Schedule and Budget Breakdown

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Indiefilming

My partner and I are looking to do a schedule and budget for our locked script before we write a business plan and approach 2 investors we know and start our kickstarter campaign.

I have never done a schedule or budget before. I'm up for hunkering down and learning. Would it be more cost effective and prudent to hire an experienced line producer to do a schedule and budget than to pay the $800 for the Movie Magic Scheduling and Budgeting programs and DIY? Is it quite a steep learning curve?

Also, are schedule and budget constantly fluxuating during pre-production so DYI might really make some sense for the low budget indie?

Thanks!
 
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Quick answer to your question: Hire a professional. It is quite an uphill learning curve and getting it wrong will cost you time and money. Your investor deserves concrete answers, not guesswork. Jack Binder, Producer http://filmbudget.com Low budget to high movie budget productions. Film tax credits, incentives, consulting and advisor.
 
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You can do it yourself. However, if you've never done it before, there's quite a lot that you may or may not understand, and it is quite a steep learning curve just to do it all manually - Movie Magic is an even steeper learning curve.

If you have the money to hire a professional, I probably would. You can do it yourself, but there's a lot to budgetting and scheduling and you need to know you're doing it right - even just the difference between scheduling 6 pages and scheduling 5 pages. ADs tend to know (especially if given a shot list) how long a setup may take, so whilst you may be ambitious and just guess that you might get 6 pages shot in one 12-hour day, an AD will look at it and say well you've got a two dolly setups, a location move and an entire night scene to light, let's schedule 4 pages so that we don't end up running behind.

At the end of the day, when you submit your progress report, you want to show your investors that you're at least running on schedule, of not ahead of schedule. You don't want to submit a progress report that shows you scheduled 6 pages, only shot 4 and now need to pickup those two whole pages somewhere else in the schedule, costing more money, possibly bringing cast and crew back for another day etc etc.

Plus you need to have crossplots plotting when people are available vs when they're working and all sorts of things. And, a professional will likely move scenes around to save time and money in ways you may not have thought of before - ie scheduling it so that we finish a scene before lunch so 4 of the 5 cast in that scene can go home which means we only have to pay for catering for 10 rather than for 14, scheduling all the dolly shots after lunch so that we can have a runner go and pick it up and only pay a half-day rate rather than a full day rate, scheduling so that whilst we shoot an intimate scene with skeleton crew, rather than doing it at the end of the day, do it at a time when the crew who aren't needed can go to the next room that we're shooting in and set that up so that as soon as we've finished shooting here, we can move on and almost immediately start shooting etc. etc.

Also, in terms of budget, there are all sorts of legal issues when it comes to things like overtime pay and workers comp and defferred payment contracts etc. so I'd at least be getting a professional on as a Producer to take care of the budget stuff and all the logistics and logistical/legal documentation that you may not necessarily have much idea about.
 
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Thanks you all for responding.

Any idea, ball park, how much to hire someone for both scheduling and budget? E.g. we may need a gun wrangler and I know it's considerable $$ I just don't know how much and for how long we'll need one.

Also, I suspect scheduling is something that fluxuates so I'm wondering if the expense of hiring someone could climb quickly.


Thanks WeightOnWheels- www.scenechronize.com looks fantastic though I'm confused how to use it so I guess I'm at the very beginning of the learning curve. Does Scenechronize help with budgeting after scheduling?
 
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Well, you'd bring on a Producer to do your budget and an AD to do your scheduling. Your AD could come on a week or two before shooting if absolutely necessary, and you'd just pay them your nominal rate for the length of the shoot, plus the week in pre. Producer negotiations might be different, you may pay them a nominal rate, or you may cut into a profit-share deal.. All really depends on how good a sweet-talker you are.

Armourers can fluctuate in pricings, also you only need an armourer and safety officer on set if the gun is actually real and fires. If the gun doesn't fire, you can use an imitation weapon and only need to inform the authorities, and simply inform them that your armourer won't be on set. Most rental places that hire out guns are or have certified armourers that you can say is on your film, just not on set.
 
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jax_rox said:
You can do it yourself. However, if you've never done it before, there's quite a lot that you may or may not understand, and it is quite a steep learning curve just to do it all manually - Movie Magic is an even steeper learning curve.
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True. But I think it's worth it. Especially on an indie level. By doing it yourself you'll get to know your film so well it'll be like a person you've been married to for 40 years. So you'll be able to see production much much much more clearly than if someone else hands you a breakdown and schedule on a few pieces of paper and you read it.

Just my .02.
 
