Shoot the Money

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Look, we paid for the van, we're gonna film it!"

—Crow, Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People

When a television or movie production has paid a lot of money for an extra-special effect, prop or to get to an exotic location, then they are damn well going to get their money's worth. So we see a lot of that big budget item:

  • If it is an expensive locale, then we see lots of travelogue, scenes of the characters traveling through the iconic scenery. Especially in very scenic locations like Hawaii.
  • If it's an expensive prop then we'll see a lot of the prop and the plot will feature it heavily. Your only hope is that it isn't a Special Effects Failure.
  • If it's an expensive actor, then we'll see a lot of that actor. You got this guy because you didn't want the Poor Man's Substitute.
  • If it's an expensive set, then expect it to become the base of operations. If not, it might receive some minor redressing to represent other locations.
  • If it's animation then you don't waste any shots, cause you don't animate something you aren't going to use.

Note that there isn't anything wrong with this. Making the most of your budget is what really makes the industry appreciate you. Michael Bay has mentioned that there are stories of directors arriving on a set that cost 3 million dollars and deciding to eliminate three-quarters of the scenes that the set was built for.

See also Stock Footage, Scenery Porn, Prop Recycling, Big-Budget Beef-Up, Widescreen Shot.

Please do not confuse with Money Making Shot. Nor should you confuse it with "Shock the Monkey" by Peter Gabriel. Also, this trope has nothing to do with using coins as ammo or pumping stacks of bills full of lead.

Examples of Shoot the Money include:

Film

  • The 1995 film adaptation of the classic British comic character Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone. Despite one of Dredd's most famous traits being that he has never taken off his helmet or shown his face in the more than thirty-year history of the comic, the producers were paying for a big name star so Stallone went, and stayed, helmetless about 20 minutes into the movie.
  • The Soviet film version of Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, used this trope to justify the production team's trip to Japan by a long highway scene in the middle of the movie.
  • Lampshaded in Soap Dish where the TV producer mentions the simulated ocean background cost the studio over a million dollars.
  • One of the more forgettable 1950s sci-fi movies (plot: aliens land, install mind-control chips in local townsfolk, military footage ensues, and pwnage), being classically low-budget, could only afford a handful of special-effects shots. They copied and re-used those shots as often as possible.
  • Na Pali Coast took place in Hawaii, and had lots of beautiful scenery shots... filmed in Costa Rica.
  • Inception takes this trope to a new level, given that it was shot in five different countries. There's quite a lot of Scenery Porn, but it doesn't end there, especially in Paris. We don't just see Paris; we see it fold into itself like a taco!
  • Titanic: They made the most expensive film made up to that point, and damned if you don't see every penny of it.
  • Avatar surely qualifies too.
  • Star Trek: The Motion Picture, before it got cut to a reasonable length. The crew spent lots of cash and elbow grease on the Enterprise and they'll be damned if they can't show for it.
  • Disney's pioneering 1982 CGI film Tron featured a relatively tiny amount of actual CGI, amounting to less than five minutes' worth in a feature-length film. However, the extensive use of footage from the famous Light Cycle sequence in television spots and trailers gave the impression that the entire film was computer generated.
  • Averted in Jaws. Despite the expense of the animatronic sharks used to film the movie, they were plagued with mechanical difficulties which limited their screen time. Most critics agree that this works to the benefit of the movie creating a more frightening atmosphere and increasing the effect when it does appear.
  • The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy embodies this. The level of detail put into the, well, everything is astonishing, and it shows. Every penny of its $285 million budget is right up on the screen.
    • Minor subversion in one scene, mentioned in the extended edition DVD for Return of the King: Still in Rohan, Eowyn offers a cup to Aragorn, and he drinks from it. Miranda Otto, along with the costume designers, lamented that the dress she wore as Eowyn for that scene was fantastic and intricate, particularly the skirt and sleeves - in a scene shooting the actors from the chest upwards.
    • Lord of the Rings actually has a lot of subversions. For example Bernard Hill noted that Theoden's breastplate had beautiful, intricate stitching and details--on the inside, where only he and wardrobe ever saw it. However, it served to make him feel like a king.
  • Terminator 2, judging from its opening, intended to keep the presence of the T1000 ambiguous for a while (letting the audience think that Robert Patrick's character was another human sent back to stop another T-800). The trailers, of course, ignored that to show off the then-new and awesome morphing effects.
  • North, which has Dan Aykroyd and Reba McEntire in minor roles, has both sing the film's only song, despite it not being a musical, because if two big name singers are going to be in a movie, don't expect them to be silent.
  • Also averted in the 1976 remake of King Kong. A giant animatronic version of Kong was built and cost 1.7 million dollars to make, but because it didn't look convincing enough, it was only seen in a couple of seconds-long shots.
  • Averted again in Alien, where the huge Space Jockey in it's "pilot chair" was built by artist H.R. Giger for a lot of money and was used only in one scene.
  • Bollywood producers shot their money in two ways: filming in exotic locations (very often foreign ones - the European Alps were in rage during the 1990s) and hiring the best music directors and lyricist they can. Combining the two generates music numbers that double as promotional music videos. Notably egregious examples are the music number filmed in the Giza Pyramids for Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham, and a number in Robot filmed in Macchu Picchu.

