What kind of budget would you need?

What kind of budget would you need?

  • Under $50K

    Votes: 14 17.9%

  • $50K - $100K

    Votes: 12 15.4%

  • $100K - $199K

    Votes: 15 19.2%

  • $200K - $299K

    Votes: 10 12.8%

  • $300K - $399K

    Votes: 7 9.0%

  • $400K - $500K

    Votes: 7 9.0%

  • $500 -$999K

    Votes: 5 6.4%

  • $1million or above

    Votes: 8 10.3%
  • Total voters
    78
I voted for $500 -$999K. This is just perfect because I would not want to reach a million but I want to have room to play with incase I get close to that Million. And I would want to shoot it on film because I've always wanted to, and I would try and hire the best crew/actors I can and basically just do nothing but Direct.

And ofcourse a Name actor would eat up a nice chunk of the money. And the rest that is left would be for marketing. Because what good is a good film if no one knows about it.

I could do some serious damage(in a good way) with that kind of money. But like we all know, you can have a billion dollar budget if the script is no good, then doesn't matter(Water World) just kidding or Am I. :laugh:
 
I voted 100-199. I currently have a small feature script budgeted at about 150, and that is with paying actors very little and a small crew at about half-rate, red camera, medium size grip and lighting package, 20 day shoot. I thought around 75K would cover it all, but it is amazing how quickly the rates add up on a 20 day shoot, plus all the little stuff. And I need to budget more for marketing and sound mix...
 
i think it all depends on the idea. I remember Jarmusch saying that after Down By Law a studio had offered him 5 million to make his next movie. He turned it down because none of his ideas would cost that much to make.

We have a similar conversation with a lot of our clients. They say "We want a commercial. How much will it cost?" And we have to explain that it all depends on the idea. We might come up with a ten thousand dollar idea or we might come up with an equally good (but different) idea that will only cost one thousand.

Two different questions:
How much would I want for a Die-Hard Style action movie? Probably a million or so.
What about for a Juno-style dramedy? 50k would probably be cool.

I voted for under 50k.
 
Back in the early 90's, Steven Spielberg did a pilot for a 1 hour drama (period piece) and when the network offered him under 1 million per episode he said no thank you and left town to shoot Schindler's List. Not to infer he wasn't leaving to shoot Schindler's list anyway. But the pilot was with Spielberg and Januz Kaminski (sorry if I'be butchered his spelling) and never went beyond the pilot. I know we're not comparing our indie projects to Spielberg, but I thought it was an interesting story to share.
 
Funny - the results are split almost 50/50 right now with the cutoff being 200K.
(25 voting less than 200K, and 24 voting above 200K).

Interesting that the budget cutoff for the SAG Ultra Low Budget agreement is 200K.
 
I voted for 50-100, aiming for 100. I'd love more, but if I had to get it done, I could do it with 100 and still have it look all snazzy and whatnot.
 
I went with $50,000 to $100,000 range, I probably could do it for less though. It also depends on the size with 10 or less characters in only three or four settings I could make it for much less.
 
I think a more interesting Q would be "How much money do you think you need to make a good indie feature w/o expecting your cast and crew to basically donate their time":laugh:


-A
 
If the cast and crew were donating there time I am confident that I could do a full length feature for a minimum of $5,000 (not counting the post expenses like film transfer).
 
Luis Caffesse said:
I'm talking about paying people though.
I wouldn't want to go into a project assuming I could get people to work for free.
Maybe get them for cheap... but not free.
Click to expand...

that's what we did. payed crew as much as we could afford. payed our SAG cast members $100/day. negotiated ridiculous rates for equipment and locations, had local restaurants donate the catering (we ate very well at little to no cost -- indian food, italian, mexican -- all from nice restaurants). it took three solid months to negotiate all this before production. but if you put that kind of time in, you can make a feature for just under $50,000, not including post. i really think $50k is the absolute bare minimum you can do this for with sag actors.

that being said, i'll never make a film for so little again. depending which we decide to make, the next one will be somewhere between 500k to 1.5m.
 
I voted for 400 - 499k, and I really consider this a bare minimum if you're paying everyone on the crew, you have recognizable actors, and you want any kind of effective marketing budget.

I made a feature for about $110k, and that's with actors working for free and crew being paid very, very little. This includes post, and we had to beg, borrow, and steal (well, ok, we didn't steal anything) along the lines that Zak describes in the post above. We had no stars and no money for marketing. And this was four years ago...

Hm, maybe I should change my vote to 500k to 1 million.
 
As I said before, you need over 100k to even THINK about making a feature...

Realistically having 250k or more is good.
 
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