Just a bit worried at the moment. We have a couple of interested parties in our film but they do not know what the budget was - when my producer asked one how much they think, he estimated 3million. The truth is it was a no-budget production made for under 25k. When they find this out could it go for or against us?
That is interesting. Usually buyers are very good at estimating the budgets of movies.
My guess is that it's either some weird negotiation tactic on their part, maybe they're trying to complement you for the quality of the movie, or they simply don't know what they're talking about.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that your movie couldn't look awesome, it's just that usually when you are working with a $3M budget, you would be talking about big name actors and production value that would in most cases be better than with a no-budget production.
There is a big difference between $3M and $25k. Most industry people should be able to tell the difference.
You don't have to tell them your real budget, so if they think you spent millions on it, that should benefit you when you are negotiating with them about the selling price.
I'm assuming that you didn't pay full salary to everyone involved at this budget level?
If you want to calculate the "real" budget, figure out how much it would have cost if you had paid everyone their full salary, this includes the shooting, and post-production, editing time etc.
In other words you include your sweat equity in the budget.
If they really want to know the real budget, and if you want to, you can tell them the budget including sweat equity.