Cost to film a feature ? (what did u spend?)

DCP said:
Jls4,

Just curious.... when you list your budget for your films, do you include the cost of your equipment? I've heard on other boards that I shouldn't include equipment costs (full costs). I'm going to talk to my accountant this week to see. If this is the case, then my new budget for my film is closer to $55,000. I guess this makes sense since I've already included the equipment costs on my taxes over the last few years.

Todd
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I include equip costs because literally that's all I have. At least upfront. We weren't SAG. So I didn't have to pay out of pocket expenses directly to Cast. My cast only makes money if the movie makes money. I promised them as I've done with everyone involved, that I will let them see the Receipts and the Check. So if I claim something, I have to back it up OR I have to pay it out of my own money.

So I can't say what you should do about saying what money you had. I would include it all, even costs that you "think" you would incur upon a sell and your I.O.Us if a distributor asks.

Cast: Direct and IOUs
Crew: Direct and IOUs
Equipment
Production/Post Production Costs

But that's just me. I'm not saying it's right. I'd love to hear what other people have to say on this matter, though. You've made me curious.
 
That is interesting, because the budget I came up with for doing a first indie no-budget film is about the same (attached as PDF), but of course my budget is just voodoo, blowing smoke out my arse, mostly guessing, but it feels about right as long as I can find the money myself and do not have to form a limited partnership or corporation which would complicate things and require far more legal fees and all.

DCP said:
... my new budget for my film is closer to $55,000. I guess this makes sense since I've already included the equipment costs on my taxes over the last few years.
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jls4 said:
I include equip costs because literally that's all I have. At least upfront. We weren't SAG. So I didn't have to pay out of pocket expenses directly to Cast. My cast only makes money if the movie makes money. I promised them as I've done with everyone involved, that I will let them see the Receipts and the Check. So if I claim something, I have to back it up OR I have to pay it out of my own money.

So I can't say what you should do about saying what money you had. I would include it all, even costs that you "think" you would incur upon a sell and your I.O.Us if a distributor asks.

Cast: Direct and IOUs
Crew: Direct and IOUs
Equipment
Production/Post Production Costs

But that's just me. I'm not saying it's right. I'd love to hear what other people have to say on this matter, though. You've made me curious.
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It makes no sense. If I have $10k in cash for a short subject and I add in my equipment that would mean a little 4 minute piece would suddenly show up as having a budget of $304k. That's absolutely ludicrous. I can just hear it, "Yeah it looks good but I don't see over 300 grand worth of production value on the screen. Don't ever hire that clown for anything, he'll piss all your money away. I could have done that for a tenth the cost."
 
Randall, Interesting budget... I'd definitely suggest breaking it down more than you have. For instance, you only have one line item for "Crew", which is easy enough to figure out if you only have 2 crew, but in general it's best to make a separate line for each individual expense you'll have since you don't have department heads.

I was very impressed to see a number there for Publicity. Why is it that most filmmakers forget about this? Great, you made a film. That's absolutely meaningless unless someone can see it!

I don't know anything about your film but I'd strongly suggest revisiting your crew. You're going to be stretched very thin as writer, director, producer, and DP. And on top of that you're making your AD also operate camera? You have no PAs? Actors are doing their own makeup? So on and so forth. Any of those things on their own is fine for a indie, but add them all up and I guarantee you that quality will start to suffer before you're halfway through the shoot.
 
I'd like to keep the budget at around $50,000. So not sure what to cut if I were to add more crew, etc. Right now I am thinking 1 crew person for sound/boom and another for lighting/reflector, keep it guerilla/no-budget. If I had some more money (anybody want to toss me another 50 gs?) I surely would want a dedicated AD, dedicated "B" camera operator. I think I will have to wear quite a few hats to keep the budget at $50k, but I am open for ways to slash funds in some places to put money in other line items--any idea? Anybody?

One thing that could help is I am revising the notion of where to film my first indie-- I could do it at a camp that I can rent for $300/night (yup, entire camp and cabins and all for just $300/night), has about six cabins, main lodgehouse with fireplace/kitchen/library, building with showers and bathrooms, boathouse, canoes, trails, archery range, lake, outdoor fire pit, etc.-- so everybody could live and sleep and film on location. Plus power to plug in for lighting besides natural light.

dougspice said:
Randall, Interesting budget... I'd definitely suggest breaking it down more than you have. For instance, you only have one line item for "Crew", which is easy enough to figure out if you only have 2 crew, but in general it's best to make a separate line for each individual expense you'll have since you don't have department heads.

