how much would a film cost to make
- Thread starter benj09
- Start date
This amount can range from 50 cents to $400 million, depending.
I have made feature length (80 minutes) movies for £2,000
and I've made them for £200,000. Your question, with the
info you offer is unanswerable.
You will need to figure out how many days you will shoot,
how many people total you will need, how many locations
you will need, what equipment you will need to buy, what
equipment you will need to rent, what equipment you can
borrow and quite a bit more before even a ballpark figure
can be offered.
If all you have, total, is a few thousand pounds then you're
going to spend all of it.
'bout a hundred dollars
No, definitely, definitely a hundred dollars.
yeeeah.
Wopner starts at 2.
uh oh, a fart.
You can shoot a movie for the price of the media ya shoot it on... and you can get that donated. You can also spend several hundred million. Your question is the same as "how much does a car cost?" It, of course, depends on your needs, the car and the options. I've had $60k rides and $300 jalopies. It's not a "ya get what ya pay for" world if you apply passion and creativity. Look at Paranormal Activity as example. They say they spent 10 grand making it. I assume that is including the weed and beer involved while shooting. Blair Witch? 'Twas turned in as a final in a film class. Water World? Good lord, they are still taking a bath... no pun intended.
Wopner starts at 2.
uh oh, a fart.
You can shoot a movie for the price of the media ya shoot it on... and you can get that donated. You can also spend several hundred million. Your question is the same as "how much does a car cost?" It, of course, depends on your needs, the car and the options. I've had $60k rides and $300 jalopies. It's not a "ya get what ya pay for" world if you apply passion and creativity. Look at Paranormal Activity as example. They say they spent 10 grand making it. I assume that is including the weed and beer involved while shooting. Blair Witch? 'Twas turned in as a final in a film class. Water World? Good lord, they are still taking a bath... no pun intended.
The cost figures are always misleading on such projects; that is what was spent on shooting those films. Quite a bit of money was spent by the distributors on audio post for both of those films; about $50,000 on "Paranormal", over $1million on "Blair Witch" (they had to ADR most of the film; the production sound was atrocious). The movie-going public has very high expectations when it comes to the sound of the films they pay to see, even though they are not aware of it. They also spent quite a bit on color correction and other visual post fixes (sorry, I don't know how much; that's not my group of peers).
benj09, I forget if you've mentioned this but have you produced/directed some shorts? If you haven't and you really like your script I'd suggest holding off because there is a good chance you are going to mess your first project up...
If you have a few thousand pounds you can absolutely shoot a feature, but you have to be very realistic about what your production values are going to be. It's not going to look/sound like The Depated and as Alcove said it's not even going to look/sound like the Blair Witch that we as audiences saw... Regardless, your 1st step toward figuring out what you are going to spend is to figure out your answers to directorik's questions.
My personal biggest advice with "big" projects in gen. is to think about what the project means to you as a filmmaker. What are your expectations? Are you working to gain experience? To have an impressive resume piece? To make connections with new people? Imo your goal(s) should at least somewhat guide your approach and your budget. I shot my first micro-budget (so far 1,400$ish) feature this summer, so I'm a total newb also but just my 2cents on budgeting/getting the best product for your buck...
What I'm really glad that I did -
Wrote my script for the actors and settings that I had (whatever you do, don't cast college kids as characters that obviously should be over 30!)
Spent what money I had on sound (though that is still horribly amateur) and feeding people.
Thought very carefully about what my goals for getting this project shown were before I started filming.
What I wish I had done differently -
Had planned for a set number of days to shoot (I did a shoot until it's done "approach" and as a result I still might have some shooting left to do). Had actually budgeted out each individual day of my shoot.
Had put more of an effort into borrowing equipment.
Things that realistically would have kept the movie from getting made, but that I still reeeally wish that I had done -
Saved until I could hire a production sound mixer.
Saved 1/2 my money for post.
If you have a few thousand pounds you can absolutely shoot a feature, but you have to be very realistic about what your production values are going to be. It's not going to look/sound like The Depated and as Alcove said it's not even going to look/sound like the Blair Witch that we as audiences saw... Regardless, your 1st step toward figuring out what you are going to spend is to figure out your answers to directorik's questions.
My personal biggest advice with "big" projects in gen. is to think about what the project means to you as a filmmaker. What are your expectations? Are you working to gain experience? To have an impressive resume piece? To make connections with new people? Imo your goal(s) should at least somewhat guide your approach and your budget. I shot my first micro-budget (so far 1,400$ish) feature this summer, so I'm a total newb also but just my 2cents on budgeting/getting the best product for your buck...
What I'm really glad that I did -
Wrote my script for the actors and settings that I had (whatever you do, don't cast college kids as characters that obviously should be over 30!)
Spent what money I had on sound (though that is still horribly amateur) and feeding people.
Thought very carefully about what my goals for getting this project shown were before I started filming.
What I wish I had done differently -
Had planned for a set number of days to shoot (I did a shoot until it's done "approach" and as a result I still might have some shooting left to do). Had actually budgeted out each individual day of my shoot.
Had put more of an effort into borrowing equipment.
Things that realistically would have kept the movie from getting made, but that I still reeeally wish that I had done -
Saved until I could hire a production sound mixer.
