Melvin Van Peebles Quotes

Trying to make a feature film yourself with no money is the best film school you can do.

I used the principles of Kickstarter to make 'She's Gotta Have It.' We filmed that in 1985 to 1986. The final cost was $175,000. I didn't have that money. It was friends, grants, donations. We saved our bottles for the nickel deposit.

I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don't have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

There's a strange sense of accomplishment in making an independent film. Everything's against you; there's no time, and even less money - you bring a bottle of glue, chip in twenty bucks, and hope you all make it through the day. If you manage to finish it and it actually turns out to be pretty good, it's thrilling.

Even with a big budget, you can make a niche film.

I want to have the illegitimate child of independent film making and the budget to make it. That's my aspiration.

I didn't have a lot of independent film connections. It really took until the digital film revolution came along that I realized that I could do it myself.

This was truly guerilla filmmaking. We shot out in the middle of nowhere in a place called Delta Flats, where basically every day was some new minor catastrophe.

I've been blessed with enough wealth that I can make a film myself up to a certain budget. So one way I thought I would reinvent myself was just to make these very small, personal films that I've financed myself.

You make a movie for 9k for the freedom it allows you.

My mother gave me this book called Feature Films at Used Car Prices by a guy named Rick Schmidt. I gotta credit the guy, cuz he gave me the most practical advice. It empowers you.

More personal films, you could make them, but your budgets would be cut down.

I think I had the most fun making a movie with 'Dedication,' just because you knew that it was a passion project for everyone involved. We had X amount of days to shoot New York in the cold. No trailers. Just sort of kind of doing it guerilla style in a way.

Many people came out and said, 'Boy I'd love to make a film that way.' Well, borrow some money, get some people together - you can get people to work for nothing, just treat them right, treat them as human beings, not stars, give them all an equal share, make them feel a part of what they're doing. There's no big secret to it.

When I was 25 years old and had no money - and didn't know how to make movies and had no experience - I was able to get $25,000 together, and that film was 'The Brothers McMullen.'

From a production point of view, I still have one foot firmly planted in the independent film world, and much of the shooting on 'Jumper' was done 'Swingers'-style because that was the only way we could afford to do it.

I love films that are made with almost no budget.

Definition of an independent film is torture with less money and time.

Filmmakers, they tell me they want to make movies. I say, 'Good, go out, buy a $500 camera, get some friends and make a movie. Don't go to Hollywood. Stay wherever you are.'

If you want to make movies you need to think on a micro-micro level and figure out how to make them for nothing with people who really care about your movie and really want to make it.

Three years after starting, by physically doing everything from raising the finance to special effects, we'd finally cobbled together our low budget film.

I usually make films with $2 and a paper clip.

Independent filmmaking burns off a lot of storytelling fat.

My dream is just to make zero-budget movies for the rest of my life, because I love that environment.

Making an independent film is so different.