Minimise budget and maximise value, and turn your film into this year's cult classic

About this Event

At A Glance

• Welcome to Lo-to-no Budget Filmmaking Lockdown
• Enjoy professional film education wherever you are
• A weekend of short sharp advice from a leading professional
• Ask questions and get instant response

Some say it’s a terrible time to make movies. I hasten to disagree. Making movies using the old technology and the old business plan no longer works. If you understand how the industry now works, you can make a feature film, profitably.

Show Me the Money!

All day every day I hear the same complaint: “But you need a million plus to make a movie these days. And money everywhere is tight.”

Oh no, you don’t. And oh no it isn’t!

New technology means it’s never been cheaper to make a movie, if you know the insider tips and secrets that will allow you to maximise your budget and put value for money on the screen.

The money is there for the asking. The trick is to know how to ask, how much, and what for. If you need proof that low budget films are profitable, consider the success of 2011’s Insidious, the year’s most profitable film.

I attended the Lo-To-No Budget Filmmaking course with Elliot Grove this weekend and would like to thank him and Raindance. I came away feeling as though I had been in the trenches learning from the Guru. I’m proud to say that Elliot has given me the great foundation of information to draw on.

Sharleen Tutton

Raindance Doesn’t Teach Filmmaking

If you expect to learn filmmaking, this is the wrong course for you. We recommend that you attend an institution where academics will lecture you. This course is constantly updated featuring the latest developments in production and distribution.

If on the other hand, you want to learn how to become a filmmaker, how to kick-start your career, then this Raindance course is for you. At Raindance We Make Filmmakers.

Want to make a movie and don’t know where to start?

This intensive weekend seminar shows you how to shoot a 35mm or HD colour quality feature film, ninety minutes long with a Dolby stereo soundtrack for as little as £10,000. We did it at Raindance. We made the 35mm feature film Table 5 for just £278.38.

Share our first-hand experience in making movies that look great on a minimal budget.

All formats, including film, HDV and HD, and even mobile phones are discussed

Elliot Grove has developed a clear process that will assist you in producing, directing and selling your first feature film. This is the step-by-step method which launches successful careers. Movies like Pi, The Blair Witch Project, Chuck and Buck, Clerks and El Mariachi were all made using the principles that are demonstrated through lecture and video clips on this course.

The writers, directors or producers of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Waking Ned, Sliding Doors, Shawn of the Dead, Slumdog Millionaire and Memento have all attended this intensive seminar before making their first films. You can too.

About the Course

If you do not learn enough low budget tips to cover the cost of this course by lunchtime on the first day, we will refund you the difference.

This course is part lecture and part group discussion.

Day 1: Make The Movie

Learn a step-by-step process using proven cost-effective, low budget filmmaking techniques by considering the best and most efficient ways to produce, direct, shoot and edit a saleable feature film.

Pre-production: getting the pieces together

Pre-planning your shoot is probably the single most important way you can turn your shoot from disaster into a success. Follow these essential steps.

• 7 Essentials of a low budget movie
• Choosing your budget
• The one week shoot
• How to pay for your film
• Script essentials
• Budgeting and scheduing explained
• How to talk like a professional.
• The £10,000/$13,000 feature film budget

The Shoot

Once you have your cast and crew assembled, managing the actual shoot is a logistical and creative challenge. Learn how everything you do at this stage will have a ripple effect to the very last step of your film.

• Choosing a camera
• The importance of sound
• securing crew
• lo and no budget locations
• guerilla filmmaking explained
• Proven lo-budget shortcuts and faking a million pound budget
• More than fifty lo-budget shooting tips

15:00 Lunch

Post-production

Now that the craziness of the shoot is over, a filmmaker can settle into the editing process. Understanding this process will make you a better filmmaker.

• The role of the editor
• Using sound and music to enhance production values
• ADR, Foley and music in your film
• Getting professional actors
• The essentials of the art and craft of film directing
• Delivering the ‘deliverables’
• Avoiding the three big filmmaking mistakes

Day 2: Sell The Movie

.Discover the secrets and real facts behind marketing, selling and distributing your finished film throughout the world and the pre-planning you need to turn your movie into this year’s cult classic, and yourself into a hot filmmaker.

NEW: Self-distribution and the internet explained for filmmakers.

Budget and castings

Discover how the level of your budget will impact casting and the evenutaul valual of your film.

• The 100k/250k/500k/1mil budget
• Dealing with guilds and unions
• Securing actors
• Determining an actors value
• Typical low budget genres

Creating a sales and marketing strategy

Marketing and publicity is the secret to independent film success

• Publicity: the essential ingredient to selling your film
• PR kit: creating an effective package
• Turning your film and your career into this year’s cult classic
• Distribution and marketing in teh online age
• Plotting the film festival route
• Film buyers and film markets

15:00 Lunch

Raising money and deal structure

• The movie game: presenting your first project to investors.
• Film financing: executing a strategy for a £50,000 – £3,000,000 budget
• Routes to de-risking your film’s finance
• how crowdfunding works
• Honing a workable pitch for your film.
• The distribution deal

Over 15,000 film students and filmmakers have taken this course worldwide since 1993.

The honesty of what a film maker is up against! It was a wake up call! I would love to be able to make a 35mm motion picture but realise that while I still have a lot to learn I feel I’m learning faster than before. I need to make more short films however I will get there in the end!

Geraint Sweeney

It’s impossible to pick out any one single aspect of the course for special mention – the whole thing was excellent from start to finish. Elliot should be bottled and made available as a tonic for everyone involved in film!!! Brilliant and inspirational.

Andy North

Elliot’s infectious thirst for the low budget filmmaking process and all that entails. I feel more inspired to make a film than I have done in the last few years.

Carl Appletree

The Lo-To-No Budget Filmmaking class was presented in a structured, but relaxed and friendly manor. I left with a clear understanding of how to ascertain a required budget, arrange the financing and shoot a film, as well as how to take that film and move forward with gaining a distribution deal. I found the positive “you can do it” attitude of the tutor throughout the two days quashed any hesitations I had regarding entering into the movie industry.

John Merrick

This course is also available Live Online

Hi Elliot,

It’s Simon from the (online) Lo-To-No course this weekend just gone – thank you so much for such a fantastic weekend! To say I learned a lot would be an understatement, I feel like I have gone from a total novice to well-versed in the intricacies of low budget filmmaking. I had no idea so much went into producing movies! Your expertise and knowledge was invaluable, thank you very much!

Now all that’s left is for me to crack on with writing my movie, I already have an outline but now that I know that I could actually make it into a movie with the right funding, I’m raring to go!

Kind regards,

Simon