What Pink Floyd Taught Me About Budgets

When we talk about time and money I always find myself thinking of the MIGHTY Pink Floyd. Like many people of my age I whiled away many hours, of my youth, with a spliff and Dark Side of the Moon, bouncing around in that ethereal part of my head I always have the odd refrain "the sun is the same in a relative way…" which of course refers to Time, but could just as easily refer to money.  I mean it literally is "all relative" isn't it?  I don't want to harp on and on about this, but when I say The Stagg Do was made for a micro-budget or a low budget, I'm not talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds, but more like 10. Not ten pounds obviously, but circa ten thousand pounds… might be a bit more, might be a bit less, to quote Dirty Harry "to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself." 

But this isn't a blog about precision, it's about relativity. I was talking to an accountant friend the other day (I know…right?) who was telling me how she'd been to a red carpet premiere in London the other day, for a low budget British film. Now I'm fairly familiar with this film and although I don't know the specifics I *do* know that it cost best part of £150,000, which really isn't just in a different league to The Stagg Do it's actually a different game altogether. Except it isn't.  When it comes down to it - to the brass tacks - as they say: it's the same. A £150k film is the same as a £10k film is the same as a £150 MILLION film.  How can that possibly be true? I mean if a gadgie earns £150million is he the same as someone who earns £150,000 or even £10,000?  The Tax Man may not see them as equal and nor will society at large, but at the end of the day, all three will exit stage left in a wooden box. And all three films would be seen in a cinema for the same price. A wise distributor taught me that, and it's always given me pause for thought. The cinema sets the ticket price and it's the same, whether you go to see Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow or two lads from Walker in The Stagg Do; this is another reason why we chose to self-distribute TSD. 

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We set the price, we recoup the money and more importantly we SHARE THE PROFITS. You see everyone who worked on The Stagg Do was unpaid, everyone signed up to profit share; that's one of the reasons it's taken 3 years to finish the film.  I could've raised the money to finish it a few times, but not on MY terms. My terms involved not diluting the profit position of everyone who gave their time to make this film.  But as I've said before that means we're responsible for getting the film seen by as many people as possible. This is why I've asked you all before to the spread the word, share links get people to buy tickets - when you don't have a marketing budget (and we don't) then you're relying on word of mouth.  It shouldn't be that hard to go viral up here - it's only a small region, but we're relying on the press too - hopefully the BBC will do a piece on us… We could really do with more - do you have contacts at Tyne Tees or Metro Radio? Put us in touch.  Help the audience find this film.

And if you haven't already BUY TICKETS TO THE WORLD PREMIERE.