{"id":1055,"date":"2025-04-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2025-04-21T02:53:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T02:53:26","slug":"my-micro-budget-film-i-made-with-friends-beat-1000000-movies-heres-how-we-did-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scubadiscounters.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/my-micro-budget-film-i-made-with-friends-beat-1000000-movies-heres-how-we-did-it\/","title":{"rendered":"My micro-budget film I made with friends beat \u00a31,000,000 movies \u2013 here\u2019s how we did it"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two Big Feet just won the Manchester Film Festival over films with \u00a31,000,000 budgets (Picture: Noah\u00a0Stratton-Twine)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To succeed in making a feature film as a normal person without funding seems nigh on impossible, let alone to win any awards \u2013 especially when you\u2019re up against films with a \u00a31million budget. Forget it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what actor Oliver Woolf, 26, and director Noah Stratton-Twine, 26, thought \u2013 until they did it.<\/p>\n

Last month, their debut full-length film Two Big Feet, which was made on a tiny micro-budget, won Manchester Film Festival\u2019s jury prize for best feature beating movies on seven-figure budgets.<\/p>\n

While other contestants were fussing away with their bottomless funding, Noah and Ollie were making a film to beat them all \u2013 and they didn\u2019t even have the budget for headphones. <\/p>\n

\u2018We had this attitude of Manchester, that we shouldn\u2019t really be here,\u2019Noah tells Metro<\/strong> alongside Ollie, both still fizzing from their win. <\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s put us on a map, which is more than we could have ever hoped for, Noah explained, calling it a victory for micro-budget filmmaking too. <\/p>\n

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Oliver Woolf (left) and Noah Stratton-Twine (right) decided to take filmmaking into their own hands rather than waiting for a call (Picture: Gloucester Independent Film Festival)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ollie convinced his clown school peer Luke Rollason, star of Disney series Extraordinary, to get on board with Two Big Feet (Picture: Noah\u00a0Stratton-Twine)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018We felt like we were at the wrong place the whole time being at this festival,\u2019 agreed Ollie. <\/p>\n

\u2018Having random people watching our screening was the coolest thing I\u2019ve ever experienced,\u2019 he adds, summing it right up with: \u2018It was the funnest night of my whole entire life.\u2019<\/p>\n

Micro-budget films can<\/em> win major awards <\/h2>\n

\u2018We\u2019ve almost spent more than the budget on just festival submissions now,\u2019 says Noah, director of the film \u2013 who also avoided costs by writing, editing, colouring, scoring, and doing all post-production himself. <\/p>\n

While Noah can\u2019t disclose the exact spend while they are trying to sell the film to a production company, I am assured most of it was spent on parking tickets and buying the small team sandwiches. <\/p>\n

\u2018We didn\u2019t even have the money for headphones,\u2019 Noah says, explaining how they shot the film in a forest and around London in two blocks in September 2023 and January 2024. <\/p>\n

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The cast and crew wanted to emulate the feeling of teenagers going to a forest with their first camcorder (Picture: Manchester Film Festival)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\t\t\t\tWhat the critics said about Two Big Feet \t\t\t<\/h2>\n
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Metro<\/strong>\u2018s deputy TV editor Tom Percival, who was on the Jury at Manchester Film Festival, says of the film: \u2018With its offbeat charm and lovable characters Two Big Feet was both a fun comedy and a powerful reminder about the importance of maintaining friendship as you get older. <\/p>\n

\u2018What impressed the jury though wasn\u2019t just its impressive cast and story, there was just something rather winning about its bohemian spirit and underdog status. <\/p>\n

\u2018What makes all this more spectacular is how director Noah Stratton-Twine made such a great movie on a budget that\u2019s small even for independent filmmaking.\u2019 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

The improvised film, all about the value of friendship as we age, was born from a script Noah had written years before. He didn\u2019t necessarily think the world needed to see it \u2013 but he thought it was a good story that could work with minimal resources.<\/p>\n

Having bonded at the London Film Festival over a shared gloom of their feature film funding prospects \u2013 with everyone forever in the dreaded \u2018development\u2019 stage \u2013 Ollie and Noah devised a plan. <\/p>\n

They would pool resources, gather industry friends also keen to attack a feature film, and make it happen themselves with just six people. <\/p>\n

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