Trying to come up with a budget.

H

harmonica44

I am wanting to a make a feature film, possibly next year. I have a budget of $50000-75000, at the most, but would like to spend the least amount that I can, and certainly not go over. I was thinking of making a list of sets and action scenes I will need, and the experienced ones on her can tell me how much I can make that for the least amount more likely. Or can that not be hypothesized, simply by discussing it? If it can here is the list of settings of action scenes.

1. About half the movie takes place in different parts of a police station and/or government criminal investigation buildings, depending on when I'm done the script.

2. A courtroom for a couple of scenes.

3. A bar for one scene.

4. Two houses and an apartment building, but I could probably get those sets from friends for free.

5. Outdoor city settings for media and news coverage scenes.

6. Two buildings of some sort for the plot but haven't decided what kind of buildings yet. One will be used for the shootout below.

The Action scenes.

1. The freeway and highway streets for a car chase. Possibly the city too, but not sure yet. The chase involves a few cars, and a speeding fire engine, for the plot specifically.

2. A building of some sort that I haven't decided on yet. Gunshots will be fired to and from the building towards several police cars, as well as several shots fired into the building. Doors will be kicked down and walls possibly broken into. Significant damage.

3. The villains cause a car to crash to kidnap someone inside, followed by the driver trying to run them over as he frees himself from being stuck.

4. A chase and attack sequence throughout a house, involving fists and blunt objects.

Thanks.
 
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Curious why you are making this budget. When you say you "have a budget of $50-75k" do you mean that you have that amount at your disposal, or do you mean that that is how much the film is going to cost to make and you're going to pitch it to a potential financier?
 
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Start with your schedule.. Depending on how fast you shoot you'll hit 2-5 pages/day. Schedule the locations... the number of days should give you the location budget. Add the people you're paying to each of the days and their wages... this gives you the cast/crew budget. Add the catering for each of the days, any transportation and then equipment rental if you need any.

Now figure your pre-pro budget (mostly people, printing, coffee and food - maybe some testing)
Now your post budget (Editor, Sound, Grading, wrap party)
Marketing budget (festival entries, ads, screenings, website fees/ programming)

Add a bit to account for Murphy's Law, maybe 5-10%
Insurances (E&O, Liability, Completion).

It all starts from the production schedule though... knowing your actors and location availabilities.
 
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Before you put that kind of money into a feature, you need to think about the realities of the filmmaking business. I'm not an expert. But Independent filmmaking is an extremely poor business model. What happens in most instances is that someone makes a movie, then it sits on their computer, because no festival shows it and there is no money to advertise distribute the film by yourself.

I don't want to write an essay, but if you have that kind of money at your disposal, then you should try to make sure that your film has the production value people will look for when they decide if they're going to play your film. I'm extremely proud of my first film. I played it for general audiences three times. People stood in line to talk to me about the film. Not a single festival chose it. Nobody knows about it. I don't blame the festivals anymore. Production value was zero. But the people I showed it to (not my friends) loved it. I'm going to remake it. That's how much I like that film.

You can take a look at it yourself. It's 82 minutes long. The beginning is okay, but thirty minutes into the movie, I guarantee you're not going to stop watching it. But I still couldn't sell it. People wanted higher production value.

For your first film, you won't know how to get the production value over that threshold. You just wont, until you do it a few times.

Look man, I'm not trying to discourage you. I belong to the Toronto Filmmaker's association, where some dude just spent over 100k making a movie. I don't it's that great. But he had never even made a short film before and he spent over 100k, getting red cameras and trailer for highway scenes and what not. Maybe it's going to be a hit. I just don't think this guy knows what he is doing.

I think, if you can afford it, come to Toronto, make a few short films. work on other people's films. Learn what works and what doesnt. Then spend your money and make it. There's a lot you can do with 50k, if you know what you're doing.

I'm no expert, but I know that if I knew in 2006, what I know today, I'd have a much better and more marketable film on my hands.

You can check out my first film here:
trailer: http://thefastshuffle.blip.tv/
flick: http://thefastshuffle.blip.tv/file/1618438/

Good luck to you man.
 
