No Budget Film - An Academic Introduction (Paperback)

A work of research on the newly emerged and much talked about method of filmmaking known as no-budget or micro budget or zero budget filmmaking worldwide. In chapter 1, the author tries to define or to locate some of the specific features common with the films widely known as no-budget productions and thus approaches towards a more coherent understanding of the term. The popular information resources are consulted as there are no academic definitions still available. In chapter 2, the historical process of the emergence of no-budget filmmaking practice is discussed analytically and the similar approaches and precursors of the practice are looked for in the larger film history. In the final chapter, the democratization that took place with the no-budget method being applied on the film medium is focused. The creative freedom of the artist is the major concern here. The primary hurdle of writing this paper is the scarcity of trusty enough source materials. Quite astonishingly this much popular a terrain has been left largely unexplored academically till date. Mainly artists who have produced no-budget film(s) in their filmmaking career are consulted, that is to say, interviewed for putting this paper into shape. Through their understanding of the method the author tries to come to an understanding of his own. In this process many of the popular but vague conceptions regarding the practice are completely discarded. The old and the armchair theories and conceptions are replaced with the new ones coming directly from the field by exploring it. The key argument is to focus on the unique democratic nature of the no-budget filmmaking process situating it as the successor of avant-garde and independent filmmaking tradition in the larger film history.