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Make a No Budget Movie: Chapter Three

I was determined to set my historical adventure film in Nova Scotia, my home province in Canada, during either the American Revolution or the French and Indian War. After some mental deliberation I settled on the latter. The French and Indian War in Nova Scotia had been a dark and brutal period in which British, French, Acadian, and native Mi’kmaq forces had all struggled for dominance. Some large battles had been fought – the siege of the French town of Louisbourg, for instance – but most of the fighting had been small scale, ambushes and raids.

Make a No Budget Movie: Chapter Two

A dramatic location down the road from my house.

The old adage to “write what you know” has a counterpart in no budget film making: “film what you have.” By this I mean that, if you are unable or unwilling to spend any money on your film, then you need to take stock of your existing resources and weave your story from whatever fabric they give you. Those resources will include everything from potential locations, sets, props, wardrobe, and even your actors, who, for the most part, will not be actors at all, but your friends and colleagues.

Make a No Budget Movie: Chapter One

The year was 1978. I was ten years old. Star Wars had just come out, and the original Battlestar Galactica had aired on TV. I was inspired. I wanted to make my own movie, my own space opera. So I started. I wrote an entire script, in storyboard form, since a movie starts with a script, with a story – that much I knew. Next I cast my friends in the various roles. They were agreeable, though a little skeptical. Next I began to sort out wardrobe and locations. I even made spaceship models from balsa wood and bits of plastic. I was almost ready.

Then I hit a snag.