The Micro Film Tournament

21/07/2020

***COVID-19 UPDATE:

After much deliberation, we've decided to cancel The Micro Film Tournament. We were so very excited and are truly disappointed, but well... 2020. Please know we will issue refunds to all submissions, and will also be sharing some of the films we loved on our social media.

Thank you so much for your interest in The Micro and we hope to move forward with it next year. Please stay tuned for any further updates.

Much love and stay safe,
M

21/05/2020

Wanna know how was shot for the price of a used car? Check out this interview w/ on his podcast. Link in bio.

30/04/2020

Don't you ever think that all of this might come back around...? Freestyle Digital Media has debuted an official trailer for an indie Los Angeles crime

24/04/2020

Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios, has acquired North American

13/04/2020

Stalker (1979) - $13,500 approx. (1m rubles)
Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

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A Soviet Sci-Fi film based on the novel “Roadside Picnic” by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. The film combines elements of science fiction with a heavy dose of psychological and philosophical themes. Tarkovsky aimed to make a film using a single action on a single location within a single point in time, and on a budget with “whatever we happened to find in our pockets or lying on the ground.”

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Tarkovsky spent a year shooting exteriors but when the crew returned to Moscow, they realized all of the film had been improperly developed and the footage unusable. New Kodak 5247 stock had been used which Soviet labs were not yet familiar with. Even before this, Tarkovsky and his first cinematographer Georgy Rerberg had been at odds and after seeing the poorly developed material, Tarkovsky fired him. He considered abandoning further shooting and the Soviet film boards wanted to shut the film down... but Tarkovsky came up with a solution: he asked permission to make a two-part film. They agreed and Tarkovsky reshot almost all of the film with new dp Alexander Knyazhinsky. Ultimately, Tarkovsky shot Stalker three times and used over 16,000 feet of film. Like his other films, Stalker relies on long, meticulously-framed takes with subtle camera movement, resisting fast cuts. The film was shot in a few days at deserted hydro power plants in Estonia. Several people involved in the production, including Tarkovsky, later died from causes that some crew members attributed to the film's long shooting schedule in toxic locations.

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The films initial reception was not favorable and the State Committee for Cinematography were critical of the film. Since then, reviews of the film have been very positive, earning a place in the British Film Institutes "50 Greatest Films of All Time". Stalker sold 4.3 million tickets in the Soviet Union and was awarded the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Andrei Tarkovsky is now widely considered one of the most influential directors in world cinema.

@ Tallinn, Estonia

11/04/2020

Primer (2004) - $7,000
Dir. Shane Carruth

Carruth directed, produced, wrote, composed the music and starred in the Sci-Fi film, which is notable for its very low budget, experimental story structure, philosophical themes and complex dialogue.

A former engineer with a math degree, Carruth set the story in industrial parks and suburbia, designing an obscure plot to reflect the complexity of time travel. He studied physics while writing the script to help make the character's dialogue sound as authentic as possible, avoiding contrived exposition and instead portrayed jargon used by working scientists. This approach carried over into production: the time machine itself is a plain gray box with a distinctive electronic "hum" created by overlaying sounds from a mechanical grinder and car engine. Shot in Dallas, TX over 5 weeks with a 5 person crew, the budget required precise use of the limited Super16mm film available by carefully limiting the number of takes. Storyboarded on 35mm stills, Carruth created a unique, overexposed look by mixing fluorescent lighting, high-speed film, non-neutral color temps and filters. The film was in post for 2 years and Carruth said the experience was so arduous that he almost abandoned it several times.

The $7k film won the Grand Jury prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and secured distribution with THINKFilm. Primer went on to earn $814,926 at the box office and has since established a strong cult following. @ Dallas, Texas

07/04/2020

Following (1998) - $6,000
Dir. Christopher Nolan

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The uniquely structured British crime noir was written and designed to be as inexpensive as possible to produce but Nolan has described the production as "extreme" even for a low-budget shoot. This was his second attempt at making a feature with the first hindered by technical issues.

