50k movie budget breakdown of how I would do it.

N

Nik Manning

Well-known member
Okay I wrote this around 10/06 so some info might be a little old maybe someone would go HV20 or A1 vs XL H1 now, but GREAT read anyway.

"Yo everybody I thought I would ask some questions and give some opinions about making a movie to see what we all think. First I will list how I would do it. This a feature not a short.

Script/Story: I actually think the story is most important but not because it has to be good it just has to be cheap. If you are making titanic chances are you will need a sinking boat and an iceberg. Get the story with the least locations, least amount of extras, and least amount of effects. Example "Saw" and "Tomorrow is Today". I think I have great movie ideas, but I just don't know how to make them cheap great movie ideas. Try to get the script on delayed pay.

Schedule: I would either do a max 18 day shoot straight or 9 weekends. Depends on if I own equipment or rent and actors availability. You will also need to allocate time to do over dubs in a studio if you need them. voice overs should not take more than 3 days unless you plan on overdubbing the whole movie.

*Update 6/2/07 catering moved up from $50 to $80 a day*
Catering: $80 a day = 1500. If you know you are shooting a movie you should be able to find cheap food in advance. Chips, Pop, Pizza, Coffee, Bagels, etc.

Locations: Locations should not cost you anything more than 5k total. If you spend more than that then just rent a warehouse for a month and shoot the whole movie there. Tomorrow is Today took advantage of their location and used the new jersey coastline as the main location.

Insurance: I don't know crap about this. Any info appreciated.

Actors: put ads on craigslist, message boards, and http://www.sagindie.com/resources/contracts/. If you pay your actors either pay 1 who has a little fame a lump sum $10k or 4 main characters $2k. I would try hard to get payments differed.

wardrobe/makeup/hair: set the movie in current day and try to pick actors that already look very close to the character you have in your head. People don't actually change clothes that much in movies. Find some one who knows hair and makeup. $1k

Camera:Shooting Film is a must not do on this budget. Buy a XL H1 and then sell it once your done. I have read many magazines that say the XL H1 is just so much sharper because of it's lens. you can shoot the movie on any camera cheaper but this is probably the best bang for the buck right now and simplest workflow. We will see when the new hdv cams hit.
**UPDATE: Canon A1 or HV20 or whatever cam can be substituted**

Lighting: buy used and sell. $3k. Some people say more I say less. Your not shooting Star Wars.

Crew: This is the hard part. Finding good help is hard. The best idea I have is to find a young dp that believes in the project and hope they will work for free or cheap. I really cannot see you needing more than a 4 man crew. $100 a day.

Web Design/Graphic Design/Promo: Okay $10k. Web Design go to a template site and let them customize it for you $500. Poster Design $500. the rest on plane tickets, entry fees, business cards, etc.

Hardware: $5k Buy a used/refurbished (apple) computer and final cut pro studio and edit the movie. If you can't edit buy a final cut pro book and check out lynda.com and watch lots of movies. sell when done.

**Update also factor in whatever you can bring to the table so if you can edit/act/own camera all of this makes the budget smaller.**
Total:

Story =$1000
Catering = $1000
Locations = $5000
Insurance = $4500 *Update 6/2/07 insurance dropped from $5000 to $4500*
Actors = $10000
wardrobe/makeup/hair = $1000
Camera = 10000 sell and get $8k back **(Or HV20 for 1k and you can keep it)
Lighting = $3000 sell and get 2k back
Crew = $10000
Web Design/Graphic Design/Promo/Festivals = $10000
Hardware = 5k sell and get back $3.5k
I have roughly $45k after everything you need
Oh professional color correction and sound mixing. $5k yes some places more and some less.

If anyone else can contribute or set me straight I would appreciate it.
Peace ."
 
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Nik,

I added your totals and it comes to $66k... so your hopefully selling back equipment... which totals $13.5k... so I guess that's how you get your $50 or $52.5k...