Saved 1/2 my money for post.
I've shot a few for around 500-1000, all shorts on 16mm. It all depends on how much you can do yourself and who your actors are. If you use hobos make sure to invite some of the biggest people you know to guard the equipment.
Currently doing Pre-production planning myself
Currently I'm doing budgeting for my first feature, now I too am trying to save (aka not spend) as much money as possible.
1. Looking for Free Actors (still need to feed them) & Cheap Crew
2. Looking for Free/Cheap Locations
3. Writing my own screenplay (free)
4. My own post (so ~$1200-$2000 for software) and using my pre-existing computer
etc.
But all that "free" comes with a cost, so I can't do things like shoot 7 solid optimized days. My shoot will likely take 14 or so days worth (or more). So renting equipment is a no go (from what I can rent from local stores I'm looking at ~50-75% the cost of new) because of the elongated timeframe. So I have to buy equipment.
Buying equipment means I can use it for some shorts I want to make first (which cost wise would be insane if I rented for a short) and for multiple projects. And these smaller shorts should give me a better idea of miscellaneous shooting costs. I'm still looking at $8000 CAD of equipment which is overtop of my ~$15,000 of film camera equipment I will be able to use (going DSLRv rather than dedicated Video-camera). Sure I could go out and buy a handy-cam and shoot the whole movie from the hip, but it would look and sound awful (may yet still, we'll see).
So when your talking about thousands of dollars or pounds or euros, you need to realize that your production is going to take a hit somewhere. Realize that for every dollar you "save" likely means 2 dollars of your own time will need to be spent beefing up the quality of the movie. In some cases you may get lucky and a friend will lend you really nice equipment or let you use their mansion at no cost or you could end up picking a cheap option which ends up making sections of your movie unsalvageable.
So for me, if I do the equivalent of 4 feature films with my equipment before I upgrade, I'm looking at a per movie cost of around.... $9500 CAD. At a profit of $5 per sale (Digital Download or DVD or Blueray) I would need to sell the movie 1900 times to break-even. And even this number may be to optimistic.
Currently I'm doing budgeting for my first feature, now I too am trying to save (aka not spend) as much money as possible.
1. Looking for Free Actors (still need to feed them) & Cheap Crew
2. Looking for Free/Cheap Locations
3. Writing my own screenplay (free)
4. My own post (so ~$1200-$2000 for software) and using my pre-existing computer
etc.
But all that "free" comes with a cost, so I can't do things like shoot 7 solid optimized days. My shoot will likely take 14 or so days worth (or more). So renting equipment is a no go (from what I can rent from local stores I'm looking at ~50-75% the cost of new) because of the elongated timeframe. So I have to buy equipment.
Buying equipment means I can use it for some shorts I want to make first (which cost wise would be insane if I rented for a short) and for multiple projects. And these smaller shorts should give me a better idea of miscellaneous shooting costs. I'm still looking at $8000 CAD of equipment which is overtop of my ~$15,000 of film camera equipment I will be able to use (going DSLRv rather than dedicated Video-camera). Sure I could go out and buy a handy-cam and shoot the whole movie from the hip, but it would look and sound awful (may yet still, we'll see).
So when your talking about thousands of dollars or pounds or euros, you need to realize that your production is going to take a hit somewhere. Realize that for every dollar you "save" likely means 2 dollars of your own time will need to be spent beefing up the quality of the movie. In some cases you may get lucky and a friend will lend you really nice equipment or let you use their mansion at no cost or you could end up picking a cheap option which ends up making sections of your movie unsalvageable.
So for me, if I do the equivalent of 4 feature films with my equipment before I upgrade, I'm looking at a per movie cost of around.... $9500 CAD. At a profit of $5 per sale (Digital Download or DVD or Blueray) I would need to sell the movie 1900 times to break-even. And even this number may be to optimistic.
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Our last two features both cost under 8k. Below are the trailers for both as an example of what can be done with the cash if you have a solid team working sweat equity.
NUN OF THAT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/t5yBfouKhXw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/t5yBfouKhXw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
ATOMIC BRAIN INVASION:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bZ7Q-GbjoFI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bZ7Q-GbjoFI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
NUN has already been picked up for national distro and is receiving rave reviews, and ATOMIC is still in post.
NUN OF THAT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/t5yBfouKhXw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/t5yBfouKhXw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
ATOMIC BRAIN INVASION:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bZ7Q-GbjoFI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bZ7Q-GbjoFI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
NUN has already been picked up for national distro and is receiving rave reviews, and ATOMIC is still in post.
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Yeah but they still made them for that. Not what we saw unless we saw it at a festival but they were completed and did festivals. Anytime a festival film is purchased money is pumped in. Of course much more if shot in video with bad sound. But you can still have the hopes of completing a 10K film and selling it whereupon more money can be put into it. Theatrical distribution is a bad judge, sure, but go to some festivals and there are some 10K films with great sound and picture.
Just so you guys know: I didn't post the above trailers for promotional reasons at all...I honestly posted those so the gentleman that asked, can see what a solid indie team with 8K can do.
And I'm sure you can make it look even better if you had a better camera and more cutting edge color grading/correction.
And I'm sure you can make it look even better if you had a better camera and more cutting edge color grading/correction.