Low Budget vs High Budget Film

If you’re a film aficionado like myself, you may be aware of a sense of competition between big-budget Hollywood films and lower budget, more independently produced features. Even if you just enjoy the odd flick on Netflix, it’s worth knowing what your well-earned student wonga can buy.

So: high budget or low budget?

For low budget we’re talking under $50 million. If that figure sounds like a lot to you, a million is nothing in blockbuster terms, I promise. World War Z, the zombie-genre monolith Hollywood churned out this summer, cost just under $200 million.

In past years the Hollywood machine created a formula for making maximum profit. Throwing money at a project that is A: pre-sold (I.e. it was already a best-selling book, TV series, or in Battleship’s case, a board game) and B: CGI-tastic – that is, there are a lot of explosions (any Michael Bay film) –  have proven in the past to make the most turnover.

But budget doesn’t necessarily determine how good a film is going to be. With no due respect Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End had an estimated $300 million budget and isn’t likely to be winning any awards. Meanwhile critical successes such as the $32,000 Fish Tank – which won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2009- will most likely never make a profit.

Equally, a big budget film isn’t necessarily a Hollywood-backed project. Last year’s Cloud Atlas was extremely high budget but all the funding was independent – the directing siblings the Wachowski’s even put in their own money for lack of backing.

Low budget films first emerged as B Movies. Back in the day, these were the lesser part of a double-feature screening. Less money and talent was afforded to these projects than the A Movie blockbuster, but this soon developed into a genre of its own. By the sixties B Movies were exploring more vulgar subject matters, such as sex and violence. These films broke so many cultural taboos, pushing not only censorship boundaries with their gore and soft pornography, but also were a platform of social radicalisation. For instance, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) still stands as a sci-fi classic, having been said to inspire Night of the Living Dead (1968) which was groundbreaking in being one of the first films to have a black male lead (Duane Jones).

Low Budget movies also tend to push the boundaries of style in filmmaking. Because they might not have the money, filmmakers are forced to be more creative. In The Fountain, for lack of funding, Darren Aronofsky used microscopic shots of underwater organisms to mimic a dying star. X-rated blaxploitation jaw-drapper Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) not only pushed boundaries with its content (unsimulated sex, racism) but with its precocious style – a whirl of jump-cuts and fast paced editing.

If you’re feeling for a classic this October 31^st, Halloween was made on only a $320,000 budget and still stands as a consummate slasher horror movie. What’s more, The Rocky Horror Picture Show not only surpassed the ‘line’ but redefined it. This extravagant, trippy movie is a plethora of sex, cross-dressing, cannibalism and sci-fi which has earned an intense cult fanbase.

But recently Hollywood has upped its game, with some exciting prospects on the horizon. The consistently brilliant Coen brothers have a new project:  Inside Llewelyn Davis. Marvel’s Avenger’s spin-off Thor: The Dark World is out soon (8^th November) and it looks impressive. Whereas the generic blockbuster can be bad (Transformers,anyone?), with a good director at the helm the result can be successful. Joss Whedon recently wowed the world with The Avengers, a sheer explosion of fighting, wittiness and epic. If you’re not a superhero fanatic I would recommend you take a look at something like Woody Allen’s latest Blue Jasmine.

Ultimately, it depends what you’re looking for in a film. Personally I like both – while blockbusters are generally light relief and entertainment, lower budget films tend to make you think and can even make an impact on the world around them. Moreover if the people in charge of a film are more interested in the art itself than any money the project makes – your Tarantinos, Coens and Whedons – you generally can expect a worthwhile cinematic experience.