Chapter 6 Money
Show me the budget and I’ll show you the film.—Jean-Luc Godard
Mr. Godard’s quote provides a useful directive to producers to let their budget dictate their aesthetic. Moreover, there is a great deal of truth to the maxim that working with budgetary constraints often leads to better results. Filmmakers generally agree that imposing limits on spending forces them to think creatively, often concocting brilliant and inexpensive solutions to ambitious and pricey shots, set pieces, or sequences. Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha (1980) provides one such example. The film, a historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan, features numerous complex battle sequences requiring the use of hundreds of extras, horses, props, wardrobe, ...
Get The Strategic Producer now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
