$358.20

A friend of mine named Brett Bonowicz recently shot a short film on 35 mm for just over $5,000. I have to congratulate him on finishing a 35mm short for about one-third the price of my 16mm film, "Melissa With A Heart Around It," but that's kind of beside the point. Brett sat down to cut a trailer for his film and began to notice all the film he burnt slating his shots or accidentally leaving the camera rolling. He calculated that the cost of all this unusable footage in terms of raw stock, processing, and transfer came to about $358.20. Being the brilliant smartass that he is, Brett decided he really ought to get something out of that $358 and change, so he cut together a short film to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Money." The result is one of my favorite short films ever on the subject of making movies. I told him the only thing missing is a rolling money counter on the side that counts from zero to the final total at the end.

Witness director Brett Bonowicz's short masterpiece, "$358.20":