Yes you can sell equipment... but what if you can't...
 
You'd have to have a really small crew (~5 total) to get away with $50 a day catering. When I have a cast+crew of a dozen, it costs me at least $100 a day.

For where you'r at, I'd completely scrap the idea of shooting a feature. Do short films until you can win festivals and amaze people, then they'll give you all the money you need for a feature.
 
Hey Gary I don't see why you wouldn't be able to sell your equipment. Ebay and Craigslit always work even if below what I expected it would still sell. Also you could shoot with a HV20 ($1000 or less) if need be and you won't have to sell back anything but the lights. I will modify my post above.

shawneous - I would go somewhere like smart and final that sells everything in bulk.

taormina - exactly I have something to sell that looks and sounds like a movie. Hopefully a decent movie with a actor you have seen before. It is only 10k for the actor but it is also just 2 weeks of work and a starring role. Any of the actors from this movie Cabin Fever should work. You might have to give the lead some back end love maybe 10%.

Hopefully you could sell the movie for $150k and do it again with a higher actor budget maybe 30k. I think you could get a pretty decent actor for that. Maybe sell it for even more. I don't think most distributors have a problem buying movies with decent named actors for less than a 1 million. But if your movie costs 700k to make it better be damn good cause if not they will offer you 500k for it. If the distributors/buyer don't know my budget they might offer me 500k for it is all I am saying. You got money in the budget to go to film festivals and promote your project so do that.

With all that said I have know idea if it will work but you will have made a feature for around 50k.
 
Why waste $10k on those 'Cabin Fever' folk? I'm no horror expert, but I don't recognize any of them. Play your cards right and you could get a 'name' more recognized by horror fans. Work up a character that only needs 2-3 days of shooting, but who appears frequently throughout the movie. Then get a Tom Savini or a Brinke Stevens for maybe half of the $10k. Or maybe even a Virginia Hey (from Farscape.)
 
Like Chapelgrove said… I would get a known actor… even if he or she were from an older popular horror film.

Also SAG Indie now has the deal where you can mix and match union and non union actors… you can pay them a $100 bucks for an 8 hour day… then any thing over that you have to pay them overtime… plus their agent’s 10% and their h & p…

Just make sure you sign them out… after 8 hours... just in case they like to sit around the set and watch the rest of the filming…

I remember an old story… that two guys made a movie… had actors who were known that they had grown up with… but didn’t tell people that… went out and paid the actors with checks… the actors cashed the checks… but gave the money back to their friends and at the end of shooting the producers went to SAG and said here’s the payments for h & p and SAG tells them you where suppose to talk to us before you shot so we could make you a signatory company. The producers told SAG they didn’t know that. That they’re just a couple of young guys from the Midwest who wanted to make a movie and they knew that you had to pay the actors a minimum SAG fee and a percentage on top of that fee would go towards the actors h & p. I guess it worked for them.

Not saying you should do that, but its what someone else pulled off. Who knows if it’d work again or not?

Also feeding your crew is important. I’ve even seen on a grip and lighting guy’s list of equipment. “Pizza does not equal a meal.” I’ve always learned a happy crew is not a hungry crew.
 
Nik, have you looked into the distribution side of things? Are there many distributors that would pay $150k upfront, or are you basing that on money passed on down the line? If the later, from what I read/researched, a lot of hands will be pulling out any returns that may flow back toward you.

Making any movie is like a lottery ticket. If you can make a movie for $50k, have some named actors and the thing is ok, you might do alright, depending if you can get distribution money up front, or down the line, which appears scary, based on marketing cost provisions, agents cut, etc. I am looking at models of low budget features from $100k to $500k with some film making consultants and each budget model has problems. The more I investigate, the more cautious and reluctant I become to proceed, yet the passion and motivation continues. This has now lead to me commissioning a writer to work on my screenplay and develop another. Before I take the plunge, I want to be comfortable that the story fits into the puzzle of budget, genre, demographic, etc. My private investors expect returns, and I can't say that will happen, hence the caution.

