Film Characters To Put Into Your Low Budget Film.

The key to low-budget film-making is to have as few locations as possible. Locations and travel cost money.


Anna Paquin who is in the vampire TV show True Blood

Now, onto characters. You can’t afford to have a baseball player in your film if you want to see him in action. The key is having characters who can look authentic without renting expensive stadiums.

CIA agents are always popular in films. All you need is an actor in a suit, and, possibly, a fake gun. (If you are filming outside with a fake gun you must alert the authorities and tell them you will be filming in the area. Least you get shot by armed police thinking you are some kind of homicidal killer).

FBI agents: Ditto.

Waitress. Make a gritty, real life drama. It is relatively easy to talk a cafe owner into filming in their establishment for free. They will probably say yes for some publicity and a thank you in the credits.

People in love; everyone loves a good love story, and a happy ending. The purpose of film is to tell a story visually. Is there possibly an easier story to tell than a story about love and relationships. Something we all understand and go through?

Gangsters. a suit, a fake cockney accent and a fake gun. Brevity is the soul of low-budget film-making. Be careful when doing a gangster film though. They are heard to do well as Martin Scorsese has put the bar so high. You could make a good short if you have a good, original take on it.

Zombies; It’s easy to find a trainee make up artist who wants to add to their portfolio so your zombies will be authentic. It’s another popular genre.

Vampires; They are huge right now thanks to Twilight and True Blood. How hard is it to find some black clothes and fake blood? Bloody easy in fact.

More important than the genre and characters for a film is the script. An original film, well acted, and with a good script can beat any big budget blockbuster. Money is no longer a problem for independent filmmakers. You can make a film on a shoestring budget.

Photo credit: DarkChacal

Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks Resign. Murdoch Latest


Following on from the last article Frost did on the phone hacking scandal, Rebekah Brooks has finally resigned after Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of the press baron, launched a rant that Brooks had ‘fucked the company’. Les Hinton, who has been at News Corporation for over 50 years has also resigned saying that he ‘had no other choice’. Apparently, Brooks had offered her resignation a week ago.

 

Rupert Murdoch has taken out a full page advert in the national press to say apologise despite saying previously that ‘we only made minor mistakes.’ The FBI have launched an investigation into the claims that the phones of 9/11 victims were hacked.

 

Carl Bernstein, the former Washington Post reporter who exposed Watergate and helped depose a US president, says it is evident that the events of the past week “are the beginning, not the end, of the seismic event”.

 

News Corporation has hired Edelman, a global communications company to manage the crisis on both sides of the Atlantic and it looks like James Murdoch being the heir apparent it now a pipe dream.

 

UK parliamentary hearing start next week and the future is looking grim for Murdoch, he personally met the family of Milly Dowler to apologise to them, but the damage has all been done. It will interesting to see what happens next. It is ironic to see the hounder hounded, a lot of the photographers taking pictures of Murdoch, actually work for him. Tom Mockridge has been appointed to run News International. Will Chase Carey be heading up global corporation soon.