Low Budget High Rollers

It is that time of year – the winter months are behind us, daffodils are out aplenty, vitamin D begins to replenish our ricket riddled bodies and Gordon Brown is, yet again, stood outside Downing Street proudly holding a suitcase and an insincere grin.

For the 11th year running Gordon Brown has presented the year’s budget to a room of jeering politicians and public apathy. Popular opinion forecasts this as Brown’s final budget proposal, but I’m not so sure. . . The budget is, after all, incredibly boring. It is only because it has some sort of relevance to our lives – ensuring you have the correct change for fags – that we take any notice in it at all.

I’m not sure how anyone can stomach such an odious task for a decade of their life, and if I didn’t know better, I would assume Brown was bullied into this cruel situation. However, if you remain awake long enough to watch Brown for any length of time you will recognise a genuine pride and contentment in his work. Blair has been astute enough to recognise this strange pleasure from the dull and, like the kid at school who enjoys playing in goal, he has shackled him to the post for good!

This current hyperbole surrounding budgets and expenditure was what initially prompted me to write about ‘low budget films’, but looking back over the last few paragraphs, it seems that I have mainly chastised the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his peculiar foibles, whilst failing to mention anything remotely related to films. Nevertheless, rather than re-write this nonsense I will endeavour to twist the first 3 paragraphs into something relevant to what I intended.

Perhaps this Brownian motion to bounce around numbers is also possessed by low-fi film producers – the relentless zeal and enjoyment in draining every last penny out of every pound to create the film they want, or perhaps – as I suspect – they actually hate having such little money and wish they had an endless pot to dip into for foldy directors chairs and Starbucks Grande Lattes. This is more likely the case and Brown is just a weird, one in a million, oddball. However, were it not for the tight constraints imposed upon amateur film directors, the films they produce may have lacked the qualities that make them brilliant – the raw edgy finish, the attention to detail and, most importantly, the reliance on script and storyline rather than special effects – these are the reasons they can, and still continue to prevail over the big budget blockbusters.

Top 5 Lowest Budget movies to earn $1 Million at US Box Office.

1. El Mariachi ($72,000)
2. Slacker ($23,000)
3. Clerks ($27,000)
4. The Blair Witch Project ($35,000)
5. Super Size Me ($65,000)

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