Glad you raised the topic Nik. There will be many theories, opinions, disagreements in these threads, yet I can always distill something new from these discussions to add to my check list. :beer:
 
Christopher Barry said:
Nik, have you looked into the distribution side of things? Are there many distributors that would pay $150k upfront, or are you basing that on money passed on down the line? If the later, from what I read/researched, a lot of hands will be pulling out any returns that may flow back toward you.

Making any movie is like a lottery ticket. If you can make a movie for $50k, have some named actors and the thing is ok, you might do alright, depending if you can get distribution money up front, or down the line, which appears scary, based on marketing cost provisions, agents cut, etc. I am looking at models of low budget features from $100k to $500k with some film making consultants and each budget model has problems. The more I investigate, the more cautious and reluctant I become to proceed, yet the passion and motivation continues. This has now lead to me commissioning a writer to work on my screenplay and develop another. Before I take the plunge, I want to be comfortable that the story fits into the puzzle of budget, genre, demographic, etc. My private investors expect returns, and I can't say that will happen, hence the caution.

Glad you raised the topic Nik. There will be many theories, opinions, disagreements in these threads, yet I can always distill something new from these discussions to add to my check list. :beer:
Click to expand...

Thanks Christopher, I was trying to get everyones creative juices flowing!
 
Hey Nik.

Never a good idea to do a no-budget feature, but we all can never resist, so get it done. :)

A couple of notes from my time wasting a lot of money.

1. Named actors are a must. Even an obscure name for 1 shoot day.
2. Insurance is a must. Call around local insurance companies to see if they have a division that handles this. I've bought a years worth of insurance for my production company and it cost me about $2400 for the year and I was able to cancel after a shoot if need be.
3. Never shoot straight days. If you want 18 days at the very least do 6 on and 1 off. and repeat that two more times.
4. DO NOT SRIMP on food. The age-old saying is one of the only universal laws.... "you can over-work us, you can under-pay us, but DON'T under feed us". Two things impress even jaded crews. Confindence in what you're doing and being well taken care of when it comes to food. Snacks and **** won't cut it unless you're dealing with 100% high-school students. OH.....and even if it has to be you, rent a big coffee maker and make sure that coffee is on the set before the first body shows up. Trust me on this one.
5. Lighting for $3k? Depending on what market you're in I would think you could get somebody to come up with a small grip-van with a set of lights for $1500-$2000. Look around.
6. A 4-person crew had better be the best 4-person crew you can find.
7. If you haven't allocated in your crew, I would suggest a first AD and script supervisor. These two positions are often overlooked in video shoots, but a good AD and Script Super can change the entire pace and accuracy of your shoot.

That's my hard-earned feedback.

J.
 
chapelgrovefilms said:
Why waste $10k on those 'Cabin Fever' folk? I'm no horror expert, but I don't recognize any of them. Play your cards right and you could get a 'name' more recognized by horror fans. Work up a character that only needs 2-3 days of shooting, but who appears frequently throughout the movie. Then get a Tom Savini or a Brinke Stevens for maybe half of the $10k. Or maybe even a Virginia Hey (from Farscape.)
Click to expand...

And that is why I run everything by you smart folks here. And that is actually a movie idea I had about having a script that only need the star actor to work for a couple days. Makes perfect sense. Also I don't see how you could get those actors to work for 5k for weeks so it most be for just 2-3 days of work. Tom Savini is the man. :)

I am sure once the money is in place you could get a long list of actors willing to do it for 10k so the actor doesn't matter at this point.
Are there well know actors in SAG?
 
taormina said:
The pertinent question maybe "are there well known actors outside of SAG"
Click to expand...

I think one of the Baldwin brothers is no longer a member of SAG... but I'm not sure... I think he was part of a group that I heard were trying to form a new union or group... one that would let members work union or non union...
 
