In business, it’s undeniable that asymmetric bets are the best ones.
Any opportunity where the smallest possible investment can yield the biggest possible payoff is the one to take every time.
The reason is simple – most bets don’t pan out. Whether you are investing in a stock or funding a movie, 90% of the time you will lose.
That’s why you want to hedge your bets by taking many small swings, not just one big one. Everything else can fail, but if just one idea or pursuit delivers an outsized reward, it makes everything else worthwhile.
This is a concept I wish more filmmakers understood. Particularly those who spend years developing a single passion project that can literally bankrupt them if it doesn’t succeed.
I’m all for thinking big picture with ambitious projects. In fact, right now I am going down that very path with what may become my largest feature film to date.
But if your entire focus is on a singular project – especially if it’s of a higher budget scale – you are taking a very big risk with a very small likelihood of reward.
Even if you manage to raise millions of dollars and attach star talent, that doesn’t guarantee anything. Hundreds, if not thousands, of films are made every year that check all the right boxes, but don’t get into any major festival. Don’t get a great distribution deal. And don’t set up the next project for the director.
At the same time, countless no-budget projects are going viral on YouTube, reaching audiences, and leading to multi-film deals with studios.
A few weeks ago I shared a short film called Dead Grandma, which was among my favorites this year. It was 80 seconds long, but reached more people and likely did more for the filmmakers than most 90-minute feature films could ever dream of.
This is far from the only example. The same filmmaker got into TIFF with a $5K found footage movie. Other filmmakers, like Pete Ohs (who you may have caught on the podcast), are making features with no crew that are getting into the biggest festivals on earth and attracting A-list talent.
Going tiny with your project – whether in terms of runtime, crew, budget, or scope – by no means will guarantee success. But neither will going big by those same metrics.
The only difference is, when you go tiny – you get more at bats. You can make a dozen 2-minute short films over the course of a year. And statistically, you are 10-20x more likely to get into a major festival than if you made a single film and didn’t hedge your bets.
Same goes for a lo-fi found footage film you can start making today, an improvised feature with a skeleton crew, or a series you shoot on iPhone and release weekly to YouTube.
The smaller you go, the greater your likelihood of success on every level. If you make a feature for $10K, you can make your money back on YouTube with ad revenue alone. The only risk is your time – and even then, is it really a risk if you now have a feature under your belt and way more experience behind the camera?
There are many ways to go small – Keep the runtime very short. Keep the budget super low. Keep the cast and crew tiny…. Just to name a few.
It’s less about which of the micro paths you choose, and more about recognizing the potential each one brings.
At the moment, I am finishing up my second short film of the year, and have several other tiny shorts (1-3 minutes each) that I plan to shoot before the end of the year.
I also have a potential micro-budget feature that may go into production in the next couple of months.
These projects are in addition to the larger feature I mentioned earlier.
When that bigger feature goes into production, it will be 10x better because I’ve spent the year before making film after film, rather than waiting around. My skills will be sharper, my audience will have grown, and there’s a good chance that actors, crew, or even investors will emerge from the smaller films and join the bigger one too.
All of this is just a reminder that no project too small to find value in.
Filmmakers have launched careers with 2-minute short films or DIY features shot in 5 days.
And others have ended their careers doing the exact thing everyone thinks they should do – raise as much money as possible and don’t do anything else until it’s in the bank.
So if you have an idea that can be done at a very small scale, don’t second guess it. Just get to work and flex your creativity. Bonus points if it’s something you can start on today or next week.
Train yourself to take asymmetric bets with your creative work and only good can come from it.
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