Why are movies so expensive to make?

Last year I decided I didn't know enough about the movie industry, so I signed up for a course in film making with Line Out in Leicester. We learned about lighting and sound and cameras and scene structure and how movies are put together. But the highlight of the course was the final weekend when we went out to make our own five minute movie.

Five minutes is a difficult length to write a story for. It is too long for a single punchline gag and too short to easily develop characters and relationships that the audience will want to follow. With those limitations in mind, I set out to write a five page screenplay. I was delighted when my story, Pictures of Andy, was selected for production.

Then came the filming weekend. Such an exhausting two days of sweat and effort! But the production team, including Gav, Bav and Alex (I'll write more about them in a later post) was excellent. The actors, including Haresh Sood and Claudia Wilson were superb. All the days of writing, storyboarding and planning bore fruit. When we sat down for our final 2 days of work on the film - in the editing suite - we were amazed to see the result taking shape.

All that for five minutes of film? Now I start to understand why movies are so expensive to make. But was it worth it? All I can say is, I can't wait to do it again.

Our film, Pictures of Andy, has just been put up on YouTube. Unfortunately our attractive widescreen format film has been squashed to get it to fit YouTube. But it will give you an idea of what we were doing.