Inevitably when I’m talking to media professionals about the show, and mention that we shot the pilot for under $170, they are amazed.
How is it possible to do almost 20 minutes of sitcom for that little money. Well, if we had to pay for everything and everyone involved, it wouldn’t have been possible. The bill would have been somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000. But we didn’t have to do that because of the connection we have.
The relationship I had with my church allowed us to use locations, gear and seek volunteers for free. The relationships we built with and among the cast and crew, who caught the vision for the project, allowed us to have zero personnel costs. I borrowed everything, or used things I had.
The money we did spend went for props and a little bit of food. Not much food, our craft services table had donuts and water bottles. We borrowed what props we could, but some just had to be purchased.
The locations that were not on the church property we were able to do because of a relationship I had with the coffee shop owner.
There is no doubt that more money would have been better. Being able to pay extras would have been huge. We would have had more than two show up for the morning shoot. Paying cast crew is something I want very much to do. The hours they gave for the pilot were just crazy. They deserve to be compensated. but even though we didn’t have budget, they still worked very hard because they believe in the project.
So, if you have a dream, take stock in what is around you. What connections do you already have. Who do you know that can catch your vision? Then cast it and move forward. Keep doing what you can with what you have. If you wait until you are ready you will never get started.
Peculiar 