I understand that a good episode or back-door pilot can be done for $1.5 - 2.5 million, but Star Trek and other established shows are filming for $8 million plus per episode. If that's going to be true, that would be very difficult for a new producer to break into the field. Does anyone have any insights into this?
budget Is a streaming/TV episode really $8 million plus now?
- Thread starter Aspiring Mogul
- Start date
Hi Mara,
I agree, but I had been told that a low-budget fairly good quality sci-fi movie can be made, as a back-door pilot, for US $2 million. I'm hoping that is still true, perhaps with some adjustments for inflation.
I agree, but I had been told that a low-budget fairly good quality sci-fi movie can be made, as a back-door pilot, for US $2 million. I'm hoping that is still true, perhaps with some adjustments for inflation.
I think the only way to figure out what can realistically be made for budget X is to hire an experienced line producer and put together an actual budget for a specific script that takes into consideration everything from actors and director requirements to technology (CGI etc), locations, number of days needed to shoot, and insurance.
There's no need to go into such detail now, because I'm not at that stage, though I'm working towards the time when conditions are right. But I want to keep my eye on the situation, if only to keep me motivated through the years. I'm just looking for general information as of now.
To ballpark it, lower end shows are often produced for a couple million, a flagship show currently does hover around 8, and we are seeing shows at 20 million per episode on rare occasion. Still, people listened to basement punk albums while Oasis was touring. You can find an audience and succeed at many levels, and I'd add that no one is paying those bills out of pocket. South Park was launched by two guys that were cutting out shapes from construction paper with scissors. Ultimately, this is more likely to come down to what you make, and who you know, rather than some particular dollar amount. My best advice is to keep creativity at the forefront, and build up your resume in cost effective ways until you attract the notice of investors. A 2 million dollar pilot episode is a major risk for someone that hasn't for example proven that they can keep an audience spellbound through a 30 second commercial. In example, if you have 60 grand, I can help you make a 30 second commercial no one will ever forget. Example given -
Shot 1 - Logan Paul sits in the passenger seat of a helicopter, loudly eating potato chips while filming himself with a cell phone and talking about about how "sick" his videos are with his mouth full of chips.
Shot 2 - The helicopter pilot looks over, and pushes him out the side
Shot 3 - we see a wide shot of Logan falling 20 stories into the mouth of an active volcano, emitting a blood curdling scream, but still filming himself with his cell phone the entire way down.
Shot 4 - Nike logo on black, "Just do it"
Shot 5- A puff of vapor curls up from the surface of the lava, just as the scream sound ends (was still audible through the Nike logo)
Shot 6 - Helicopter Pilot eating chips
Shot 1 - Logan Paul sits in the passenger seat of a helicopter, loudly eating potato chips while filming himself with a cell phone and talking about about how "sick" his videos are with his mouth full of chips.
Shot 2 - The helicopter pilot looks over, and pushes him out the side
Shot 3 - we see a wide shot of Logan falling 20 stories into the mouth of an active volcano, emitting a blood curdling scream, but still filming himself with his cell phone the entire way down.
Shot 4 - Nike logo on black, "Just do it"
Shot 5- A puff of vapor curls up from the surface of the lava, just as the scream sound ends (was still audible through the Nike logo)
Shot 6 - Helicopter Pilot eating chips
Excellent scene, Nate North.
So what would you suggest for me as a business plan? I want to build a science fiction space franchise.
So what would you suggest for me as a business plan? I want to build a science fiction space franchise.
I'm doing something similar, and have put in thousands of hours of work, so I have an excellent answer for you, but that answer if written down, would look like this
There are emerging technologies that can be used in a modular fashion to create a path forward for you that would allow you to compete effectively. It's not even close to easy though, so the question is, how serious are you about all of this?
If you'd like to begin a conversation about it, we can do so, and I'll help you out as much as I can. Just be aware that this is not a simple answer, and I personally am only now after a year of research becoming fully aware of the scope of what will be required to execute such an endeavor. If you are serious about it, you can come over to save point and chat with me about it, and I'll show you how to get started creating your own universe. Depending on your available funding, options vary, but my initial advice would be to gain significant education about the lower cost options for executing this, as lower effort paths have multiplied expense, or simply rendered people unable to compete.
The good news is that there is a real answer to this question, the bad news is that it's quite complicated, and requires significant time and intelligence.
Here are a few starter questions for you.
1. Do you have the ability to create a greenscreen facility of reasonable size?
2. Do you have investors or substantial capital?
3. What is your knowledge level regarding compositing, 3d, animation, post, and other technical skills associated with such an endeavor.
4. Do you have existing industry connections?
5. Do you have a pilot script, or are you looking to develop one?
6. How much time are you willing to allocate towards bringing yourself up to speed per week?
7. What is the scope of this sci fi project? One city? One Planet? One Galaxy?
8. Is live action mandatory?
9. What is your ultimate goal? What result would you be happy with?
In 2021, series pitches are becoming like myspace garage bands back in the day. True competitors will be people that go above and beyond to demonstrate exemplary qualifications. Or rich people. Personally, I'm up all night every night trying to cram in as much education and work time as possible, and it's quite effective, but taking a long time. A year from now I'll be able to create any set needed virtually at studio grade, and I'm already fully equipped to composite in actors.
