HUFFINGTON
06.17.12
FEATURE_TITLE
even scrappy ones like Christine Vachon — the transition
has been painful. “The downward pressure on budgets is
extreme, and we have to be
insanely prolific to scratch out
a living,” Vachon says. “And
I’m not exaggerating: we are
scratching out a living.”
Knudsen and Van Hoy
missed the good times altogether, which is arguably to
their advantage. “At least we
don’t know what we’re missing,” Knudsen says. Their
early films all cost $1 million or less, so a $3-5 million
budget feels positively luxurious to them. That comfort
level, in turn, allows them to
view today’s obligatory num-
ber-crunching as an exercise
in liberation. If Hollywood,
tethered as it is to scale and
predictability, can’t afford to
tell original stories anymore,
says Van Hoy, “for me, that’s
an opportunity. There is a
market for it.”
The trick to making movies, then, as opposed to
talking about making them,
is setting the budget low
enough that you can raise
the money quickly and then
launch into production.
“They take no pleasure in
limitations,” says actor Ben
Foster (Six Feet Under), who
worked closely with Knudsen
while filming Here, in which
he played a map maker
Lars Knudsen
(left) and Jay
Van Hoy (right)
in the Parts &
Labor office in
Williamsburg,
Brooklyn.