Nic,
J-insanityfw just gave you the film school in a paragraph. Amen
All points are right on! See how fast a crew turns on you if you don't feed them right. Been there done that-
A.G.
 
It is my understanding that Bruce Campbell is Financial Core (my understanding: the actor can opt out of SAG, do a non-union project, then for a small fine resume SAG membership). I am sure there are others but have no idea who.
 
Financial core is SAG. But the bottom line is, you could make $10 million a year and still only have to pay about $3200 in dues. So that's why no one leaves SAG. Because it really only charges the little guy and there is no point in leaving when you're Tom Cruise.
 
Financial Core is actually a Federal law enacted by the Supreme Court covering ALL unions... it protects a worker's right to [edit: Barry corrected my flawed language here] do union jobs once eligible for union membership, while actually being resigned from the union itself. As with anything Union-related, it's controversial. But as a low-budget filmmaker, these people will be your friends.

Overall, though, it is deadly hard to find many talented people who aren't SAG/AFTRA. I see entirely too many films where it's clear that the director didn't seem to care who he cast, and I turn those movies off immediately. Find good talent. That probably means finding SAG talent. That means becoming a SAG signatory and paying the actors what they say you have to pay them. For features under $70,000 (I think) that can be nothing at all... until you sell the project. Whenever you make money, of course, you're obligated to back-pay in full. But, as with a lot of things I'm going to say here, you'd be better off hiring a producer worth their salt to help you through these things than doing it alone.

Everything insanityfw said is true and worth its weight in gold. Anyone who's actually been there and done that is likely to tell you the same.

Respect your crew. Someone mentioned getting an Assistant Director. Yes. Never go without. They may annoy the hell out of you and your brilliant vision, but in the end a good AD will save you more time, money, and headaches than you can imagine. If I had to pick the absolutely essential barebones on-set crew for any production, it would be: Director, Producer/AD, camera, sound, P.A. You could get away with one or two fewer for a day or two but try it on a feature and you're never going to finish that movie. I wouldn't do a feature with less than ten qualified crew that I trust and believe in.

Speaking of crew, you've got to pay and respect your crew. If they're friends or they really believe in the project, you may be able to get department heads and a few helpers for free (although that's less and less likely over the course of half a month), but you'll still end up paying for the grips, gaffers, ACs, boom ops, etc. Those people don't have a whole lot to gain from something "great for their reel". Pay them a fair wage, with apologies that it can't be more. Feed them real, hot food at least once a day. If you don't, you'll be replacing them every other day... it's worth more than the money just to have a little peace of mind.

I do like that you've listed promotions, festival fees, etc. Most people forget that. It's easy to spend hundreds of dollars on dubs alone! But if you don't have money to do these things, it's almost like you never made a movie at all...

Unless you have cars or serious stunts in your movie, you can probably manage insurance for $3000 at the most. Talk to local production companies that have coverage about buying into their policy. Many will agree to "co-produce" your movie for a fee, which covers you under their insurance.

That's my own hard-won advice. Take it for what it's worth, but trust me when I say that half the stuff I've mentioned was advice someone else tried to give me once upon a time, which I ignored at the cost of my own suffering.
 
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Someone who has elected to go Financial Core is completely freed from any SAG restrictions. You do not have to be a SAG signatory to hire a Financial Core actor, you do not have to pay pension & welfare fund contributions, and you don't have to sign any agreements. They're every bit as "freelance" as a non-union actor.

When someone elects Financial Core status, they effectively resign from SAG. They're allowed to work on SAG projects because the Supreme Court has ruled that unions cannot prevent people from making a living, but they can't vote or hold office and they may be prevented from rejoining, IIRC. When Jon Voight left the union, SAG dis-invited him from the Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony (he was nominated). SAG *hates* Financial Core because it challenges the very notion of their Rule 1 (i.e., "thou shalt not work non-union projects").

There are a few notable actors who've gone Financial Core, but for the most part if an actor's making a living and is bankable, they're also SAG.
 
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