How much to ask for.

[TooSpecial]

I am in the process of getting things together for a TV series aimed at geeks and nerds. And thought Id ask for a little help on some budgeting questions.

How much is to much.

It will be fine to ask for the money needed to pay for the salaries of the people involved. It should be OK to ask for the money needed to pay for insurance and transportation fees. And maybe I'm within my right to ask for some fall back money to keep aside in case we run into unforeseen situations.

But would it not be to cheeky to ask for the money needed to rent all the equipment to film each episode. Or perhaps be really cheeky about it and ask for the money needed to purchase all the equipment out right. How about setting up a set. Having custom made back drops or furniture to go with the theme.

That last part might be OK. after all, the people picking up the pilot will want the show to be the best it can be, thus giving me what I need to build a great set to shoot it on. (The one for my show will be a big arcade machine, the presenter and guest will be sitting on the buttons with the screen being green to allow the editors to play trailers and game footage. With a separate station designed to look like a news studio for..... nerdy news nonsense.) But surely I will be expected to cover some of the costs. Other than the givers of such ludicrous amounts of money saying NO. What is there to stop me from getting as much as I can, furnishing my start up production company with some fancy equipment and a van to haul it around in and using everything I have gained from them to do other productions that they will never be able to get any financial gain from for themselves.

Granted I will have to put it all in a budget and have it all approved. But what do you guys put in your budget. And do any of you start from scratch and hit them up for everything you will need. To purchase or to rent.


Sorry if I lost the plot there, I type as I think. To take it back to the beginning and some it all up... How much is to much. Or not enough.

 

[Sweetie]

Yep, putting all this in the budget is typical.

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

Exactly - your budget should cover everything needed to do the production, including your own salary/fee. You may or may not be able to cover that whole budget from wherever your funding source is, but you start with everything.

You can certainly put the equipment purchases in as part of that budget, but it's probably going to be a tough sell to your investors unless there's a compelling reason to buy instead of rent - but that's the kind of thing you need to calculate as you put the budget together. If your goal is to end up owning all the equipment it's probably going to be more realistic to purchase the equipment yourself for your production company and then rent it back to the project, which probably won't cover the entire cost to you but may offset it significantly.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Just to elaborate on the post by ItDonnedOnMe...

you start with everything.

Start like you have a full "network" budget, then do at least two smaller budget versions, like 75% and 50% of the "network" budget. Remember that, if picked up, the set is a one-time cost, so do budgets for a full season to figure out the cost per episode. You can amortize the cost of the set - and any other one-time costs like a theme song & other music cues - over the number of episodes.

I would say that, no matter what, you rent. Hire an entire sound team, camera team, etc. They will probably have kits to rent or connections for lower rental rates. And keep in mind that long-term rental rates drop substantially, so you'll probably be able to rent better gear than you could buy, gear that the operators are comfortable with.

Oh, as you trim away at the budget leave the audio alone; that's the absolute LAST thing to go. It's a game show and the audio must be 100% reliable - that includes the operator(s). You don't get any retakes and you will get very little in the way of audio post if anything at all. Shows like that are usually mixed 100% on the fly - including all the music cues - and contestants can do the damnedest things sonically, so your mixer(s) need to have it together.