Budgeting

- Okay, let's talk about budget for a second. Now, budget is tough. One of the questions that comes up the most with creators who are just starting out is, how much does it cost to make a short film? How much does it cost to make a web series? And the reality is, there is no answer to that question. Every single production is going to be different. And there is no one size fits all budget answer. Really, the way to approach this is it's going to cost how much you can comfortably spend, you've got to figure out what the number is that you're alright with, with applying towards this project, and then work backwards from there. So, that being said, let's talk about some of the things that are going to influence your budget. That are going to drive, your costs, so that you have an understanding of where the money you're spending is going. So they're an indie production, especially when you're just starting out. You're obviously going to try and do and get a lot of stuff for free. But there are a few things that are almost always going to have a cost to them. So first and foremost, food, you have to feed your crew, and it is really best to feed them not pizza every single day or not fast food every single day. People are working hard for you. And they are going to work a lot harder if you take care of them on the food front. So you're pretty much always going to be spending money on meals and also on what we call crafty or craft services, which is like the snacks that are kind of around on set for people to snack on in between meals. You're almost always also going to be spending money on hard drives or SD cards. In other words,media that you're capturing your image to. Now that we're not shooting films, you don't have to worry about film stock. But you do have to worry about what your image is being captured to, and then also what it's going to be stored on. When it comes off of the card from the camera and is being kept ready until you're, ready to edit. So you're always going to have to think about that as a potential cost. Another one is what we call kit rentals. Kit rentals referred to essentially a small rental fee or a rental fee that's going to a particular crew member in exchange for using their equipment. And especially on indie and low budget productions, kit rentals sort of often end up becoming the way you pay a crew member without really paying a crew member. So for example,if there's a director of photography that you're going to be working with, often they'll say, "don't give me a day rate, just rent my camera from me for whatever the amount is." And so that's what we're talking When we're talking about kit rentals. Most often applies to the sound gear that comes with your sound person, camera and lights that come with your camera, your director of photography or gaffer, it can also occasionally apply to the hair product and makeup that comes with your hair and makeup person as well. And then, of course, there are salaries. Kit rental is sort of a way to pay certain people, in consideration for equipment without necessarily paying an actual day rate. It's a tricky thing, if you don't have a lot of money, obviously, you can't necessarily afford to pay. But it's worth mentioning that when you can pay your crew, even just a token amount. The fact that you are sort of acknowledging the time that they're putting in and the work that they're putting in with a rate always goes a long way. So when you're thinking about your fixed costs, that's another one that you probably want to be thinking about whether or not that's going to be in there, whether or not that's something you can allocate money to. And then, of course, in addition to that stuff, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that you might have to spend money on, I'll just quickly run down some of the things that you might come across. Obviously, equipment rental, beyond what you would get, say from a crew member, is going to be a thing. Locations are a big one. Ideally, you're going to try and get great locations for free, but that's not always possible. So location fees might be an important part of your budget. Permit fees, permits and if you're going to do, your project above board and actually get permits as opposed to doing it sort of under the radar, whether or not there are fees associated with that vary from town to town, city to city state to state, every town generally has a film office, which would be able to tell you, and so that might be saying depending on where you live, that might be a fee that that you incur. Production insurance is another one. And here we're talking about equipment insurance as well as insurance to cover damage to locations or liability if someone gets hurt on your set. A lot of small productions are going to forego insurance 'cause it can be expensive. But there are times when you need it, certain locations won't let you shoot there unless you can prove that you have insurance, that is going to protect yourself and them. A lot of times equipment rental houses are going to need some form of equipment insurance, or they're going to charge you a fee in exchange for renting without the insurance. So insurance is something that that might come up. And then there's of course any costs that you have to incur for costume or production design elements. If you've got to go out and buy stuff if it's not a set that you have lying around. And then there's even things like sort of miscellaneous office expenses, you would be amazed at how much printer you're going printer ink and paper, you're going to end up using in the course of a production. So those are all things that may contribute to your budget and to where the money that you have to spend goes, in terms of actually gauging how you're going to spend your money and what things cost. All it is really is sort of old fashioned LED light work. And in today's age, with Google and Wikipedia, and almost every vendor, having a website, it's really not that bad. Once you sit down to do it, you basically just start making calls, shooting emails, asking to get rates from people who you want to work with, asking to get rates, on the equipment that you're trying to rent, so on and so forth. You just look at those numbers and you start to see how they relate to the total number you have to spend and you make choices where you need to make choices about what you want to spend money on and what you don't. And one last thing, you know, remember it is obviously the director and the producers sort of job to take care of the (laughs) financial side of things overall. But your department heads are going to be a big help with determining what it is you need, and where you might be able to go for deals and stuff like that. So you'll start the process and then as you crew up, you will be able to lean on them for some help figuring out what some of these costs are going to be or where you might be able to get things for cheaper. So having said all that, you are to do for this section, we've included a budget top sheet, which is basically just a thing that sort of breaks down budget into sort of big categories like camera production design food. Go ahead, start finding out what your costs will be and start filling out as much of the budget top sheet as you can, and getting a sense of whether the cost of your project is going to line up with what you're able to spend.