Story on a Limited Budget

I just finished watching Crash and then listening to the voiceover of the writer/directors' commentaries. What struck me is that they kept coming back to the choices that were made because of a limited budget. Scenes were rewritten, locations were chosen, timeframes were met, all because of that limitation. Excellent movie, by the way. And it won the Edgar from Mystery Writers of America for best screenplay and well, everybody knows, it won best picture.

Like Haiku, or a book or short story pared down for wordcount, or heck, even like the refrigerator magnet poetry done by my friends that covers my fridge, a limited budget to tell a story is often a story teller's best friend.