Making a short on next to nothing

Write for what you have

Cost is decided in the script. One location, two or three people, daytime, present day, no animals, no children, no cars in motion, no rain, no crowd: each of those is a day and a budget line you do not have. The Brief, the screenwriting competition here, sets exactly this kind of constraint on purpose, one page at a time, because the constraint is where the invention happens.

Write the location you can already get: a friend's flat, a relative's shop after hours, the place you work. Then write the film that would only happen there. A short set somewhere real, with the light that place actually has, looks more expensive than a short set in a studio pretending.

Keep it short. Under ten minutes is what festival programmers can fit, what an audience watches to the end online, and what a crew can shoot well in two days. A fifteen-page script is a feature's worth of ambition on a short's budget.

The two-day shoot

Two full days is the right length for a short of five to ten minutes with a small crew: enough to get coverage, short enough that people will give you a weekend. Plan it with a shot list and a schedule (both are in the paperwork here), ordered by location and by light, not by the script order, and put the hardest scene first on day one while everyone is fresh.

Five crew is the working minimum: director, DoP, sound recordist, a first AD who runs the day, and one person who does everything else (art, props, continuity, the tea). Add a focus puller if you are shooting anything shallow, and a gaffer if you are lighting interiors at night. Every extra person is another meal and another lift.

Sound is the cost you cannot save on. A film with a soft picture and clean sound plays; a film with a beautiful picture and a bad mix does not. Hire a real sound recordist with their own kit, book them first, and give them the quiet they ask for.

Where the money goes, and where it shows

A working budget for a two-day short on nothing, in the order the money should go. The budget template in the paperwork has these lines and the sums.

• Food and travel: the one thing you must pay. A crew fed well works a long day happily; a crew fed badly leaves early. Budget a hot lunch and breakfast per person per day, and the fares of anyone who came by train.
• Sound: a recordist with kit for two days, at a real rate, or the best deal they will give a short.
• Insurance: public liability at least, and kit insurance if you are hiring anything; a hire house will not release kit without it, and a location will not sign without it. A short-term production policy is cheaper than people think.
• Camera and lenses: hire houses have short-film rates (the kit hire page here says which), and a weekend hire is often charged as one day. A good lens on a modest camera beats the reverse.
• Lights: a small LED kit and the sun. Shooting day interiors near windows saves most of the lighting budget.
• Post: the edit is free if you do it, the grade and mix are not; an hour of a real mixer's time on your final mix is the best-spent money in the whole budget.
• Festival entries: see the festival plan. Budget the run now so it does not come out of rent later.
• A contingency: ten per cent, untouched until the day something breaks.

What costs nothing

• Rehearsal. A day with the cast before the shoot is the cheapest improvement to any film.
• A recce. Go to the location at the time of day you will shoot, listen to it, look where the sun is, find the fuse box and the toilet.
• The paperwork: releases, a location agreement, a risk assessment, a call sheet. The templates are here, free, and they make the two days go like a shoot rather than a favour.
• The crew you will keep. Post a crew call on My Collaborations: once MFJF has checked it, it shows on Crew Call here and on the MFJF job board.
• The film office. Councils and the regional film offices often let a student or no-budget short film on public land for nothing or a small fee, if you ask in advance and have insurance. The film office page here lists them.
• Music you are allowed to use: a composer at the start of their career who wants a credit, or a library with a free licence for festivals. Never a track you do not have in writing; the music licence letter in the paperwork is the ask.

The one rule

Finish it. A finished short made on nothing, put in front of people, entered where it belongs, with the paperwork done and the credits right, does more for everyone on it than a better short that stayed on a hard drive. Show it here, hear back, get picked, go further, crew up for the next one. That is the whole loop.