know, it's like two cameras, seven  days. Let's do it. The two cameras that you used,   did you own each of them? No, we didn't own any  of them. We uh the two cameras we use uh you know,   look, another little secret is you got to have  friends that are willing to help. like people   who are like I had one buddy who owned a camera  here, camera here. Nothing   fancy. One was a 5D Mark IV shot 4K and the other  one was comparable. And so they're both kind of   just cameras people own and they both shoot 4K  which we're able to do and they're very generous   and let us borrow their cameras and I think I gave  them, you know, a couple points on the movie. Hey,   you're now part of the film. Thank you so much.   And you know, you offer some points. That's one   thing we could offer because we didn't really  have any money. And so we borrowed the cameras,   we borrowed the lights, everything was basically  borrowed. Um and it wasn't much equipment. And I   think we had maybe like three lights, four lights  that we maybe used occasionally, especially at   night, but not much during the day was embrace  natural light. And you know, we we did as   we did what we could with what  we had. And that is sort of the overall arcing   mentality of everything I'm trying to say today is  just like take what you got, run with it, make the   best of what you got in the moment, and then just  keep doing it. Could you see the entire movie in   your head before you started production? Yeah, I  would say yes. I think that I thought about this   uh so much um and I it was a kind of a condensed  amount of time, but like from the time we were   really like ready to do this to shooting it, I  would constantly all day every day be watching the   movie in my head, going through the outline, going  through the beats, editing the scenes in my head.    Again, knowing how to edit, everyone watching,  editing is the key. If you know how to edit,   you can make a movie. Like, you got to know how  to edit. whether you're your own editor or not,   understanding editing is so crucial, especially  microbudget because you got to know what you need   to shoot and what you actually don't need. And you  got to know when you have it, when you don't have   it. And so, you know, having years and years of  experience being an editor and a freelance editor   and I love editing, yada yada, that really helped  me. And so, I saw the whole thing in my head. I   would drive around and one place I like to think  is I like to drive around Malibu canyon roads and   I just drive out there by the ocean off the PCH  and go into their canyon and I pop on some movie   soundtracks of movies that are kind of inspiring  me during this time and I would listen to the   score and drive around the canyon and I would  fantasize and visualize the movie in my head   and by the time we got to set uh I absolutely  knew and in fact it was so wonderful you know   Kenji and Oliver at After seven days of shooting,  we wrapped picture, you know, Oliver was like,   "Look, if we have to get pickup shots or whatever  like, you know, we need to get anything else,   we can just we'll find a way. " I'm like, "Guys,  we got the movie. I just I we have it. I know   we have it. " And we didn't do any, you know, no  re-shoots. No. I was just like, "We had it. We

had it in seven days because I I don't move  on unless we got it. If I don't think we have it,   we're going to keep going. If I know we got it,  we got it. I mean, that's it. " And that that   there's experience to that to get to that point.   And that's training. You have to train yourself   to understand how to do this over the years. But  I knew that I was confident in that. And um look,   I'm there was also movie magic on our sides.   There's no question about it. I'm completely   aware that the film gods were on our side with  this one. And uh I'll take them when we can get   them. And then going back to the first question  that we opened the interview with, how much do you   think obsession played into it? A lot. Obsession  played a lot into this. Um, I was determined to do   something with Bert Burgerer to the point where if  all I have is a few thousand bucks and a friend's   camera, we're making something. And that was it.   And it's timesensitive. It's so interesting. I   I keep putting myself as a filmmaker into these  projects where it's like, it's now or never. Uh,   it was my first feature, Four Dogs. It was this  window of time after Oliver shot Project X,   but before it came out, where I wanted to capture  his last bit of innocence of youth before he kind   of became a Hollywood name, so to speak. and so  capture him and his aunt living together which was   a true story at that time and there's a there's a  window of opportunity to do this and then it never   happens again another cancer movie the short film  where I met Bert not met Bert where Bert first   worked with us Oliver's aunt Becca same aunt going  through chemo no hair very vulnerable performance   she was wonderful in the film she's doing better  today thank god good she's she is um but like   there was a little window of opportunity to make  this movie called another cancer movie with his   aunt going through chemo and it's like okay it's  now or never same with Bert little window you know   he has Parkinson's. He's We're all getting older.   We're all getting older. And so it's like after   thinking about it for a few years, like it's  basically now or never. And so it's not like a   movie that can like a script that can collect dust  and in 12 years you dust it off and you're like,   "Yeah, this is this movie could still be  we could just update this and get some new   actors and blah blah blah. " It's like,  yeah, that's great, too. But for some reason,   I keep putting myself in these positions  where it's like time-sensitive projects,   but there is what I like about that is there's  no wiggle room to debate whether or not it's   like it's like either you want to do this so much  that you're going to do it and it has to be now or   you're willing to give up on the project and find  something else you might want to do. There's no   going back to this. And that's maybe a little bit  of the obsession. That's a little bit of like you   have that's it. It kind of puts me in a in a  corner where it's like now or never. And when it's   that when I'm making a decision from that point of  view to a certain extent, it's a little bit maybe   easier to make the decision or a little bit more  motivating. There's something about that does   work for us. Looking back on it, what was crucial  to you about being able to pull off a 7-day shoot   for $7,000? Yeah, great question. So, [sighs] I  went through a journey of a decade of making the   first feature in my 20s. whole, you know, I gave  you the whole story about