I was very impressed to see a number there for Publicity. Why is it that most filmmakers forget about this? Great, you made a film. That's absolutely meaningless unless someone can see it!

I don't know anything about your film but I'd strongly suggest revisiting your crew. You're going to be stretched very thin as writer, director, producer, and DP. And on top of that you're making your AD also operate camera? You have no PAs? Actors are doing their own makeup? So on and so forth. Any of those things on their own is fine for a indie, but add them all up and I guarantee you that quality will start to suffer before you're halfway through the shoot.
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craigbowman said:
It makes no sense. If I have $10k in cash for a short subject and I add in my equipment that would mean a little 4 minute piece would suddenly show up as having a budget of $304k. That's absolutely ludicrous. I can just hear it, "Yeah it looks good but I don't see over 300 grand worth of production value on the screen. Don't ever hire that clown for anything, he'll piss all your money away. I could have done that for a tenth the cost."
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What the heck are you talking about? First of all this is for a feature, not a short. Secondly when you buy equipment that you need for a feature, sure I put that cost into the feature. So if I made a movie and bought an EX3 with a SGBlade I'd have put in $10K. So if I don't buy anything else, but maybe supplies and pay a few people. Then my budget may be $20K. I don't count all of the equipment I already own. But I always buy equipment for every new project and yes I count the "new" equipment in my costs. With my old/previous equipment (used for the movie) I only factor in a small amount like if I had rented it all.

But like I've said, so far, I haven't had large budgets, so I've had to work with what I have. All in all I own about $45K in equipment currently. But I wouldn't add that amount to my next feature.
 
@Randall:

Yeah, you've got some lodging expenses that are more than 10% of your budget. My guess is you can bring that number down substantially if you start begging/pleading/calling in favors, for two reasons: #1, you're renting in bulk. #2, you're not just hanging out at the cabins, you're making a movie! Sell the excitement of that, it's my first feature, etc etc and I bet you can lop 50% of that price. Which is good, because you'll need it for the production insurance that you don't have budgeted, which any sane property owner is going to require before letting you film on their land. But even with that you can probably still save enough for an additional crew-member. Trust me, a good AD works a fulltime job, and you want a good AD.

Aside from that, I don't know what the scene is like where you are but here it's very normal for actors to work strictly on deferred pay, as long as the shoot isn't too long. But there's a lot of people out here in LA who have to bust their asses to build a reel... your mileage may vary. Again, getting people excited about the project and having a deal ON PAPER that guarantees them pay if the project sells are key to this arrangement.

On a production this size I'm not really convinced you want or need a proper payroll company. You have a UPM, surely between the two of you you can handle reconciling the handful of expenses you have and paying a dozen or so people.

I guarantee you can find a composer who can do your score for less than $8000, unless you've got some grand horns and strings thing in your mind. Half that should get the job done with a handful of live players, and you can cut even deeper if you don't need musicians.

One more thing that jumps out at me is that you seem to be budgeting for the full cost of buying every piece of equipment, and that seems like a waste. I know everybody wants to own their gear, but ask yourself: is my goal to buy equipment, or is my goal to make a movie? You can save a lot of money by renting half this stuff. Or budget to buy and then sell it back at a 40% loss as soon as you wrap. With luck, you won't even lose that much.

Finally, I don't see a contingency anywhere in here. That's asking for trouble.


Hope that helps, and I hope nobody minds derailing the thread. It seemed pretty relevant to me, otherwise I'd have taken it to PM.
 
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jls4 said:
What the heck are you talking about? First of all this is for a feature, not a short. Secondly when you buy equipment that you need for a feature, sure I put that cost into the feature. So if I made a movie and bought an EX3 with a SGBlade I'd have put in $10K. So if I don't buy anything else, but maybe supplies and pay a few people. Then my budget may be $20K. I don't count all of the equipment I already own. But I always buy equipment for every new project and yes I count the "new" equipment in my costs. With my old/previous equipment (used for the movie) I only factor in a small amount like if I had rented it all.

But like I've said, so far, I haven't had large budgets, so I've had to work with what I have. All in all I own about $45K in equipment currently. But I wouldn't add that amount to my next feature.
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Buying something specifically for a film is different because that is coming out of the cash in your existing production budget. I thought you were banking full cost of your existing gear into the film and including that in the budget. Renting your gear to your production is also perfectly acceptable and something I do all the time, not that you need my permission for anything. As you said you have you're way of doing things and others do it different.
 
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All good advice (at least I think so, I am a noob so I likely wouldn't know good from bad advice, LOL, but it seems sensical to me), I do thank you for the words of wisdom.