This is a very minimal look at what I could help you set up, but as mentioned above, designing numerous realistic environments gets very complicated.
these are the technologies we have ended up going with for my effort towards a similar goal to what you stated. I'm not using live actors, and if you want to try and forego that cost also, that's another topic I can address further along in the hypothetical conversation.
There are emerging technologies that can be used in a modular fashion to create a path forward for you that would allow you to compete effectively. It's not even close to easy though, so the question is, how serious are you about all of this?
If you'd like to begin a conversation about it, we can do so, and I'll help you out as much as I can. Just be aware that this is not a simple answer, and I personally am only now after a year of research becoming fully aware of the scope of what will be required to execute such an endeavor. If you are serious about it, you can come over to save point and chat with me about it, and I'll show you how to get started creating your own universe. Depending on your available funding, options vary, but my initial advice would be to gain significant education about the lower cost options for executing this, as lower effort paths have multiplied expense, or simply rendered people unable to compete.
The good news is that there is a real answer to this question, the bad news is that it's quite complicated, and requires significant time and intelligence.
Here are a few starter questions for you.
1. Do you have the ability to create a greenscreen facility of reasonable size?
2. Do you have investors or substantial capital?
3. What is your knowledge level regarding compositing, 3d, animation, post, and other technical skills associated with such an endeavor.
4. Do you have existing industry connections?
5. Do you have a pilot script, or are you looking to develop one?
6. How much time are you willing to allocate towards bringing yourself up to speed per week?
7. What is the scope of this sci fi project? One city? One Planet? One Galaxy?
8. Is live action mandatory?
9. What is your ultimate goal? What result would you be happy with?
In 2021, series pitches are becoming like myspace garage bands back in the day. True competitors will be people that go above and beyond to demonstrate exemplary qualifications. Or rich people. Personally, I'm up all night every night trying to cram in as much education and work time as possible, and it's quite effective, but taking a long time. A year from now I'll be able to create any set needed virtually at studio grade, and I'm already fully equipped to composite in actors.
This is a very minimal look at what I could help you set up, but as mentioned above, designing numerous realistic environments gets very complicated.
these are the technologies we have ended up going with for my effort towards a similar goal to what you stated. I'm not using live actors, and if you want to try and forego that cost also, that's another topic I can address further along in the hypothetical conversation.
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Wow! You've written an impressive essay.
But what're your credentials, Nate North, and have you actually produced a movie?
But what're your credentials, Nate North, and have you actually produced a movie?
I've produced 2 small feature films that have been in local theaters, but that's amongst the most minor of my credentials. It's kind of a long list. I shoot on a Red Epic, on a gimbal, on an 18 foot crane, and have worked on a number of terrible independent film projects directed by novices with family money or social connections. I'm an expert drone pilot, an accomplished CG animator, depending on how you look at it. (it's a broad area of multiple specialties with a lot of rather accomplished people working in the field) I began working in film about 13 years ago after spending years as a CEO in the artificial intelligence industry. I have in the past decade worked for a number of household name corporations around the world, with a significant ratio of that time served at Hyundai, GES, Geodis, and similar with innumerable small projects for the likes of IBM, Cisco. I made several longer running series in the early days as a staff director at Machinima.com. I was a top draw at the now defunct Vuze network. But honestly, none of this matters, since what you're asking about required me to learn an entirely new skillset on top of my existing credentials.
I quit working for corporations a few years ago, simply exhausted by being repeatedly forced into dull lifeless projects with oversight from people who couldn't direct traffic . I occasionally pick up a check by working as a director, DP, or FX supervisor on small indie films. I don't bother putting them on the IMDB page, since they are uniformly terrible, typically a wealthy person and their cousin steering project after project into a ditch, and ignoring all advice. I've basically quit doing that as well, just out of frustration at stupidity such as dropping a quarter million on a feature, and then refusing to do any colorist work because the cousin said "there was a button for autocontrast on MS paint" I recently offered to add aerial photography to a film I worked on, currently on Amazon prime, and the first time filmmakers smirked and explained to me that movies didn't need cinematography to be good (it was a local drama coach directing for the first time). They shot a 90 minute film from a tripod. I tried to loan them my gimbal for free, and they said it was too much trouble to use it.
