XIX. The Lessons (interlude) (Part 2)

Welcome to the weekly production log of my first feature film, The Big Pay Off. My budget is $15,000 and I am producing and releasing it completely independently from the current Hollywood regime. If you are a new reader and are curious why I’m doing this, you can read my manifesto here. Thanks for stopping by!

We are three-quarters of the way through our shoot on The Big Pay Off. I can see the finish line even though it still feels far away. When I talk to people about it now, the question often comes up what advice I would offer to filmmakers trying to pull off a shoot on a similarly small budget. I have covered some of these lessons in an earlier post. Most of the posts on my Substack contain lessons learned during production. Once the movie will be completed, I will try to collate them all but in the meantime I feel slightly bad because the circumstances of this shoot are such that I struggle to find universal lessons or teachings for others.

However, there is one point I wanted to discuss in today’s post which I haven’t seen mentioned much elsewhere but which I think every micro-budget filmmaker should be aware and take full advantage of: big store return policies.

It is a long-standing but under-discussed practice on independent film productions that set dressers and prop masters buy some things they need on Amazon, use them in a scene, then return them and get a refund. If I have learned anything shooting my movie, it’s that every filmmaker (regardless of budget but especially on small budget productions) should take full advantage of this practice. I estimate that a good eighty percent of set dressing and props you will see in The Big Pay Off were bought online at various outlets, then later returned for a full refund. The same goes for about half the wardrobe on screen. I am not saying that you can keep your budget for props and set dressing at zero that way, but you can get close.

As the New Yorker pointed out a couple of years ago, “The annual retail value of returned goods in the U.S. is said to be approaching a trillion dollars.” Further, “Petco takes back dead fish (…) Home Depot and Lowe’s let you return dead plants, for a year. You just have to be shameless enough to stand in line with the thing you killed.” There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Independent filmmakers should find this shamelessness within them and take advantage of the system. So in today’s post, I am going to list all the online stores we purchased from for production and rank them for ease of use and maximum money refunded.

Amazon

As the saying goes, you can shit in a box and return it to Amazon, and still get a refund. That is pretty much true. We have purchased and returned thousands of dollars worth of items for our production on Amazon. This ranges from curtains and table cloths, over electronics and housewares to clothing and artwork. The return process is incredibly easy. For most items, you don’t even need a box or shipping label, and can simply drop them off at your local UPS store as-is. The refunds are issued almost instantaneously before Amazon even receives them back. For clothing, the original tag doesn’t need to be attached. Some bulkier items need to be returned to specifically-designated Amazon drop-off points which can be out of the way and not very convenient but that’s a small annoyance when you will get a full refund as soon as you drop it off.

My only caveat would be that you won’t find visually interesting or more high-end items on Amazon as a general matter. If you need something striking, unique or luxurious, I would look elsewhere. But for every-day items, the range of choice, price point and incredibly easy return policy makes Amazon the top choice for the budget conscious filmmaker.

Target

I mentioned buying clothes on Amazon but their choice is extremely poor. I would personally only buy generic t-shirts, sneakers and Amazon-branded jeans there if they don’t need to be of high quality. Target offers a much better choice, even though they are not high-end by any means either. However, at a price point comparable to Amazon you will find clothing that on the surface at least looks more high-end. Their sales section oftentimes has extremely attractive deals as well.

I recently bought t-shirts, polo shirts and even a couple of bathrobes in several colors at a physical Target. We made the final choice on set. I then had the actors wear their clothes with the tags still on. (Just make sure it’s not visible on-camera.) The next day, I wanted to return all the items I had purchased but realized I had misplaced the receipt. Not to worry. As long as you bring the card you used to pay originally, they can look up the purchase in their system and still issue a full refund.

For general wardrobe needs, my first choice would be Target. Their selection is decent, their prices are very low, the clothes mostly look good on camera and their return policy is a breeze, whether online or in person.