Yes the lodging cost seems to really eat up a budget. It has made me think about finding an alternative, which you have offered. Or else instead of taking 8 college students to a location away from they city, rather film a drama in and around my city and everybody sleep and eat at their own apt/home except for lunch catered in, etc. That lodging eats up cash fast. Although one of the three lodge cabin units would serve as a filming location, be part of the story, the other two units for cast and crew to sleep at, cook and eat at; but then that means more food cost and such rather than shooting local and having everybody make their own breakfast and dinner back at their own place.

I like the deferred pay idea. What is typical for that? I mean, if $100/day cash up front is typical for a no budget film, what would actors expect on the back end once a no budget film is sold to a distributor, would it be normal to then get them $500/day, or what? I really do not know what is typical. What I wanted to negotiate for deferred pay for a PM, or AD, what would be normal to give them for deferred pay, or would they almost always prefer cash up front?

I literally HATE anything to do with forms, accounting, IRS, ugh. Thus the payroll service. But with a small cast and crew I like your idea of just letting the PM and/or AD handle that with my oversight, let them to the frustrating paperwork that I so love to hate. So I will cross out that line item for payroll services.

$8000 for a composer was based on Dov Simens's book. And I recently was going to have a composer score my little five minute short film for a few hundred, and he was talking what a great deal that was since composers normally get $1000 per minute of music in film, so I figured $100 per minute would be a fantastic deal for an 80 minute film, thus $8000. But I also think a composer wanted to get noticed, get credits, would want to compromise also. But at $100 per minute of music, perhaps an 80 minute film is only going to need 40 minutes of music? (Thus maybe budget $4000 for music?)

I'll add in a 10% contingency, probably smart.

dougspice said:
@Randall:



Yeah, you've got some lodging expenses that are more than 10% of your budget. My guess is you can bring that number down substantially if you start begging/pleading/calling in favors, for two reasons: #1, you're renting in bulk. #2, you're not just hanging out at the cabins, you're making a movie! Sell the excitement of that, it's my first feature, etc etc and I bet you can lop 50% of that price. Which is good, because you'll need it for the production insurance that you don't have budgeted, which any sane property owner is going to require before letting you film on their land. But even with that you can probably still save enough for an additional crew-member. Trust me, a good AD works a fulltime job, and you want a good AD.

Aside from that, I don't know what the scene is like where you are but here it's very normal for actors to work strictly on deferred pay, as long as the shoot isn't too long. But there's a lot of people out here in LA who have to bust their asses to build a reel... your mileage may vary. Again, getting people excited about the project and having a deal ON PAPER that guarantees them pay if the project sells are key to this arrangement.

On a production this size I'm not really convinced you want or need a proper payroll company. You have a UPM, surely between the two of you you can handle reconciling the handful of expenses you have and paying a dozen or so people.

I guarantee you can find a composer who can do your score for less than $8000, unless you've got some grand horns and strings thing in your mind. Half that should get the job done with a handful of live players, and you can cut even deeper if you don't need musicians.

One more thing that jumps out at me is that you seem to be budgeting for the full cost of buying every piece of equipment, and that seems like a waste. I know everybody wants to own their gear, but ask yourself: is my goal to buy equipment, or is my goal to make a movie? You can save a lot of money by renting half this stuff. Or budget to buy and then sell it back at a 40% loss as soon as you wrap. With luck, you won't even lose that much.

Finally, I don't see a contingency anywhere in here. That's asking for trouble.

Hope that helps, and I hope nobody minds derailing the thread. It seemed pretty relevant to me, otherwise I'd have taken it to PM.
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Randall,

I believe in buying. You have to make up your mind which is better for you. The reason I believe in buying is almost why Dougspice says rent something.

1. What if for any reason you need a spare shot and you've rented your lights or audio equipment? Now you have to re-rent which costs more. Indie's tend to go overbudget and overtime. Get ready. There's more you don't know than what you think you know.

2. As dougspice said are you buying equipment or making a movie. But my question is are you a filmmaker (meaning in constant position to make movies) or a one hit wonder (meaning you only will do one movie). I set myself up to make constant movies. By purchasing, I know I can make another movie at least at the quality of the last. And budget will not stop me a second time.

3. A movie is not complete until it is sold. That being said we spent 3 months off and on to shoot "Voices". We shot a new scene about 2 months ago (4 months after we stopped) and have plans to shoot 5 new scenes in two weeks with some Celebrities. Basically as time passes, I was able to secure more money. So I kept upgrading weaker areas while my Composer worked on the soundtrack and we color corrected and did sound fx. What if I had not purchased my equipment, now I'd need not only money to pay my Celebrities, but I'd also need money to rent equipment.

