How is District 9's budget so cheap?

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  • How is District 9's budget so cheap?

    A lot of sci phi, aliens, explosions, etc.

    How did he keep it at $30 million?

    I looked through Google but couldn't find anything usefull, all they mention is lack of stars and that it was filmed in the ghetto.

    But surely that can't be it, I thought the most expensive thing in films = explosions, GCI, and actors if they're A+.

  • #2
    Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

    I think it boils down to 'CGI is expensive because it is labour intensive'. (Yes - you need hardware & software licenses - but that's a fixed cost for the FX house. And there are a lot of free tools for things that used to be expensive - like motion camera tracking)

    But labour is extremely cheap in South Africa. As a comparison a local billionaire assures us that they pay $2 a day for mine workers there ... literally at least a hundredth of the local cost. Anything labour intensive (like FX) is going to be much cheaper there.

    In probably related news - A major FX house that worked on Prometheus and The Avengers has just shut down - letting go 80 employees.

    Mac
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    • #3
      Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

      There was also some good directing going on in that film as well. There's a thread on this film already that talks about all the ways he probably saved bread.

      Always refreshing to see a good sci-fi flick with a reasonable budget and not some $100M plus okay script and a bunch of "names" thrown in for marketing purposes.
      One must be fearless and tenacious when pursuing their dreams. If you don't, regret will be your reward.

      The Fiction Story Room

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      • #4
        Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

        South Africa + No stars.

        Add Will Smith and union rates = over 100 million budget.
        Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue

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        • #5
          Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

          IIRC, the director was working with Peter Jackson on pre-production on a Halo film, and when that fell through they shifted over to developing District 9. The effects from the Halo work were tweaked by Jackson's FX shop, they used the RED camera and a found-footage approach. All in all, 30m kind of seems a li'l pricey for what they delivered...
          "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

          My YouTube channel.

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          • #6
            Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

            - shot digitally
            - south africa
            - non recognizable lead actors

            come to think of it, the producer/s deserve an award!
            Originally posted by Great White Mark
            Film is art? Just a tip, it's called show business, not show art.

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            • #7
              Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

              Originally posted by Chief View Post
              A lot of sci phi, aliens, explosions, etc.

              How did he keep it at $30 million?

              I looked through Google but couldn't find anything usefull, all they mention is lack of stars and that it was filmed in the ghetto.

              But surely that can't be it, I thought the most expensive thing in films = explosions, GCI, and actors if they're A+.
              Blomkamp owns his own special effects company. Before he made this movie, he made a short -- well, let's get this straight, his *company* made a special effects short that he used to sell this project.

              This is how it works. In the special effects world, there's wholesale and there's retail.

              There was this other short, "Panic Attack" floating around on youtube for awhile that was in the same mode -- a city being attacked by a bunch of giant robots, that was supposed shot for $200.

              Sure, shot for $200 by someone who happened to own his own special effects company -- who owned all of the servers and computers and software and cameras -- and had all the staff sitting around on salary not doing anything else able to work on this thing -- not included in the $200.

              That's obviously not what he would charge *me* if I came to him and asked him to turn out that five minutes of giant robot footage for my movie.

              In the same token, what Blomkamp charged his own company to produce all of that footage for his own movie was, I have no doubt, a lot less than he would have charged other companies to produce the same amount of footage.

              I have no doubt that that deal on the effects was part of the pitch that he made in selling this movie.

              I've been there. When we were doing the show Monsters, we courted guys who ran effects houses and offered them a shot to direct episodes -- but, oh, by the way -- come in and do the effects on that episode for free.

              And the result is, we've got a couple episodes of Monsters with really outstanding special effects, given our budgets, which were minimal.

              That is the secret of District 9's amazing and copious special effects.

              NMS

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              • #8
                Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

                It was so laughable how many people thought they could make an exact knockoff variation of Panick Attack for $200. I know some VFX people who were saying at the time they were getting bombarded with people trying to low ball them beyond belief and kept pointing to that short film as an example to justify their price smdh.
                One must be fearless and tenacious when pursuing their dreams. If you don't, regret will be your reward.

                The Fiction Story Room

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                • #9
                  Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

                  Exactly, Neil Blomkamp is a special effects/CGI wizard. Literally.

                  This is undoubtedly a big part of the reason of how he managed to have stunning photo-realistic CGI at such a low cost.

                  I guess the same could be said for 'Skyline' too. The directors were CGI wizards.

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                  • #10
                    Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

                    Originally posted by nmstevens View Post
                    I've been there. When we were doing the show Monsters, we courted guys who ran effects houses and offered them a shot to direct episodes -- but, oh, by the way -- come in and do the effects on that episode for free.

                    And the result is, we've got a couple episodes of Monsters with really outstanding special effects, given our budgets, which were minimal.

                    NMS
                    Whoa, you worked on Monsters? When I was like 6 my dad was huge into horror and when he wasn't playing his VHS copy of MJ's Thriller or some zombie flick he was excitedly waiting for that Monsters show to be on. It was only a couple years ago that I suddenly remembered the show. That weird opening burned into my memory... and then I relived my painful childhood memory of the death of Glim Glim. I think I was sad for weeks.

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                    • #11
                      Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

                      nms has been crushing lately.

                      To build on what he's saying (and this is based on me trying to remember a conversation with another writer), the studios make filmmakers use their effects people or post house or whatever, even if the filmmaker has a hook-up to get the job done cheaper. Why?

                      Because the studios are in essence charging the fvck out of themselves, so the money isn't really leaving, and then they get to use that high ass bill as a write off.

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                      • #12
                        Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

                        Originally posted by BattleDolphinZero View Post
                        nms has been crushing lately.

                        To build on what he's saying (and this is based on me trying to remember a conversation with another writer), the studios make filmmakers use their effects people or post house or whatever, even if the filmmaker has a hook-up to get the job done cheaper. Why?

                        Because the studios are in essence charging the fvck out of themselves, so the money isn't really leaving, and then they get to use that high ass bill as a write off.
                        Makes perfect sense. I always wondered why the studio gave Zack Snyder a certain amount of money to produce a teaser using their post production people just for him to come back and PITCH the idea of the movie 300. It wasn't until they saw the teaser he had put together that they greenlit the film, I always thought under normal circumstances that'd be on HIM to fund in order to get the movie going if he was still in the stage of trying to convince them.
                        One must be fearless and tenacious when pursuing their dreams. If you don't, regret will be your reward.

                        The Fiction Story Room

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                        • #13
                          Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

                          Don't be fooled. The movie cost really around $60 million. My friend knows one of the producers on it. But it did come out really well. They told people about the 30 million price as part of the marketing for the film. It cost around 60 maybe a little more. There are also some stories about that 2nd half of the movie I've heard, but not sure if they are completely true.

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                          • #14
                            Re: How is District 9's budget so cheap?

                            Originally posted by Deion22 View Post
                            Don't be fooled. The movie cost really around $60 million. My friend knows one of the producers on it. But it did come out really well. They told people about the 30 million price as part of the marketing for the film. It cost around 60 maybe a little more.
                            That's definitely not out of the realm of possibility either.
                            One must be fearless and tenacious when pursuing their dreams. If you don't, regret will be your reward.

                            The Fiction Story Room

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