Live Action TV

  • The South American Soap Opera industry loves to do this. It's their way to say "We Care" and dispel the doubts about the quality of their productions.
    • Brazilian producers do this very often. One of the most emblematic and recent examples was O Clone, where the crew went to Morocco and filmed a lot of scenery and action there, even some scenes supposed to happen later in the story.
    • Venezuelan soap producers are infamous for filming in gorgeous natural exteriors during the first chapters of a story, and then reusing the exterior location shots over and over while the rest of the show films on studio because most of the money was spent on those chapters.
    • When part of the action on Colombian soap Yo Soy Betty, la Fea moved from dull Bogotá to sunny Cartagena de Indias, there were a lot of scenes showing Betty wander by the beautiful beaches and the pretty buildings of the latter city.
      • The Mexican version La fea más bella didn't miss a single chance to show off when the action shifted from Mexico City to Acapulco and New York.
    • A Brazilian and Venezuelan fad during The Nineties and early Nougties: build their own Building of Adventure location, namely a small town (usually only the facades, but still), or a department store. In the infamous case of Brazilian soap "Torre de Babel", a small mall set was built, but when the soap tanked and the set became too expensive to maintain, they blew it up on camera to do the double feat of disposing of the set and adding more drama to the plot (incidentally using the explosion to dispose of the most unpopular charaters).
  • The original Battlestar Galactica shot the episode "The Lost Planet of the Gods" on location in Egypt, and used a shot of the pyramids of Giza as an establishing shot for the lost human homeworld of Kobol.
    • The original Battlestar Galactica used to be famous for overusing the Viper launch sequence, as it was very expensive high-tech special effects for the time. Most of the battle scenes were reused and clipped together to suit the needs for script. It wasn't unusual, for example, to see the same clip of four weapon shots tracking up to a Cylon ship before blowing it up, sometimes flipped left for right to add a little variety. The only reason they didn't flip them upside down and get four clips instead of two is that everyone knows which part of the Cylon ship is the top. The cockpit interiors were carefully matched to the actors called for in the script, so one does see different hands and different shots of joystick manipulation, but the cockpit set was later recycled for the Buck Rogers television show, including the relabeled Vietnam-era OV1-C "Mohawk" recon aircraft joystick.
    • When the show costs over $1 million per episode in 1978, you can't be too afraid of seeing the same shots each episode.
  • The sitcom The Facts of Life had a special set in Australia. Much footage of Sydney's Harbour Bridge and Opera House, as well as Uluru was shown.
  • The Sci-Fi Channel original movie Dead Men Walking did this with a special effect. The admittedly cool-looking bit of zombies excavating a torso loses it's shock value when it is seen again and again and again on completely different victims.
  • Stargate SG-1's 200 episode special featured a very expensive puppetry (same as from Thunderbirds) setup. The subsequent skit/parody went on for about three times as long as it should have. All for a cheap "wires cut" gag.
    • The Stargate studio built a very expensive medieval set for their Season 9 Ori story arc. It appeared quite regularly through the last 2 seasons of Stargate SG-1 and occasionally on Stargate Atlantis. After SG-1 finished, the Atlantis producers were able to use all the sets built, and the medieval set featured in every 2nd episode.
  • In addition to dedicating an entire episode to their Japanese train vs. car race, Top Gear filmed several Japanese car reviews while they were in the country.
    • A good portion of any cross-country episode (Botswana, Japan, Vietnam) will be spent on shots of either scenery or local culture.
      • The Arctic Special uses this trope.
  • The Doctor Who production team actually traveled to Paris for "City of Death," the first time a Doctor Who story was shot outside of Britain. Most of the story was set in Paris anyway, but the director made sure to include gratuitous shots of the Doctor and Romana walking around Parisian locations in the first episode. Less effective use was made of Amsterdam in "Arc of Infinity," but in "Planet of Fire" the Mediterranean island of Lanzarote doubled as itself and as an alien planet.
    • In "Battlefield", producer John Nathan-Turner decided that Stock Footage of a helicopter simply wouldn't do, and what the show really needed to blow its budget on an actual one. So we get long, lingering shots of the helicopter transporting The Brigadier around.
    • In the second episode of the Ninth Doctor's series, we are introduced to the Face of Boe, an enormous disembodied head in a tank, clearly an extremely expensive prop. It takes practically no part in the story other than looking exotic. Fans with some grasp of the economics of television production knew they'd be seeing more of it. And so it proved, as it returned in the following two series, complete with actual importance to the story.
    • Many alien species will frequently appear multiple times, as a way to justify their very well done special effects and costumes. The Ood have made multiple appearances, and so have the Sontarans, Judoon, and Slitheen.