the 30s that we talked   about earlier. I was so ex I was back to your  word obsession earlier. I really wanted to make   my second feature. I've been trying for a long  time. I feel like I was ready. I didn't want to be   someone who just made one feature and then maybe  that's it. And like, you know, every artist, every   filmmaker, every actor, we all have these fears  in our heads. We're like, is this it? Is this   all I can offer? Is this all I am? Is this all I'm  going to be? And I I knew it was. And I hope   I can make movies for the rest of my life. I mean,  truly, I hope I can. Um, but I knew I wanted to   make a second feature and just kind of get over  this personal goal of mine of like, all right,   number two, got it. And it was a long journey. It  was, it was from, you know, the first one that I   shot in 2011 to shooting Bert in 2023. That's a  long journey. A friend of mine said to me, um,   there's a great there's a quote or something about  how 80% of filmmakers who make their first feature   never make a second feature. And that stuck  with me for a few years as well. And you know,   it's just all these things where it's just like  I know what I want to do and it is tough   making movies in terms of like it's a lot of work.   work to make movies. Like spoiler   alert, it's a lot of work. And I tell my students  this as well. And it's just like if it was easy,   everyone would do it, right? So anyways, all these  mentalities and when this opportunity came along,   I was so ready for it. I had prepared myself  mentally. I had gone through my regret stage. I've   gone through my therapy. I've gone through trying  to get the bigger movies made. I've gone through   it all and it's like the end of the day, this is  what's in front of me and I'm ready. And I was in   a yes mentality. Yes. And yes and yes. One thing I  always tell my students, my friends who have like   their careers have popped off earlier in their  careers. They've won Emmys. They've won all the,   you know, they've had great careers so far. I all  of them have this thing in common where they said   yes a lot earlier in their career. They weren't  overly precious. They understood that this is   just a stepping stone to the next project.   And it's something that I did a little bit,   but I wish I would have maybe done a little  bit more where I wasn't so precious in thinking   that this is the thing. But just say yes to  keep going. Yes, to keep going. Obviously,   don't say yes to something that's going to be  dangerous or unhealthy or maybe a project that

just absolutely you should not do. But for the  most part, saying yes and just moving forward and   seeing what happens is a lot more exciting than  saying no. You say no, it's all right, brick wall,   dead end, the end. But if you say yes, then this  whole other thing unfolds in front of you. And   then you say yes to and it just keeps  going. It's like the yellow brick road. It's   like follow the yellow brick road, right? You say  yes to it. And so I I that was a big thing in   my 30s of just like learning and self-help stuff  and whatever. Just like thinking about what that   looks like in my life to start saying yes more.   And so when Bert came around at that point and   Oliver called me and said, "I have a little bit  of money to make this movie. " And I'd already been   thinking about it. I was like, "Yes, yes, yes,  yes. Let's go. Let's do it. " And uh hopefully   that sort of answers the question, but yeah. Will  you make another microbudget film? I will. I will   make another microbudget film. Uh hopefully this  hopefully in the next 12 months. Ah, okay. Look,   I'm into it. I I'll tell you one  thing. I had a great time making this movie. I   with the process. Um there is  a little bit of a question mark to this whole   thing. So, we got through the pre-production.   production. We've had a lot   of great success with some film festivals and  winning some of great awards. And, you know, we   have a lot cooking with this movie. And like, you  know, it's still we're still pushing this snowball   uphill. So we can hopefully get to the peaking  point and it comes out next year and releases   and people all see it hopefully. But that's the  question mark. The question mark is what is the   distribution like on a movie like this, right?   Where do we land with this? It's probably going   to be a self-distribution play. It's probably  going to be us going through an aggregator,   self-releasing the movie, keeping ownership and  doing all the leg work to release it next year and   promote it. And that's great. I thrive in that.   I'd almost rather that definitely rather that than   give it to a company who just sort of puts it out  there and that's it. I understand that. That's one   way to go. I don't think that's the way I want  to go with this movie because I believe in it   so hardcore that and I know I'm going to be doing  with Oliver and the team a lot of promotion that   um and I also I want to see I don't think  there's much money to be made over here and I'm   not sure what is over here but I'm more excited to  kind of see what happens if you can keep ownership   of your work. What happens if you're able to  make deals with other streaming services over   the years and you just still own the movie and  it's part of your catalog and when we make the   next movie and the next movie, people go back  and they discover Bert and it just becomes this   maybe cult classic if we're lucky enough, right?   And so I want to live in that zone, you know,   where it's sort of on us. Um, I feel like that's  my big takeaway of this whole project is just like   how much we are able to actually do ourselves, how  much we're able to email a theater, email a news   outlet, you know, own the movie, self-release  it, promote it, whatever. Like, if this sort of   um workflow comes together and I think that we  can win with a healthy release of some kind,   then it's repeat the process. And at that point,  I don't need to struggle with Hollywood. I don't   the gatekeepers or the  nose or whatever. We got our thing here. We   got the We got it. We got the team. We got the  talent. We got the stories. We got what we want   to do. I can edit the movies. We can release  them. We got an audience that we're building   on social media and everything. So, that's  exciting. I love that thought. That   thought excites me. That makes me want to  get up in the morning and work really hard.    It's not the thought of like another day of  this and another day of a no or another day   of like you're not allowed to do this or we're  not giving you permission to do this. It's like   enough enough. This path is so much more  exciting. Thank you for watching the video all   the way to the end. Here is a complimentary  question from our book, Story Questions.