A movie in under two months

January 7, 2008 11:55 AM

Can you give me examples of good movies that were filmed in less than eight weeks of shooting?

Looking for quality movies whether classic or modern. B-movies or other "so-bad-it's-good" fare isn't what I'm after.

posted by BE ADEQUITE to media & arts (30 comments total)

In various places, the guys behind Primer say they shot the movie in about five weeks. Great movie, too.
posted by nkknkk at 12:02 PM on January 7, 2008

My Dinner with Andre, by Louis Malle. It was shot in just a couple of weeks.
posted by ubiquity at 12:03 PM on January 7, 2008

Are you asking only about the actual photography, or are you including editing time, music scoring, etc.?

I can't tell for sure, but I'm fairly certain that El Mariachi was shot in under 8 weeks, if only because they only filmed each shot once.
posted by bryanjbusch at 12:06 PM on January 7, 2008

Wag the Dog was filmed in 29 days, and is generally considered to be a good political satire.
posted by Mr Bunnsy at 12:09 PM on January 7, 2008

Clerks was filmed in 23 days.
posted by Lucinda at 12:09 PM on January 7, 2008

If you're talking about just photography, a fair number of simple comedies are filmed in less than eight weeks (see Napoleon Dynamite (22 days) and Wayne's World (34 days) as examples). Dial M for Murder (36 days), Capote (36 days), and Trainspotting (7 and half weeks) also fit in that.

One fairly surprisingly short shooting schedule, but not quite 8 weeks, is 300 at 60 days, but "post-production took almost a year" (I've seen the above movies, and find them all "good", but haven't seen 300, so I can't speak to its goodness, but it clearly isn't a B-movie).

By the way, a Google search like "shot in * days" site:imdb.com inurl:trivia finds a lot of them, since it's normally only "trivia" if it's unusually short, or more rarely it seems, unusually long.
posted by skynxnex at 12:15 PM on January 7, 2008

Any Bollywood experts out there? I'd heard somewhere that they churn out movies really fast there, but this may collide with your requirement of "good".

I kid, I kid.
posted by jquinby at 12:15 PM on January 7, 2008

Russian Ark was filmed in one 99 minute take!
posted by kenchie at 12:29 PM on January 7, 2008

At least the first couple Saw movies were filmed in less than 8 weeks - 18 days for Saw I and 25 days for Saw II.
posted by mysterpigg at 12:38 PM on January 7, 2008

Phone Booth was shot in 10 days, plus 2 for establishing/exterior shots. Makes sense, considering that the whole movie is set in a phone booth.
posted by zsazsa at 12:38 PM on January 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

The Little Shop of Horrors (the original, not the musical) was shot in 48 hours using a set that was left up from a previous movie. More information in the linked Wikipedia article.
posted by goingonit at 12:55 PM on January 7, 2008

Tape was shot in one week after one month of rehearsal.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:05 PM on January 7, 2008

I just watched the commentary for Inside Man, and I think it was done in 6 weeks of shooting. I remember being impressed.
posted by cowbellemoo at 1:10 PM on January 7, 2008

I just watched Adrienne Shelley's Waitress, which apparently had a 20-day shoot.
posted by drinkcoffee at 1:13 PM on January 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

According to this article, Warner's gave John Huston a "relatively expansive" 36-day shooting schedule to film Maltese Falcon. Frankly, I think short schedules were pretty-much the norm for studio productions of that era. They were factories, after all.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:18 PM on January 7, 2008

Blue In The Face was reportedly filmed in five days. However, this may not count as the cast, crew, and sets were previously assembled for Smoke.
posted by Dr-Baa at 1:24 PM on January 7, 2008

Donnie Darko was shot in 28 days, which coincides with the time span of the narrative.
posted by nemoorange at 1:31 PM on January 7, 2008

From what I can gather, Casablanca was shot on a 5-week schedule.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:35 PM on January 7, 2008

"Once" - only 17 days!
posted by FlyByDay at 1:58 PM on January 7, 2008

Kevin Brownlow's Winstanley. "The film took 8-years to finish, but the actual shooting was done in 7-weeks."
posted by Abiezer at 2:06 PM on January 7, 2008

Hard Candy was filmed in 18 days. Nearly the entire film is shot within a house, so location didn't need to change that much during the production phase, which I assume diminished the amount of time needed to complete the shooting.
posted by numinous at 2:42 PM on January 7, 2008

James Toback's When Will I Be Loved was shot in 12 days, without a script. There's a documentary about its making.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:50 PM on January 7, 2008

Pretty much anything by Fassbinder.

Katzelmacher - 9 days
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant - 10 days
The Merchant of Four Seasons - 12 days
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul - 15 days

Dang.
posted by dyoneo at 2:59 PM on January 7, 2008

I think there'd be heaps. For fairly simple stories 8 weeks is pretty reasonable. Show I've been working on was shooting six 22min eps in six weeks of principal photography, so 130 minutes finished screen time. With a bigger budget and smaller story arc (series has a lot more story to tell than a movie in the same time) eight weeks is probably plenty.

I think 12 weeks is fairly common for major features, so 8 isn't a stretch.
posted by sycophant at 3:02 PM on January 7, 2008

Lost in Translation was shot in 27 days.
posted by Hypocrite_Lecteur at 3:46 PM on January 7, 2008

The Usual Suspects, 36 days.
posted by iguanapolitico at 4:00 PM on January 7, 2008

Yeah, there are tons of movies that fit this category. Pretty much any independent movie of the 90s would probably fit. I think Hal Hartley's firs few were in the 3 week range, for instance.
posted by dobbs at 4:14 PM on January 7, 2008

American Graffiti, 29 days. And shot in chronological order to boot.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 10:30 PM on January 7, 2008

I just saw Gods and Monsters for the first time; it was very good. I often follow up recently-viewed films with a visit to imdb to read more about them. They say there that the movie was filmed in 21 days.
posted by iconomy at 6:38 AM on January 8, 2008

Chungking Express FTW

Fuck Yeah!
posted by chunking express at 6:52 AM on January 8, 2008