 Kathryn Bigelow shooting "The Hurt Locker" Awards Watch: DirectorsNov 19, 2009, 05:30 PM ET
Before shooting "Precious," director Lee Daniels envisioned a scene
in which a gaggle of animated pink creatures were squashed by the
rear end of his lead character. The idea was to bring a fanciful,
humorous element to his downbeat depiction of an obese, illiterate
teen living with an abusive mother in Harlem.
One problem: There was no money in his tiny budget for the effects. "After realizing I couldn't afford animation, I had to readjust the script to figure out a different way to bring out Precious' imagination," Daniels recalls. He decided to scale down his vision in favor of a more conventional -- yet still compelling -- device: dream sequences. Daniels is hardly alone this year in making tough creative compromises to save money. As the recession squeezes prestige film budgets, many of the year's most ambitious directors are being forced to milk the most from limited resources. Take Jim Sheridan, for example. The director of the Oscar-nominated pic "My Left Foot" was tapped by Relativity Media and Lionsgate to helm December's "Brothers," about a missing Marine (Tobey Maguire) and his younger brother (Jake Gyllenhaal), both in love with the same woman (Natalie Portman).
It also meant Sheridan had to convince Maguire to skip holiday meals over Christmas because he needed his star to drop 20 pounds and the director didn't have the money to extend production. "In the old days, studios were cash-rich," Sheridan says. "If you had a problem, you could go talk to executives. Nowadays, if you go over your budget, you better find the money yourself." Getting Maguire to forgo mashed potatoes was nothing, however, compared to the emergency that erupted one week into the "Brothers" shoot. Axium International, a payroll agency that serviced many productions including "Brothers," shut its doors and declared bankruptcy. In the midst of shooting, the film was out more than $1 million, and the only way to keep things moving was for producers to sacrifice their contingency fees. They did. Nicolas Chartier, president of Voltage Pictures and a producer of "The Hurt Locker," says that in order to contain costs, directors must wean themselves from A-list stars and convince cinematographers and editors to work for reduced fees. Top helmers are actually better positioned in that effort, Chartier believes, because they can attract above and below-the-line talent willing to work for less. "As a producer and financier, I need to work with directors who are able to communicate their passion for the project to others from the start," Chartier says. "You know the project will work out even under a smaller budget because the director will do everything he or she can to make it work." Flexibility is key, especially on the part of the filmmaker. When making his first movie, "A Single Man," director Tom Ford went through several dozen rewrites in order to stay within his film's $7 million budget. A major obstacle was portraying life in southern California in 1962, particularly outdoors. For example, Ford wanted to shoot a conversation between Colin Firth's character and a male escort inside a car on the highway. But the scene would have required blocking off the throughway and finding vintage cars to put in the background. Instead, Ford moved the conversation to a parking lot. In order to save money, directors like Ford are giving up bold exterior scenes in exchange for highly detailed interior shots. To portray his lead character's home life, Ford pulled furniture out of his own home and painted some art inside the house himself. "I've run a fairly big-scale business for a long time," says Ford, most famous as the fashion photographer and designer who revitalized the Gucci house before starting his own clothing and fragrance lines. "I'm extremely budget-conscious and disciplined. And you know what? I kind of enjoy the control you have with a small budget and fewer people around to tell you what to do." Not every filmmaker reacts so coolly when pressed with a belt-tightened budget. When "Amelia" director Mira Nair was told by producers that it would be too expensive to fly a perfect replica of Amelia Earhart's famous Electra airplane from Canada to Africa, she says she was bewildered. "How can you not fly the hero of the movie?" she asks. Inspired by Gandhi, the famed pioneer of civil disobedience from her native India, Nair threatened producers with a hunger strike if they didn't relent. Executives at Fox Searchlight eventually allowed her to take the plane, but they required her to agree to a very short shooting schedule so she could return the plane quickly. Nair and her crew had barely any time to shoot Amelia's journey around the world before they needed to pack up and move to their next location. Some directors believe that studios clamping down on budgets might actually help them make tough creative choices. "If you're constantly being told you can't have everything, you constantly have to go back and ask yourself what's most important," says Tom Hooper, director of the period soccer drama "The Damned United." "This can be clarifying because it forces you as the filmmaker to focus on the storytelling." Hooper was given more than $100 million to re-create colonial Boston for HBO's "John Adams" miniseries, but only about a tenth of that to portray England in the late 1960s and early '70s in "United." The prospect was daunting enough to scare off director Stephen Frears, who left citing an inability to figure out the logistics to make it work. Hooper came aboard and decided he wanted to shoot the movie with "kitchen-sink realism." He incorporated real TV footage from the period and took pains to avoid digital manipulation in re-creating the working class conditions surrounding the Darby playing field. The director's stroke of cost-saving brilliance might have come in the game scenes. Whereas Ridley Scott used expensive computer graphics to fill a Roman stadium in 2000's "Gladiator," Hopper bribed extras with fish and chips and made up the rest of the 40,000 fanatics by using inflatable dummies. Bob Berney, whose Apparition label is releasing awards contenders "Bright Star" and "The Young Victoria," says directors need to exploit all the tricks in their arsenal. "The times are calling for absolute creativity because all of the traditional business models for releasing a film have serious issues," he says. "The only way to make money is to keep the budget as low as possible to make the back-end meaningful. This will force filmmakers to be both very creative and more disciplined." The directors who adapt and pull off grand-looking films at low cost might be the ones who thrive in the new environment. Daniels says he's happy that budget restraints forced him to nix his animated dreams. "My friends have all told me, 'Thank God you didn't make that movie,' " he says. Awards Watch: DirectorsNov 19, 2009, 05:30 PM ET
Before shooting "Precious," director Lee Daniels envisioned a scene in which a gaggle of animated pink creatures were squashed by the rear end of his lead character. The idea was to bring a fanciful, humorous element to his downbeat depiction of an obese, illiterate teen living with an abusive mother in Harlem.