  • Used and lampshaded repeatedly a few years back on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. They had used a giant whale costume with functioning blowhole for one sketch. After that, Conan announced that they would feature the costume in as many sketches as possible in order to justify the price of several thousand dollars, and broke the per-scene cost down after each sketch. This was done on at least 8 separate episodes (Conan often has running gags over the course of a week or two of episodes, of course).
    • Inverted on his last couple of weeks on NBC, where he presented a series of one-off sketches supposedly constructed to be as expensive as possible to the network such as "Purchased fossil of a ground sloth from the Smithsonian spraying an original Picasso with beluga caviar." Generally, these sketches featured obvious fakes or donated loaners.
  • All the Star Trek series and films have generally been filmed in the greater Los Angeles area. In some cases locations have been used since professional film making began in LA and are still used today.
    • Ever wonder why Kirk and the gang found yet another Earth clone? The production team did manage a lot for making do with so little. Especially for the Nazi episode.
    • A lot of the studio models and CGI models of ships were recycled from one show to the next, sometimes as simple as flipping them upside down or recolored.
    • Star Trek: Enterprise must have spent a lot of money on the "cave" set from season 1, considering how often the crew would have to explore a cave, have a shuttle fall into a cave, explore an ice cave, have a shuttle fall into an ice cave, and so on.
  • The British series The Bill once had an end of season Cliff Hanger involving a (no doubt expensive to hire) police helicopter. The helicopter features prominently in the ending, and there's lots of footage of London shown from the helicopter.
  • An episode of Angel had Angel being poisoned by a leech-like parasite that forced him to remain asleep and having crazy nightmares. The director, David Boreanaz himself, said that there were two main props of the leech, one crafted out of a spongy material with some slime on it and another that had full animatronics and cost them $85,000. He resorted to filming as little of the costly prop as possible because he felt it was too goofy looking and the cheaper sponge prop actually worked better. He wouldn't have used it at all if it wasn't for the fact it cost $85,000.
  • The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles took pride in filming each episode on location, all over the world. Cue lots and lots of Scenery Porn.
  • The producers of Space: 1999 spent a tonne of cash on the show's modelwork and sets, and made sure that they got their money's worth; shots of the show's Eagles taking off and crashing and blowing up were used over and over again, and alien spaceship popped up in several different guises in different episodes. Brian Blessed even guest starred as two completely different characters in two episodes a season apart.
  • Although The Prisoner seemed to make extensive use of Portmeirion, the location filming had been restricted to just a few weeks early in the production, and later episodes were mostly studio-bound. The directors nonetheless gave the impression that most of the series had been shot on location by carefully rationing the existing footage.
  • A smaller version of Zoe was used for the Sesame Street special "Abby in Wonderland" (Zoe played the Dormouse, called Mousey the Hatter Helper here). However, it was used for a few episodes in season 40 alongside the normal-sized Zoe.
  • A series 6 episode of House featured a video game developer who succumbs to a medical complaint whilst testing his new virtual reality game, depicted using very expensive-looking CGI. Not only do House's team find an excuse to give us another look by playing the game themselves whilst supposedly investigating his symptoms but the patient is also obliging enough to develop hallucinations that incorporate similar CGI elements. In addition, whenever any future episodes show characters playing a video game it is always this one. The controls have inexplicably been mapped from the original virtual reality system to standard console controllers whilst the graphics remain as pre-rendered shots from camera angles that would make gameplay very difficult, but at least it gives the show an excuse to reuse the CGI footage again.

Web Original

  • The Nostalgia Chick shouts "Trailer Shot!" when there's a pretty-looking scene of the dragon in Dragonheart flapping his wings.

Video Games

Western Animation

  • Notably averted in the animated film Kung Fu Panda, in which Jackie Chan's character Monkey got surprisingly few lines, making many people wonder why they had to get Jackie Chan for that role when they could've essentially gone with a cheaper actor. Apparently complaints of this is why in Kung Fu Panda 3 Monkey ended having more lines than in the previous two.
    • Animated films do this a lot. The actors don't need to do much, just read the lines, so they don't need to be paid much. Live films are incredibly hard work compared to sitting in a warm studio with a microphone, cracking jokes with Jack Black and Angelina Jolie. Plus, Jackie Chan provided technical guidance with the fight scenes - he is the master of kung fu comedy.
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