I love making film, and I've made literally a hundred hours of film over the years. Commercials, opening credits, vfx shots, feature films, cartoons, art projects, albums, massive digital signage projects on the Vegas strip, etc. It is no exaggeration to say I have occasionally produced more work in a month than some filmmakers produce in a year. It's funny you think that post is long. it's not long by my standards. To my knowledge, I launched the single largest IRL collaborative project in Indietalk history, by writing more than almost anyone on the forum until I had organized a team and moved everyone out to a 7000 sqft house (I was fairly wealthy at the time). I have had to essentially start from scratch lately, as my new project is my first foray into animated drama, and it's taken a lot of work to produce an effective pipeline that I felt was worthwhile. That is very nearly accomplished at this point. In about 2-3 months from now, a series of demos will emerge showing a next gen implementation for animation workflow, unprecedented at my budget level. I live in the Midwest now taking care of my elderly parents, and since moving here, my budgets have lost several zeroes. It's now a constant struggle to compete with people from more affluent geographic areas who have 1% of my experience, and literally 10,000 times my budget. There is no film money available in the Midwest. The last film financed in my area was "A Christmas Story"
Your turn. You say you're a producer ready to launch a multimillion dollar series, have you put in your 10,000 hours like I have? I actually get your skepticism, every person I meet with 3 hours experience starts showing me laurels they bought at a local film contest, and claiming to be an experienced pro. A guy showed up here on the forum the other day and claimed to be world famous. He had been nominated for a small award at a meaningless local film festival and lost. Unfortunately for both of us, the only way to tell the real ones from the fakes is to spend time communicating with them, and see their work. A majority of would be filmmakers I meet these days spend more time hyping themselves on facebook than they do behind a camera. I scrapped my facebook account a decade ago, I spend a very high ratio of my time on my various skillsets.
Again I ask, how serious about this are you? I've put in major time, money, and effort, and I never stop pushing to improve. I took the time to answer your question in full. Can you match that level of effort?
Here are some visual samples of my work. I only include solo projects as reference, since I don't believe in showing things that 60 people worked on as examples of my skill. Sadly most of my older corporate work has been lost in hard drive failures. Red footage consumes large amounts of space, and redundancy is expensive.
it literally goes on like this forever. And in my opinion, the work I'll release 1st quarter 22 will eclipse all of it.
I quit working for corporations a few years ago, simply exhausted by being repeatedly forced into dull lifeless projects with oversight from people who couldn't direct traffic . I occasionally pick up a check by working as a director, DP, or FX supervisor on small indie films. I don't bother putting them on the IMDB page, since they are uniformly terrible, typically a wealthy person and their cousin steering project after project into a ditch, and ignoring all advice. I've basically quit doing that as well, just out of frustration at stupidity such as dropping a quarter million on a feature, and then refusing to do any colorist work because the cousin said "there was a button for autocontrast on MS paint" I recently offered to add aerial photography to a film I worked on, currently on Amazon prime, and the first time filmmakers smirked and explained to me that movies didn't need cinematography to be good (it was a local drama coach directing for the first time). They shot a 90 minute film from a tripod. I tried to loan them my gimbal for free, and they said it was too much trouble to use it.
I love making film, and I've made literally a hundred hours of film over the years. Commercials, opening credits, vfx shots, feature films, cartoons, art projects, albums, massive digital signage projects on the Vegas strip, etc. It is no exaggeration to say I have occasionally produced more work in a month than some filmmakers produce in a year. It's funny you think that post is long. it's not long by my standards. To my knowledge, I launched the single largest IRL collaborative project in Indietalk history, by writing more than almost anyone on the forum until I had organized a team and moved everyone out to a 7000 sqft house (I was fairly wealthy at the time). I have had to essentially start from scratch lately, as my new project is my first foray into animated drama, and it's taken a lot of work to produce an effective pipeline that I felt was worthwhile. That is very nearly accomplished at this point. In about 2-3 months from now, a series of demos will emerge showing a next gen implementation for animation workflow, unprecedented at my budget level. I live in the Midwest now taking care of my elderly parents, and since moving here, my budgets have lost several zeroes. It's now a constant struggle to compete with people from more affluent geographic areas who have 1% of my experience, and literally 10,000 times my budget. There is no film money available in the Midwest. The last film financed in my area was "A Christmas Story"
Your turn. You say you're a producer ready to launch a multimillion dollar series, have you put in your 10,000 hours like I have? I actually get your skepticism, every person I meet with 3 hours experience starts showing me laurels they bought at a local film contest, and claiming to be an experienced pro. A guy showed up here on the forum the other day and claimed to be world famous. He had been nominated for a small award at a meaningless local film festival and lost. Unfortunately for both of us, the only way to tell the real ones from the fakes is to spend time communicating with them, and see their work. A majority of would be filmmakers I meet these days spend more time hyping themselves on facebook than they do behind a camera. I scrapped my facebook account a decade ago, I spend a very high ratio of my time on my various skillsets.
Again I ask, how serious about this are you? I've put in major time, money, and effort, and I never stop pushing to improve. I took the time to answer your question in full. Can you match that level of effort?
Here are some visual samples of my work. I only include solo projects as reference, since I don't believe in showing things that 60 people worked on as examples of my skill. Sadly most of my older corporate work has been lost in hard drive failures. Red footage consumes large amounts of space, and redundancy is expensive.
it literally goes on like this forever. And in my opinion, the work I'll release 1st quarter 22 will eclipse all of it.
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Nate North,
I haven't shot a single frame of film, hence my name, "Aspiring Mogul". I would like to launch a billion-dollar franchise, but, as of now, it's nothing but talk.
I haven't shot a single frame of film, hence my name, "Aspiring Mogul". I would like to launch a billion-dollar franchise, but, as of now, it's nothing but talk.