The elements of a big-budget movie can be divided into two categories. The first is all the areas where the budget can be lowered. The second is all the areas where it can't. Let's look at three big-budget movies and consider ways they could have been filmed for fewer dollars. We'll start with areas where the budget can't be lowered.

Suppose a filmmaker has decided to film Spider-Man 3. That story automatically forces the inclusion of certain elements, such as a guy in a Spider-Man costume swinging from buildings, and one or more villains with weird supernatural talents and strange physical attributes. Those are things that cannot be eliminated without making a different movie. But that doesn't necessarily mean the film must require the $258 million mega-budget that the actual Spider-Man 3 had. The Terminator had its share of weird villains and special effects, and it wasn't shot on a mega-budget --although, granted, not all indie filmmakers have $6.4 million available. But now move to the other category, the areas where the budget can be lowered.

Some of these will be the same for virtually any film. Possibilities: choose to shoot digitally instead of using film stock; use talented unknown actors instead of name stars; include music by new bands who want the exposure more than they want money. For indie filmmakers,consider using a non-union crew.

In terms of the script -- avoid night scenes and crowd scenes and cut the number of locations, and make sure you're not shooting in famous locations which cost more. Consider which expensive effects and stunts can be done without. For Spider-Man 3, there had to be a big showdown between Spidey and the villain or villains, but it didn't necessarily have to be in front of a huge crowd, and it didn’t have to involve Mary Jane being trapped in a car that's suspended in a huge web high above the street. Yes, that scene is dramatic. But that scene isn't really about the crowd or the car. It's about Mary Jane in jeopardy, Harry Osborn learning to forgive, and Peter Parker learning it's not all about him and he can't do it alone. And none of those things are expensive. They're all internal. The trick is to find affordable external trappings, and the scene is made.The same goes for almost every scene in the script.

Let's look at two other big-budget films. At first glance this year's comedy Evan Almighty, which clocked in at $175 million, looks like an unlikely candidate for budget reduction -- that story can't be told without including an ark and hundreds of animals and a flood. But even here there are a few options. Evan actually did cut costs by choosing not to rely entirely on CGI or miniatures or other visual effects. Instead the production built an ark (four arks, in fact, three in Los Angeles and one on set in Virginia). The more they were able to build, the less they had to spend on visual effects. They still had to pay for the animals and the flood, real or CGI.

The story, however, could be told differently -- eliminate some of the expensive elements. God might have given the order to build an ark, but, maybe, for some reason the animals never show up -- or God makes Evan's compliance more difficult by providing only a motley few from the farm -- a couple of cows, a jackass, and three squealing pigs -- and, maybe, in the end the flood is averted, and the ark is never completed, but becomes a home for stray farm animals. After all, the story isn't really about the ark or the flood. It's about Evan learning to be a real human being, and he doesn't necessarily need the animals or the flood to do that. It all depends on how his arc is handled.

Finally, let's look at Waterworld, which also clocked in at $175 million, and at the time received much hype as the most expensive film ever made. The sheer scope of this film is what made it so expensive. Consider: the filmmakers had Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas working on parts of the set. But suppose this same story was told on a smaller scale.

The basic cast boils down to one man, one little girl, one villain, and some miscellaneous characters. The basic locations boil down to a lot of water and a hunk of dry land.

Scratch the crowd scenes, take away the huge expensive atolls, use boats instead, and cut the explosions to a minimum or cut them entirely. Those elements are not needed to tell the story of people fighting over a little girl who knows where dry land is.

Those were simply the external trappings this production chose to use. A production without that kind of budget at its disposal would tell the story a different way. And that’s the mechanism to a lower budget - the telling of the story.

Ultimately, much of the budget comes down to the story the filmmakers select, and how they choose to tell it. It's possible to tell a big story without the big-budget external trappings.