Riddle me this then Batman....?

[his Dudeness]

If a film costs nothing to make, but it costs ?200,000 to clear the music rights, is the film low or no budget??

Eh? Answer me that then.

[N. Foster Tyler]

Who cares?

[his Dudeness]

No-one, obviously.

I was hoping to stir up an ants nest for all the people who like arguing about no/low budget.

I guess they're just too smart to fall for that though.....

Bollocks....

[miker]

since I'm downloading KDE at the moment, I may as well bite:

a film *never* costs nothing to make, therefore the concept of no budget is moot.

(unless by no budget you mean no organisation of budget of course :-)

and let me ask you this:

a large corporation is able to collect a tax per-household in order to further its programme making. The programmes it makes it then re-sells on the overseas market making a tidy profit, with no share of the profits benefitting the tax-payers (or they'd be share-holders, right?). What country in their right mind would allow such media power? And what country's people would not flinch when that very corporation boasts about its success reselling the format and exporting one ginger? Fuck, we must be British.

(I knew I shouldn't have watched The Secret Rulers of the Planet on Channel4, now I *know* that the BBC is run by shape-shifting lizards ;-)

David Icke not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!

[his Dudeness]

Thanks miker for bringing up the fact that I've just paid ?110 for my TV license, when I hardly ever watch TV!!! That's my fault I suppose. Its almost a fear thing - I got one of those letters telling me my license had expired, and they were going to reposess everything I owned, and then threw in for good measure 'Your family's bang in trouble'.

Well, not quite, but...you get the idea.

Also, very good point - there is no such thing as 'no budget', people just confuse it with 'no budget on paper'.

I.e., they haven't sat down with a spreadsheet and worked it out.

[N. Foster Tyler]

Too true. There are so many aspiring filmmakers out there who are fooled by this whole phenomenon of 'no-budget' filmmaking. Its like, "Wow man, look at all these no-budget filmmakers...if they can make features with no money, so can I!"

Its foolish. 'No-budget' is simply disorganization.

[assyrix]

You think the TV licencing practice is bad in the UK? Austria has the same licence terror (why don't they just encrypt the shit?) and furthermore prohibits private TV. Even Russia is more advanced in that sector.

[eddie]

'Low Budget' isnt disorganisation at all.
Whilst I agree with most of what you say Low Budget is possibly the absolute opposite, made to look like disorganisation.

[miker]

eddie, I believe you mis-read.

Low-budget implies that monies are allocated to certain things, therefore organised.

No-budget presumably means that not even paper to write a budget on is paid for, and everything is blagged, else it wouldn't be no-budget, right?

guess it all falls down to personal definitions.

[Curtin-Parloe]

I thought no-budget meant that you haven't got one. I've been reading the guerilla book, and all of the films in there have low budgets of ?20,000.
My budget is:
Camera - I already have one - ?0
PC Editing suite - ?100, but I have used it for some paid work (?100), so effective cost - ?0
Lighting - none - ?0
Audio - nope - ?0
Crew - Me - ?0

Total budget - ?0

So am I low, no, micro or macro budget??

I reckon no-budget means that you have zero budget for the film, and any expenses are absorbed by your personal income. You could set up a budget for ?100,000, but what if you need to eat that month, or the exhaust falls off the car? With low-budget, you can say, "well, the car's buggered, but I can walk to locations for filming, it's not my money anyway, it's for the film", whereas with no-budget, you have to get it fixed, or you get an earful from the co-producer (your wife!), and so the money you'd saved up for a location shoot/Avid/Premiere/etc. goes to some git in overalls who whistles backwards and says, "well, that's ?410 just for the unit, not to mention labour!"
If you're married, you can't budget for a Bolex or Ikegama for your film, but you might get away with a camcorder for holiday videos (no, honestly )

Oh, well, time to get back to work!

Paul

PS - Drat! Fooled again, this time by Dudeness!

PPS - Ow my knee! I hate football, especially when you fall over!