All burgeoning filmmakers have at some point wondered how they’re going to make their first feature film.
Kevin Smith has spoken about how Richard Linklater’s 1990 indie “Slacker” inspired him to make “Clerks.” For actor-director Scott Monahan, it was the work of the Duplass brothers and Jim Cummings (“Thunder Road”) that convinced him to take the plunge into micro-budget movie-making.
But after amassing as much money as possible and convincing friends and peers to help bring their vision to life, what do filmmakers need to know before they create their ultra-low-budget films? How can they spend their money as efficiently as possible? What creative cost-saving measures can they take? How can they stay sane?!
FilmFreeway spoke to Monahan, writer-director Ryan Martin Brown, and producer Roger Mancusi for their insights.
Inside the preproduction process: locations, budget, crew + scheduling
“Free Time” (2024)
When Brown began writing his comedy “Free Time,” about a guy who impulsively quits his job without a plan, he knew he wanted something he could make in 10 days tops. “That felt like a good amount of time for people to leave their lives behind and make the film for not so much money,” he says. After taking inventory of the locations available to him, he decided to shoot in his apartment, the park directly outside, and a nearby coffee shop. “It was backwards engineered to not only be easy but as low stress and high enjoyment as possible, while still allowing us to create something we liked.”
“Anchorage” (2021)
After working as an actor in Los Angeles since 2011, Monahan knew he had to take matters into his own hands to progress his career. After meeting actor-writer Dakota Loesch, the pair decided to produce their “own thing to make that happen,” says Monahan. With Loesch on as screenwriter and Monahan set to direct, they came up with “Anchorage,” a road-trip thriller about two brothers driving opioids from Florida to Alaska.
The duo initially planned to make “Anchorage” as a short. When an HBO producer said, “If you want to be in [the feature-length] and do it your way, you have to make it yourself,” they decided to forego explosions, multiple locations, and complicated shots for a chance at making it a feature. They had a budget of $22,000, split between $12,000 in cash savings and two credit cards maxed out at $5,000 each. They used just eight crew members, and most of their money went to making sure the crew had their own hotel rooms so they were happy and well-rested. “We shot it in early January, because nobody had any other jobs at that time of the year,” he says. They put together a five-day film schedule, with four days for principal photography and one for B-roll.
Ahead of filming, Monahan and Loesch meticulously scouted (free) desert locations, plotting out the distance between them using GPS. “I asked my cinematographer [Erin Naifeh] how much time they’d need for certain shots so I knew exactly how our time would be spent.”
“Hannah Ha Ha” (2022)
As the producer of “Bunnylovr” (which just premiered at Sundance from writer-director Katarina Zhu) and “Hannah Ha Ha,” Mancusi has spent years working closely with young filmmakers as they take their first tentative steps into features. “I always tell them to just do whatever they can to fulfill their creative vision.”
Mancusi says “Hannah Ha Ha” filmmakers Joshua Pikovsky and Jordan Tetewsky saved money from their crew work for a year before production began. They set the film and shot it in their hometown so they could stay at their parent’s house. “The town was so accommodating. We got in contact with businesses over Facebook,” he remembers. “We shot in a local movie theater, and cafés even provided us with food.”
How to stretch your (and your crew’s) patience while filming
Mancusi says that everyone involved needs to be prepared to work multiple jobs—and they have to want to be there. “If people are not having a good time, it can become a real slog. Make the set fun. Make sure everyone is fed and hydrated.”
Lowering the stakes during production, especially for new filmmakers who can easily become overwhelmed with too much pressure, is also helpful. Mancusi explains, “It’s not always in the filmmaker’s best interest for them to have a huge team around them and a long schedule. With ‘Hannah,’ the flexibility of having a small team made it feel very informal and allowed us to work spontaneously and rewrite whenever we wanted.”
Having written “Free Time” as a way to reconnect with friends after the pandemic, Brown had one major focus: “I really wanted it to be something fun we could do together when we next hung out…. Our mentality was to keep the stakes low and have fun. That actually made our movie better because it was easier to manage.” He also notes that filmmakers need to think about their low-budget film as a “collaboration with the real world,” adding, “You can’t afford to control anything so you just need to embrace it.”
Postproduction tips
While many filmmakers will be dreaming of festival acclaim and glamorous premieres before, during, and immediately after filming, Mancusi says “the footage will dictate the reality” of what can be done. He likes to remind filmmakers that sometimes just having the experience of making the movie—learning from it and about themselves—is worth more than any exposure.
While all three filmmakers admit to setting deadlines for themselves to complete their edits, Mancusi suggests taking a break if it isn’t coming together as imagined. “It might be in your own interest to take time away from the film, let the footage breathe, show it to people, get reactions. Having a good film is better than having a done film.”
Since “Free Time” had a large cast, Brown, the actors, and the crew were able to organize a special screening for their community of creatives. “Free Time” went on to play various festivals, including the Nashville Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the New Directors Competition in 2023. The film was ultimately acquired by Cartilage Films and released in U.S. cinemas on March 22, 2024.
“Hannah Ha Ha” went on to win best narrative feature at Slamdance, and picked up nominations at the Seattle International and Nashville festivals.
For “Anchorage,” Monahan taught himself how to sync the video and audio, then edited the film himself. He took the finished project to 17 film festivals; it won 10 awards, including best film at the Stony Brook Film Fest and best actor for Loesch at the Pasadena International Film Fest. The likes of Sony and Netflix contemplated buying the film, but ultimately passed. Monahan says, “We made the movie we wanted to. That was the achievement.”