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Dreadylocks said:
True. But I think it's worth it. Especially on an indie level. By doing it yourself you'll get to know your film so well it'll be like a person you've been married to for 40 years. So you'll be able to see production much much much more clearly than if someone else hands you a breakdown and schedule on a few pieces of paper and you read it.

Just my .02.
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There's that side to it too, though if you've never done it before and don't really know how to do it properly, it can be a bit tough.

That's why people generally ask the AD questions about the script/film. Because they've broken the script down and read it that many times that they know everything back to front. As the Director you should know your film inside out anyway. I suppose it depends on what sort of position you want to take, or how you want to direct. Personally, I'm not a Director though if I was I think I'd want to be more involved in the story and having the story come to life and working with the actors to make that happen, rather than having to stress about all the logistical issues - that's what I'd hire a Producer and 1st AD for ;) Most of the Directors I've worked with have been more focussed on the film and the actors/acting, but then I've always worked on films where we've had both a Producer and a 1st AD.
That's also why I don't think Directors should also try and Produce their own film - they should be worrying about the actors and the acting, not about how we're going to get all the shots finished today, or whether we've got the budget to bring in a piece of equipment or whatever.. They're two seperate roles for a reason ;) I also think that Producer and 1st AD should be seperate people, but sometimes the low-budget indie worlds doesn't allow such luxuries.
 
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DreadyLocks, I'm with you that I like to understand as much as possible about my film. It proved really helpful in editing my last piece. Out of necessity I taught myself FCP, fired our editor, and was able to salvage the project. And I know how to shoot for the cut now.
I have been warned about over reaching, though I think at this stage it won't hamper focus too much as long as I delegate it off when we're closer to shooting.

jax_rox, much thanks re the Armourers info.

I'm confused about the chronology of steps with scheduling and budgeting. It was my understanding you have to breakdown the script and do a schedule in order to create an accurate budget to present to investors. at which point you can raise the money you need to hire the AD and Producer...

Thanks again, you guys have been really helpful.
 
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Most of the films I've worked on, the Producers are brought onto the film before the funding stages. They then create the budget, get the funding and through that are able to pay themselves and/or the rest of the key crew. Or, Producers will get into a profit-share deal. Generally, if a Producer (or any key creative) like your script enough, they will want to help you out. Getting a good Producer on who likes your script from the start is great, especially as they'll generally know not only investors but also different funding schemes that are available to you.

Breakdown is then done as part of the pre-production and used for props lists, costume lists etc. Also used for scheduling, which is done for the shoot, rather than for the proposal. It'll be good to have an idea of when you want to shoot and how long the shoot will be, but you don't need to have an exact schedule.

Your Producer would help you out with all this stuff, in general if a Producer likes your script and knows you'll be approaching at least two investors as well as a crowdfunding campaign, they're likely to jump on board. It can sometimes be good to get those just out of film school who have produced a major short film, and are looking to get feature credits - they are generally quite good at what they do, and will do it for cheap/deferred payment to get the credit.
 
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Indiefilming said:
I'm confused about the chronology of steps with scheduling and budgeting. It was my understanding you have to breakdown the script and do a schedule in order to create an accurate budget to present to investors. at which point you can raise the money you need to hire the AD and Producer...
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Yep, that's about right.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you should pick up a copy of 'Filmmaking for Dummies.' It's actually a great resource and the chapter on budgeting/scheduling alone makes it worth the price. :)
 
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Don't take this the wrong way, but you should pick up a copy of 'Filmmaking for Dummies.' It's actually a great resource and the chapter on budgeting/scheduling alone makes it worth the price.
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That's great advice.

I have a few books on the subject that I don't use anymore. I can give them to you if you'd like. I'm pretty broke right now so you'd have to wait a week or so before I can ship it out.
 
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Ha! Dreadylocks, I didn't take that the wrong way. In fact, I went out and bought it and am reading it now.

I'd previously skimmed through The Complete Idiot's Guide to Independent Filmmaking and didn't learn anything new. But Dummies looks quite informative.

WeightOnWheels, that is super kind of you to offer. And of course I'd pay for shipping. What books do you have? Truly, thank you. Really cool of you to offer that.

jax_rox, in my experience this is often the case too. And yes, the plan is to get it in the hands of some producers we know through other filmmaker friends. The script has already attracted attention from a well respected actor who has signed on.

One of the reasons we want to get the script scheduled and budgeted before these steps is so we can raise some seed $$ to hire a lawyer first, to be our advocates insuring we always own 51 percent of the film, i.e. hold on to creative control as we hire on these more experienced elements.

Thanks again, for your responses, advice, and generous offers. The people on this forum are very cool.
 
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