How difficult is it to get funding in this case?

I wanted to direct my first real feature and was going to originally produce it myself, with a very low budget, like $50K. Then rely on getting external distribution later, like what a lot of indie filmmakers do.

So it would be like a really low budget movie like El Mariachi or something like that.

I worked as a PSM on someone else's short film. We all worked for free and were payed with food pretty much. The director then sent that short film into some production companies, wanting to make the short film into a feature, and was using the short showcase.

He got offered 10 million dollars from a company, but he turned it down. The company wanted him to use a cast and crew of their choice, and he would be out of the loop and picking his cast and crew. So he went to a different company and got 1 million instead, with the freedom to cast and crew whoever he wanted pretty much.

I wasn't invited back to the feature, so I do not know much more than that. However, I was wondering if I should go this road, and if getting a million or more dollars is as easy as he made it seem.

Not to put him down or anything, but I and my friends who I showed the short film too... we didn't think it was that good, and we were actually very surprised he was offered 10 million from one company, and 1 million from another.

The short was decently made on a technical level, but we just thought that it was poorly scripted, and was trying to be a serious horror movie, but came off as unintentionally funny, scripting wise, more so than the technical.

But I was wondering if what he did was too rare to hopefor, and therefore maybe I will have to settle for a really low budget looking and feeling 50K feature, compared to a million or more. What do you think?