Who’s fault is it when movies with money seem low budget?

[Smackpixi]

So I happened to watch the first Doom movie last night, with The Rock, may or may have not seen before, it’s not memorable, so hard to tell. But from the very first scene, it screamed low budget sci-fi, was surprised, thought they would have tried on this one, looked it up, and they did, at least $60MM in 2005. Real money, but it looks and sounds like no budget.

Not talking about acting, or sfx, which are not great, and don’t help, but those are secondary to the the sound, the lighting, the set dressing, the make up, the costuming, the everything making every scene look and sound low production value.

But it wasn’t. They had money. And yet everything is failing here, not only for content, but for feel and appearance.

Everything looks and sounds like it’s taking place on a set. Like we got together all the people who make General Hospital and asked them to make a Doom movie.

This is a huge fail on lots of levels, but the seems fake one seems the signature, and is a hallmark of low budget sci-fi and fantasy, so what are the key things to focus on when you have a low budget to not look as bad as this movie with a budget?

 

[Stalker0]

So I happened to watch the first Doom movie last night, with The Rock, may or may have not seen before, it’s not memorable, so hard to tell. But from the very first scene, it screamed low budget sci-fi, was surprised, thought they would have tried on this one, looked it up, and they did, at least $60MM in 2005. Real money, but it looks and sounds like no budget.

Not talking about acting, or sfx, which are not great, and don’t help, but those are secondary to the the sound, the lighting, the set dressing, the make up, the costuming, the everything making every scene look and sound low production value.

But it wasn’t. They had money. And yet everything is failing here, not only for content, but for feel and appearance.

Everything looks and sounds like it’s taking place on a set. Like we got together all the people who make General Hospital and asked them to make a Doom movie.

This is a huge fail on lots of levels, but the seems fake one seems the signature, and is a hallmark of low budget sci-fi and fantasy, so what are the key things to focus on when you have a low budget to not look as bad as this movie with a budget?

its an interesting question. Take the Wheel of Time show for example. The first season, so I was mostly enjoying the first season....until I read up on what its budget was. It was so high I was floored. The show just looked so...cheap, that I had assumed it was a lower budget fantasy show, which I was fine with. But my friend joked about where could they possibly be spending all this cash, because it clearly wasn't on the props or the costumes.

The 2nd season though does look better overall, but I'm not fully sure myself what they changed.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In theory, its the director who is ultimately responsible for what ends up on the screen. But movie-making is an inefficient business. Reshoots, script changes, etc means a lot of the money spent ends up down the toilet rather than on the screen, especially when things are going wrong. You might think that with careful planning, this could be avoided, but the truth is no plan survives contact with reality. You really can't tell if something isn't working until you have seen the rough-cuts. Compare to how Shakespeare worked. He didn't dash off a perfect final draught of Hamlet, to be performed exactly the same way forevermore. Every night the play was performed, and every day it was revised and rewritten.

Now, with Wheel of Time, as a TV show, did not have one single director, and a lot of the faults can be blamed on the producers. It had elaborate costumes, that did not look lived in or practical. It had an elaborate mountain village set, on perfectly level ground. But once you have spent a lot of money on these things, you are kind of stuck with them, even if they are not right.

 

[Zardnaar]

Depends in the show. Doom wasn't exactly a big money movie btw.

WoT case generally thr director but could also be producers or the studio.

Director for exampke might not get the choice of vfx company to use.

 

[MoonSong]

Depends in the show. Doom wasn't exactly a big money movie btw.

WoT case generally thr director but could also be producers or the studio.

Director for exampke might not get the choice of vfx company to use.

Also, cgi has gotten expensive. More and more movies use it, so there's more demand for it. All of this while sfx studios cannot afford to dedicate exclusively to one project, not with an evergrowing backlog. Everything demands more time and processing while studios keep rushing.

Another factor is just this stuff getting into more and more genres. There's increasingly more directors who aren't used to work with cgi that have to deal with it and it shows. Compare the last Kong Godzilla movie with Minus one.

 

[MarkB]

Also, cgi has gotten expensive. More and more movies use it, so there's more demand for it. All of this while sfx studios cannot afford to dedicate exclusively to one project, not with an evergrowing backlog. Everything demands more time and processing while studios keep rushing.

But, conversely, cheaper and more capable technology with ever more experienced professionals in the industry.

Another factor is just this stuff getting into more and more genres. There's increasingly more directors who aren't used to work with cgi that have to deal with it and it shows. Compare the last Kong Godzilla movie with Minus one.

That's not a genre that has any excuses, big monster movies have always used the available technology to up the spectacle. But yeah, you can see a clear difference between the directors who think "we'll fix it with CGI" and the ones who know exactly what they want the CGI to be and shoot to incorporate it.

 

[Ryujin]

When in doubt, blame Uwe Boll. Straight 50% chance that you're right.

 

[Deset Gled]

I don't remember Doom being great, but I don't remember it being that bad, either. It's been awhile since I've seen it, though.

I can think of two major reasons why this film might have struggled with budget. First, the First Person Shooter sequence was probably really expensive (even if it didn't look like it).

Second, in 2005 Hollywood was still really struggling with how to handle video game movies. Take a look at this list and what came before it: List of films based on video games - Wikipedia Definitely some movies that were "entertaining", but nothing that was classically "good". Trying to find the right mix of video game aesthetic, realism, fan service, and sci-fi stuff was probably a big problem that no one knew how to handle. The result is what you saw.

 

[ART!]

But yeah, you can see a clear difference between the directors who think "we'll fix it with CGI" and the ones who know exactly what they want the CGI to be and shoot to incorporate it.

The approach/attitude you describe here is the real culprit, I think.

You can have an army of talented, experienced people, but if the folks in charge don't know what they want then you get a mess.

Relatedly, if the folks in charge don't agree on what they want or don't communicate what they want, you get a mess.

And even if the person who should be responsible for these things knows what they want and is communicating and working with their team, the folks above them can mess it up if they get a wild hair up their arse, if they panic, if the new CEO doesn't care about the project started under their predecessor, etc.

 

[bloodtide]

It's the production, and whoever is in charge.

For a small hometown example:

Another teacher and myself are putting on two plays. Both fantasy plays with/for teens. We both have the same budget.

Him: "It's just a dumb play. Whatever". He slaps together whatever is the fastest easiest way to do things. He does not care about how anything looks. He goes to the over priced craft store once to buy supplies and spends his budget. His castle is just gray paper. If you even look his way he will endless whine and complain about the low budget and only if they would give him more money then he would make something amazing.

Me: I'm making an awesome immersive experience by default. I want everything to look great. I spend money lots of places and I'm thrifty. My castle is flat lunch trays(free from the cafatera) covered in clay and dirt, with bits of gray paint: so it looks like stone. I found plenty of 'props' at thrift stores. A lot of the students also found items we could use from their homes. We used real (dead) trees with green paper leaves. Our wizard had a 'party popper' (100% against the rules, but I'm not a rule follower anyway) in his wand to shoot out the glitter when he 'cast the spell.

You could see the huge difference.

The same happens in movies.

Whoever gets obsessed with having a chase or explosions or some such effect....but they can't really do it without it looking cheap and dumb. You would think they would re write it, but no....they just do it. If you can't do it right, then just don't show it.

Of course, this also does not address corruption...where sure the movie had a huge budget.....but most of that went into peoples pockets.