One problem: There was no money in his tiny budget for the effects. "After realizing I couldn't afford animation, I had to readjust the script to figure out a different way to bring out Precious' imagination," Daniels recalls. He decided to scale down his vision in favor of a more conventional -- yet still compelling -- device: dream sequences. Daniels is hardly alone this year in making tough creative compromises to save money. As the recession squeezes prestige film budgets, many of the year's most ambitious directors are being forced to milk the most from limited resources. Take Jim Sheridan, for example. The director of the Oscar-nominated pic "My Left Foot" was tapped by Relativity Media and Lionsgate to helm December's "Brothers," about a missing Marine (Tobey Maguire) and his younger brother (Jake Gyllenhaal), both in love with the same woman (Natalie Portman).
It also meant Sheridan had to convince Maguire to skip holiday meals over Christmas because he needed his star to drop 20 pounds and the director didn't have the money to extend production. "In the old days, studios were cash-rich," Sheridan says. "If you had a problem, you could go talk to executives. Nowadays, if you go over your budget, you better find the money yourself." Getting Maguire to forgo mashed potatoes was nothing, however, compared to the emergency that erupted one week into the "Brothers" shoot. Axium International, a payroll agency that serviced many productions including "Brothers," shut its doors and declared bankruptcy. In the midst of shooting, the film was out more than $1 million, and the only way to keep things moving was for producers to sacrifice their contingency fees. They did. Nicolas Chartier, president of Voltage Pictures and a producer of "The Hurt Locker," says that in order to contain costs, directors must wean themselves from A-list stars and convince cinematographers and editors to work for reduced fees. Top helmers are actually better positioned in that effort, Chartier believes, because they can attract above and below-the-line talent willing to work for less. "As a producer and financier, I need to work with directors who are able to communicate their passion for the project to others from the start," Chartier says. "You know the project will work out even under a smaller budget because the director will do everything he or she can to make it work." Flexibility is key, especially on the part of the filmmaker. When making his first movie, "A Single Man," director Tom Ford went through several dozen rewrites in order to stay within his film's $7 million budget. A major obstacle was portraying life in southern California in 1962, particularly outdoors. For example, Ford wanted to shoot a conversation between Colin Firth's character and a male escort inside a car on the highway. But the scene would have required blocking off the throughway and finding vintage cars to put in the background. Instead, Ford moved the conversation to a parking lot. In order to save money, directors like Ford are giving up bold exterior scenes in exchange for highly detailed interior shots. To portray his lead character's home life, Ford pulled furniture out of his own home and painted some art inside the house himself. "I've run a fairly big-scale business for a long time," says Ford, most famous as the fashion photographer and designer who revitalized the Gucci house before starting his own clothing and fragrance lines. "I'm extremely budget-conscious and disciplined. And you know what? I kind of enjoy the control you have with a small budget and fewer people around to tell you what to do." Not every filmmaker reacts so coolly when pressed with a belt-tightened budget. When "Amelia" director Mira Nair was told by producers that it would be too expensive to fly a perfect replica of Amelia Earhart's famous Electra airplane from Canada to Africa, she says she was bewildered. "How can you not fly the hero of the movie?" she asks. Inspired by Gandhi, the famed pioneer of civil disobedience from her native India, Nair threatened producers with a hunger strike if they didn't relent. Executives at Fox Searchlight eventually allowed her to take the plane, but they required her to agree to a very short shooting schedule so she could return the plane quickly. Nair and her crew had barely any time to shoot Amelia's journey around the world before they needed to pack up and move to their next location. Some directors believe that studios clamping down on budgets might actually help them make tough creative choices. "If you're constantly being told you can't have everything, you constantly have to go back and ask yourself what's most important," says Tom Hooper, director of the period soccer drama "The Damned United." "This can be clarifying because it forces you as the filmmaker to focus on the storytelling." Hooper was given more than $100 million to re-create colonial Boston for HBO's "John Adams" miniseries, but only about a tenth of that to portray England in the late 1960s and early '70s in "United." The prospect was daunting enough to scare off director Stephen Frears, who left citing an inability to figure out the logistics to make it work. Hooper came aboard and decided he wanted to shoot the movie with "kitchen-sink realism." He incorporated real TV footage from the period and took pains to avoid digital manipulation in re-creating the working class conditions surrounding the Darby playing field. The director's stroke of cost-saving brilliance might have come in the game scenes. Whereas Ridley Scott used expensive computer graphics to fill a Roman stadium in 2000's "Gladiator," Hopper bribed extras with fish and chips and made up the rest of the 40,000 fanatics by using inflatable dummies. Bob Berney, whose Apparition label is releasing awards contenders "Bright Star" and "The Young Victoria," says directors need to exploit all the tricks in their arsenal. "The times are calling for absolute creativity because all of the traditional business models for releasing a film have serious issues," he says. "The only way to make money is to keep the budget as low as possible to make the back-end meaningful. This will force filmmakers to be both very creative and more disciplined." The directors who adapt and pull off grand-looking films at low cost might be the ones who thrive in the new environment. Daniels says he's happy that budget restraints forced him to nix his animated dreams. "My friends have all told me, 'Thank God you didn't make that movie,' " he says.
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