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With very little money and equipment and a cast and crew who all worked full-time jobs on weekdays, production took a full year to complete. To make the most of limited time, resources and expensive 16mm film stock, every scene in the film was rehearsed extensively to allow the actors to quickly adapt to the location they found themselves in; most of the final film was composed of first takes. Shooting took place on Saturdays and Nolan shot about fifteen minutes of footage each day. This piecemeal approach kept the cost of film down and allowed him to pay for it out of his weekly pay, cobbling it together until he had enough to shoot again. Nolan filmed without professional film lighting equipment, using available light as much as possible which was helped by his decision to shoot handheld and in black and white. He thought it vital to capture the best location sound possible and began his distinct use of sound as a storytelling device. He also used friends and families homes as shooting locations, one being his parents house. Emma Thomas produced the film and the two are now married.

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Following initially couldn’t find love in the UK so Nolan submitted to US Festivals, where Slamdance invited the film to premiere. As the film slowly found firm footing - winning Best First Feature at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Tiger Award at Rotterdam - it was eventually released by the Criterion Collection; it has since been recognized as one of the most notable no-budget films of its time.

@ London UK

05/04/2020

Eraserhead (1977) - $10,000
Dir. David Lynch

Written, directed, produced, edited and scored by David Lynch, his first feature after several short films. The 21 page Kafka-inspired screenplay was produced with help from the American Film Institute, where he studied at the time.

With a 5 person crew shot on locations owned by AFI, one being a former horse stable Lynch slept in during production, the film took several years to complete due to lack of funding; it survived with earnings from Lynch’s newspaper route and with donations from childhood friend Jack Fisk and Sissy Spacek. Signature technical achievements were it’s controversial props and unique sound design: for a scene where a bed slowly dissolves into liquid, Lynch and sound designer Alan Splet placed a mic inside a plastic bottle, floated it in a bathtub and recorded air blown through the bottle. Once recorded, sounds were augmented by changes to reverb, pitch and frequency. After a poor initial test screening, Lynch believed he‘d mixed the soundtrack too high and cut out 20 minutes, bringing it down to 89 minutes.

Finally opening to tiny LA audiences, Eraserhead slowly gained popularity over several runs as a “midnight movie” and since its release, has earned many positive reviews. Several A-list directors eventually saw the film and were impressed: Stanley Kubrick reportedly said this was one of the films he made the cast and crew of The Shining watch. Mel Brooks saw it and offered Lynch the chance to direct The Elephant Man; he accepted. George Lucas asked him to direct Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, which Lynch turned down. @ American Film Institute

03/04/2020

El Mariachi (1992) - $7,000
Dir. Robert Rodriguez

The film was shot in Northeastern Mexico on a $7,000 budget, almost half of which Rodriguez raised by participating in experimental clinical drug testing while living in Austin, TX.

Rodriguez didn’t use a slate and the actors (mostly consisting of locals) signaled scene and take numbers with their fingers. He didn’t use a dolly but held the camera while being pushed around in a wheelchair and didn’t use synchronised sound: he shot the film silent then recorded on-set audio and synced in post. Lighting consisted of two 200-watt clip-on desk lamps. No film crew was hired: actors not in the scenes helped out. Rodriguez shot on a 16mm film camera before transferring to video for editing, avoiding the costs of cutting on film. In the end, he used only 24 rolls of film. Squibs used in shootout scenes were condoms filled with fake blood attached to weightlifting belts.

After being rejected from various Latino straight-to-video distributors, Rodriguez decided to send his film (in the format of a trailer at the time) to bigger distribution companies where it started to get attention. Execs at Columbia Pictures liked the film and bought the American distribution rights, eventually spending $200,000 to transfer the print to film, remix the sound and other post costs before spending millions more on marketing and distribution.

29/03/2020

‪Our next entry deadline is almost here! Head on over to FilmFreeway to submit your project today https://filmfreeway.com/TheMicroFilmTournament‬

“For big movies with small budgets.” - NoFilmSchool.com A 16 film, 4 round tournament dedicated to micro-budget filmmakers who’ve made the most with the l...

14/03/2020

🚨 Calling all features and [proof of concept] shorts under $250k 🚨 Submit your [new or old] film NOW and take 16% off the earlybird w/ waiver code: Sweet16

11/03/2020

Jump to 1:49:40 for discussion ▶️

An in-depth interview with prolific micro-budget director, Marcus Mizelle.