UK Film Council Report On Micro Budget Movies
This report provides a lucid and engaging insight into the emergence of low and micro budget films in the UK over the past five years. Using comprehensive surveys and case studies the report documents the reasons behind micro budget movie growth, its impact on the UK film industry and the key players in its progress.
The prevailing message of the report is that micro budget moviemaking is here to stay. It has found a niche in a UK arena dominated by big Hollywood studio releases (which comprise almost 90% of the market) and although finding itself in fierce competition with independent US titles and bigger budget UK releases, the dramatic increase in micro budget movie production points to a sector on the up.
It is speculated that part of the reason for the rise in micro budget movies is the emergence of digital technologies. The proliferation of HDV cameras, editing software, DVD replication hardware etc has placed the means of production into the hands of the many, instead of the privileged few.
Business models for micro budget movies are constantly evolving and encompass a variety of different approaches but do on the whole tend to rely upon private investment. The advantage of this being that in almost 90% of cases, the producers retained at least part ownership of the cultural IP.
It would be fair to conclude from this report, that micro budget movies are beginning to usurp the position of the ‘calling card, held by the traditional short film format. The benefits being that they offer the same creative freedoms as short film but provide a better training ground for development to fully fledged features and the possibility of investor return. The success stories of films like Napoleon Dynamite, Once & The Blair Witch Project also indicate the strong possibility of micro budgets one day soon becoming a fully sustainable format, parallel to the conventional studio format.
