Dark Star was another great low budget film from Carpenter. Those early films of his were truly low budget. It aggravates me when some producer says that anything below 5 or 10 million is low budget. There is a disturbing arrogance about it, as if they are bragging, that to them wasting enrmous amounts of money is impressive in itself. What is far more impressive is when someone does not spend much money and makes a good film. Today in Hollywood, you don't figure out how to do something. You simply hire another company. That is pathetic, and yet it is how mainstream films are now made.
I mentioned Ray Harryhausen because he truly did everything in the FX of his films. On Jason and the Argonauts he had some assistants, but on the others he did all the animation, fabrication of miniature sets, building of puppets, arrangement of lighting and camera work. Can you imagine that today in Hollywood? It is absolutely unthinkable.
Except with a maverick producer like Roger Corman, who refuses to waste money and makes each of his company's films for around $250,000 which is the cost of film stock and processing/post production, and modest salaries for the people who are actually needed to do a film. His films unfortunately are not very good these days though.