If you're looking to enter in our Lo-Budget Feature Film category then the inevitable question rears its head: what does lo-budget mean?


Clearly, opinion varies, but for the purposes of Industrial Scripts contests "lo-budget" means:


"a likely or realistic production budget of sub $1m..."


How can you tell whether your project qualifies as Lo-Budget?


Well, firstly, here are some helpful links:



As you can tell from these articles, there are essentially 4 criteria to assess your screenplay against:


  • Is the location contained, free-to-use and controllable/containable?
  • Is the number of speaking parts and extras etc genuinely low?
  • Does the project depend on any kind of existing IP, likely to cost a lot of money to acquire the rights to?
  • Are there expensive stunts, makeup or effects required, likely to send the budget spiralling?


If your answer to any of these questions is "No", then your project is likely not Lo-Budget.


What happens if I submit what I believe is a lo-budget script, and The TITAN Awards or your readers don't agree?


In the event you enter a script in the lo-budget category, and we do not feel it could be produced in the ballpark of the budget above, your entry will be disqualified from the Lo-Budget category, and instead will be considered on its own merits in its obvious "core" genre.


So, if you've written a horror that takes place on a river in the Congo...well, even with few roles you're going to struggle to shoot that for $1m (water, remote location, housing crew costs, high insurance premium etc etc).


But, you have written a great horror.


So we'll simply re-assign it to the Horror Feature Film category, free of charge.