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Hey trueindie, I liked what I saw of your movie, I only watched 14 minutes cuz it's f'ing late and gotta sleep. but the writing was good, the acting too, but as you say, flat lighting, dull sets, thin audio, production value wasnt there.

You almost got me to say when that girl got out of the bed naked. Alas, it is a school night...
 
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brianluce said:
Hey trueindie, I liked what I saw of your movie, I only watched 14 minutes cuz it's f'ing late and gotta sleep. but the writing was good, the acting too, but as you say, flat lighting, dull sets, thin audio, production value wasnt there.

You almost got me to say when that girl got out of the bed naked. Alas, it is a school night...
Click to expand...

Thanks Brian. Much appreciated. Watch it when you get a chance. I promise you this: If you watch until the 35th minute, you're going to want to see what happens in the end.

Like I said. I'm going to remake this little flick. I love it too much not to. Aahh, you say it's narcissism. I maintain it's love :cool:

Best,
Aveek
 
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trueindie said:
Before you put that kind of ...... I'm no expert, but I know that if I knew in 2006, what I know today, I'd have a much better and more marketable film on my hands.

You can check out my first film here:
trailer: http://thefastshuffle.blip.tv/
flick: http://thefastshuffle.blip.tv/file/1618438/

Good luck to you man.
Click to expand...


trueindie,

I watched your movie and I should say I'm impressed.

But funny is that I liked your story before the 32nd minute more than after. The story drifted from real romance problem that had a chance for a deep insights into some loop of corruption that's swapping the hero and everyone else. When finally bad and good guys "get it right" and some common interests emerge, everyone is happy - just a typical story. My expectation went high in the beginning, then flat.

I think the most important factor that "makes" a movie is the story (the concept, the message), nothing else. The only thing that holds in my mind when I walk out of a movie is the moral, the answer of the question: "What did the moviemaker want out of this movie?" Movies of which the answer is "only money" never fascinate me.

I am about to start my first movie in few months (didn't buy equipments yet) and I can't imagine I'm putting my hands on a camera without a concrete story. How would I make money if I don't have a concrete story? Simply I search for whoever has one. If I have no story and no one has, simply I start documentary subjects. I'm sure they're endless. If there is no story and no documentary, I quit!

But I must say your movie is nicely done. I can't do better, at least in the beginning.

Not trying to teach you anything as I know you're way more experienced than me in what you do. Just my modest opinion.

Cheers
 
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Well here's thing. If I keep practicing making budgets on other short films, the my feature budget will run out. If I had more money I would love to, but I can't afford to spend money on budgets for practice I don't think, unfortunately. I will make at least one short film I have written for sure, and from that I can budget it and see. But if I keep making them, that cuts into my budget.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Well here's thing. If I keep practicing making budgets on other short films, the my feature budget will run out. If I had more money I would love to, but I can't afford to spend money on budgets for practice I don't think, unfortunately. I will make at least one short film I have written for sure, and from that I can budget it and see. But if I keep making them, that cuts into my budget.
Click to expand...

Better that than wasting $75k, though…
 
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There's no reason why crewing, casting, catering, set building and renting equipment a short film should cost much more than $1000.

You'd have to make a lot of them before you blow all $75k...
 
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You don't have to actually spend the money in order to practice coming up
with a budget for your film.

But to get back to your original question, here's how you come up with your budget:

First you need to line the script. Take a bunch of different colored highlighters
and assign each color to an element in the script; i.e. characters, props, locations,
sfx, makeup, costumes. You get the idea. If there is no special effects or makeup
or maybe the characters just dress normally, you can skip those. This is also what's
known as breaking down the script.