H&M/American Eagle/etc.

One step up from Target would be fast fashion brands like H&M, American Eagle et al. These represent a higher investment up front, their return policies are a bit more fussy and the refunds take longer to hit your account, but it is absolutely worth it for the selection of clothing they offer. I found these two brands in particular invaluable to zero in on specific looks for two of my actresses. I have a policy on set that if I provide wardrobe to my actors that they really like and would wear in their private life, they can keep it. It’s not surprising to me that no one asked to keep anything I bought on Amazon or Target, but clothes from the H&Ms of the world were a much hotter commodity.

Like I mentioned, the return process is less convenient than Amazon, as you have to have a box, print a label, ship it back through USPS, then wait sometimes several weeks for the return to be accepted and the refund to be issued. But overall, the process is seamless enough that I recommend it wholeheartedly.

CB2

The Big Pay Off takes place in the world of high-rolling real estate investors, so we needed high-end set dressing for some of the scenes. While not the pinnacle of luxury, I found the best bang for my buck on CB2. They offer a specific look that doesn’t work for everything but I found all of their items to be very high quality and their sales section is usually extensive. One huge advantage is that you can return items that are on sale as well, unless they’re a clearance item that is specifically marked as such.

CB2 is pretty fussy about only issuing refunds for items that are in their original packaging and completely unused. This meant that I had to keep all the boxes, packing materials and labels on the things we bought. On set, I unpacked the items, placed them in the frame in a way to hide the labels, then once we were done repackaged them exactly the way they were originally. It’s by far not the “shit in a box”-approach you can have with Amazon but in terms of what you will get out of it on screen, it’s more than worth it, in my opinion. And the refund they issued for my online return was somehow larger than what I anticipated.

For the scrappy filmmaker in need of higher-end set dressing, fancier home-decor stores like CB2, West Elm, etc. are definitely an option I would recommend, as long as you are careful in handling the items you plan on returning.

Ebay

The wild card in all this is Ebay. I bought designer clothes for laughably low prices, memorable props and one-offs like a spare Porsche car key I wouldn’t have known where to find otherwise. I even found inspiration just by searching for something on Ebay and perusing what was on offer. You can find quite unique items on there, and I rewrote some scenes centering around a prop I randomly happened upon on Ebay.

The only problem is that you usually can’t simply return your items. Some sellers allow for returns but the policies can be quite restrictive and in my experience most sellers don’t offer returns or refunds at all. Your best bet is to resell whatever you want to get rid of but it’s far from guaranteed you will recoup all the money you spent in the first place. It can also be too time intensive to be worth it. Returning a $30-item to Amazon is a no-brainer but I wouldn’t go through the trouble of reselling something for the same price on Ebay.

So while I would recommend Ebay above anywhere else online to find great and unusual props, I would not count on getting your money back on anything you buy on there.

Thrift Stores/The Real Real/etc.

Obviously, the examples above focus on online shopping. But the real world is where it’s really at. What I said about finding unique items and inspiration on Ebay, for example, goes tenfold for physical thrift stores, yard sales and, in our case, second-hand designer stores like The Real Real. It can be incredibly valuable to just go to a store and see what you’ll find. If you’re looking for something specific you have a hard time finding online, speaking to a brick-and-mortar store employee will inevitably be helpful as they won’t hesitate to point you to other stores in town or give you other ideas.

I would not recommend to play the returns game with independent stores that are as much part of the creative community as you are. You should have some money allocated to props, set dressing and wardrobe anyway. Independent stores and boutiques are where you should spend that money.

Online returns won’t solve all the money problems on your shoot, but I find them to be an invaluable tool to elevate production value while spending close to nothing. We all want to be in a position to afford artisans designing our sets and sewing our wardrobe. Until we get there, my advice to any aspiring micro-budget filmmaker would be to take advantage of the online shopping perpetuum mobile such as it is, and maximize your returns.