All Low-Budget Movies Are Not Created Equal or Equally Creative

In his Counterpunch (“Little Movies Offer Good Female Roles,” Calendar, Nov. 23), writer-director Bruce Jay Reisman laments the fact that it is difficult to get a script into the hands of a “name” actress if the film is considered “low budget.” While Reisman is absolutely correct that there are many good female roles available in low-budget films, he seems to be unaware as to the reasons agents are reluctant to let their clients read for them.

As a fellow writer-director with three features to my credit, I, like Reisman, suffer from guilt by association. I prefer working in low-budget because I can deliver a product greater than the sum of its parts. However, the sad fact of life is that virtually every amateur and wanna-be in the world thinks he/she can make a film with the look of an “A” on a “B” budget.

Unfortunately, the film festivals and markets are littered with amateurish product produced with “dumb money.” The very same people who immediately call a mechanic if the car leaks oil or a plumber if the toilet overflows feel perfectly qualified to write, direct and/or produce a million-dollar feature film.

Alas, many of these people have succeeded in raising the money from unsophisticated investors, distribution pre-sales or rich uncles and have flooded the market with inferior product. This has had the effect of diminishing the value of all low-budget features as, quite often, a qualified person with an excellent product finds himself in a bidding war with a rank amateur.

Additionally, a number of low-budget production companies are oblivious to the fact that you can make a good film for under $1 million, and are perpetually churning out films that look like two high school students spent the weekend in the back yard with a camcorder. Many of the schlock houses will cough up the salary for a name star and proceed to cast her in a straight-to-video nightmare.

Finally, there are many independent producers, and I use the term for purposes of identification, not recognition, who are seeking to raise money for unfinanced projects on the strength of the cast. They put the cart before the horse by expecting a performer to spend time reading for a part that may or may never become a reality.

If a person becomes associated with too many low-budget features, he or she becomes regarded as damaged goods by the mainstream film industry. Many promising careers were destroyed by people who were overexposed in too many bad low-budget films. A person seeking to make inroads into the business must constantly seek to escalate or risk being trapped forever in “B” films. A person who is a name star who appears in a “B” film is generally perceived (whether or not it is the case) as being desperate for work.

Reisman also takes a shot at the greatest nemesis to creativity in the history of film--the story analyst. He is correct when he describes the process whereby agents and producers place screenplays in the hands of readers (people hired strictly to read and evaluate material). Many readers are either inexperienced or failed writers and, out of jealousy or anger, can make a practice of trashing good scripts.

However, once again Reisman is unaware of or has overlooked the condition that gave rise to the power of the reader--that is, every short-order cook, pot scrubber, schoolchild and on and on in the charted universe is trying to sell a screenplay, and the agents are so swamped with scripts from amateurs that they have been forced to hire readers.

In short, the stumbling blocks legitimate writers and directors such as Reisman and myself have encountered are due to the fact that we are forced to compete with unqualified people. It’s a fact of life in the film industry and there’s nothing any of us can do about it except keep trying. If one can’t accept it, one has no business pursuing a career in the most competitive business in the world.