The next thing you need to do is make a breakdown sheet for each scene (don't
forget to number your scenes). It can look something like this:
0-7645-2476-3_000200.jpg


Once you've organized all that you'll input it all into a spreadsheet. There is also
software out there that will make this all easier for you, but any spreadsheet will
work. Now do some color coding to show INT/EXT DAY/NIGHT and you've got production
strips to go on your production board. Here's an example of a production board (too
large a pic to post here) http://www.podcastfilmreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Production-Board1.jpg

Now this will give you a great way to figure out how to most efficiently schedule
your shoot, which will save you time and therefore money. So start adding up all
those elements you listed in your breakdown.
  • How much will each location cost per day?
  • How many days will you need insurance and at what price?
  • How many days will you need your crew for, and what is their
    day/week rate?
  • If you're paying your actors, how many days will you need each one,
    what will they be paid?
  • Cost of props?
  • Cost of equipment rental?
  • Cost of makeup or hiring a makeup person?
  • Costs associated with any sfx?
  • Also, are there any children or animals or folks with a limited schedule
    where you need to make sure to shoot things in a certain order to get
    them in and out?

So do that and, as knightly said, add about 10-15% on for your known unknowns
and your unknown unknowns. Then you'll have a good idea of what it will cost.

Hope that's helpful!
 
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harmonica44 said:
Well here's thing. If I keep practicing making budgets on other short films, the my feature budget will run out. If I had more money I would love to, but I can't afford to spend money on budgets for practice I don't think, unfortunately. I will make at least one short film I have written for sure, and from that I can budget it and see. But if I keep making them, that cuts into my budget.
Click to expand...

Sane business decision. As in, that's how a business minded person should think. But, if you take yourself out of the equation and look on it objectively: would you trust your 50-75K to a director/producer, wearing multiple hats, that doesn't have at least a few years of set experience in the most major production departments?

Be realistic. You don't have to spend money to get onto other people's sets/shoots, in fact you can MAKE money that way. Haha.

After that, though, IMO, choose your own path: I've done one short in my short career, never finished it, either. Few years later, I directed/produced/and somewhat shot a feature under the umbrella of 30-50K, most of which isn't my money. My own investment was 10K, actually, and I'm DEAD broke.

However, like you, I wasn't about to spend money on a short film.

There are large differences in finishing a short and finishing eighty-something-odd minutes of content that has to have the same tone, consistent visuals, production value, etc. And, it's something you can only truly learn by doing.

I don't regret not having shot many shorts before this feature. But, paths may vary.

As far as budgeting goes: no one can hypothesize for you because you're the only one that knows how much you can get favors for. My 30K feature doesn't look like the next guys, and the next guys doesn't look like my feature. It's an independent experience and depends mostly on the Line Producer and Producer's abilities.

Start making connections to the stuff you need.
 
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@LeeMoh. Hey thanks for watching. I'd write more, but I don't want to hijack this thread to be about my film. But I wanted to send you some love, because that's what I feel inside when someone says to me "hey,... i watched your movie" :)
 
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@harmonica44. What NickClapper said. There's no reason why short film should significantly eat into your budget. If I were you, I'd get a cheap DSLR, maybe the t2i, some lenses, and some lights and some audio equipment, maybe spend about $2500 on all equipment. Then you shoot 10 different short films. All you have to do is feed people. You have all the equipment already. But by your 10th film, you'll know what you're doing wrong, and you won't repeat it when you make your 75k film.

Of course you should take my advice with as much salt as you like. Cause I'm not there yet myself.
Again, good luck!!
 
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I'd like to see that movie too.

I have been trying to shoot shorts, but it's been hard since everyone out there wants to be paid. I've tried the whole all you have to do is feed people thing, but so far, no one wants to work unless it's for money. It's just been impossible to get people to agree to meet and work on certain dates, unless there is a contract involved. I would love to makes shorts for no to very little money, but it's been impossible so far. I don't know the secret, but I don't want to change the thread. I wrote another thread asking on how to solve this secret:

http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=31042
 
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Modern Day Myth is paying nothing and is ready to GO! now and you're still getting up to speed.
Go work with him then he can come work with you.

Win-win.
Cost and timing.
 
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I'm working on my first short, and when I wrote it I kept tight parameters in terms of small scenes, minimal dialog (many scenes won't require a boom guy) and locations I knew 100% I could secure. I have held LA auditions and got about 95% turnout. So, point is, I wrote something totally doable -- might turn out to be crap, but it won't be because I had people flake or a soundman blow me off. A great example is the film here called "Mixed Messages". One room, one actor. Simple. And look at all those old great twilight zone episodes and how simple they were.
 
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