Here was my breakdown for Voices, if it helps.
(remember the equip was bought last year)

Sony V1U - $3200
Letus - $1200
Camera Batteries/Charger - $350
Lighting Equip (Tungsten 3 - 1Ks, 2 - 650s, 1 - 300, 2 - 150s) - $4000
(I already owned 1 - 650 and 2 - 300s)
4 C-Stands - $450 approx
Flags/Silks - $150 approx
Food - $1500
Software - $1800
Hard Drives - $600
Extra Bulbs/Gels/Gaff Tape/Sandbags Etc - $600
Audio Equipment (702T/Boom Pole) - $4200
Sound Blankets - $250
Tapes - $350
Rails - $100
Grip Heads/Etc - $200
Microphone Fuzzy System (for wind) - $750
Lenses - $800

So far this is $21700. I forget what I spent the rest of the $3K on. I already owned a jib, professional microphone, and a few other essentials.

But I understand what he's saying about costs. What I was able to do, which is scary for many filmmakers, and this is not for the faint of heart, but I do describe it in the "24 Diary" is to learn all the major positions yourself. Teach a few others and work with people who want to do this, but don't have the experience yet. You may take a small production hit, unless you're well taught yourself (and you may have to teach yourself) but you'll save on crew (people) costs. Also working with actors who are starting out for small roles can help too. I've learned the hard way that major roles, if possible, need to be paid.
 
Updated indie film no budget spreadsheet (PDF file), attached. I added in contingency 10%, deferred actor pay, lowered film score cost, realized I will have a Canon XHA1 by the time I make the film. Got the budget under $40,000.
 

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Thank you jls4. I do think I would rather own if possible; I can always sell the equip used on ebay afterwards *if* necessary to recoup and likely end up with same cost as renting, but with the benefits you point out of owning. I already have loads of lighting equipment from photography, gaffling tape, etc. so that will help me somewhat. I just keep wondering--what NEXT?! Quite the money pit, I would like to know what I am getting into so there are no surprises (e.g. now i have to think Letus selective focus system, rails, etc; well I could go without, but by going Letus, etc, I can likely boost the production value and thus sell value once done). Thus my sharing of my voodoo budget (guessing without experience) to get some feedback and help here to know where I am budgeting too little, too much, items to add/delete from a budget. I think I am getting close (hopefully) at around $50,000 to make an indie film with no name actors on deferred pay, PM, AD, scored music, etc.? I mean obviously I could use a million, or ten million, but it seems doable on $50k given that I see guerilla filmmakers here making indie features for $2,000+.
 
I'll have to check out your revised budget, but what you're saying all sounds pretty good.

On deferred pay: your movie probably won't be SAG, but here you will find the SAG contracts and rate cards, which should give you an excellent starting point for figuring out deferred pay.

http://www.sagindie.org/resources/contracts/

As for crew, there's no set standard really. You mentioned paying $100 per day for most positions, which is about as low as you can go but my guess is you can find some people who will work for that plus a deferment. Two ways to do this: just do the math based on what they would want to be paid... if a guy's regular day rate is $300 per day, then there you have $200 per day in deferments. Again you could look up DGA and union rates here if you wanted a guideline, but there's no reason you have to stick to them. The drawback to this is that now you know you have to sell your film for $4200 more to break even. The advantage is now you know what you have to sell your film for. The other way to do it is just to give him a percentage of the eventual sale. Depending on the person's role in the movie this would typically be anything from 1% to 15%. On the Echo Game, we paid our physical effects people only enough to cover their supplies, plus 2-3% of an eventual sale. Their work was critical to the movie, but they were not on-set more than 3 days. Meanwhile the producers were not paid at all up front but received 5-10% each against sale. There's a bit more to it than that but those are some guidelines. At the end of the day you'll probably want to keep 50% of the payout to yourself and anyone else who actually put money in. But be generous with that other 50% and people will be more generous to you!

PS, note that we had multiple producers on The Echo Game, and I highly recommend this to most low-budget productions. There's so many things that can fall through the cracks, and each of us was working on other things as well so it was impossible for one producer to keep his eyes on everything all the time. I see you took my advice about payroll to heart but actually doing that stuff IS the producer's job... don't plan on just passing the buck off to your AD unless you're compensating him or giving a credit.

As for the score, at this level I don't think the $/minute thing really applies. Look at this way: there are a lot of composers who want to get a feature under their belt and get noticed. They're composers because they love music. Probably a good chunk of them would love to do your movie for free, but they've got to eat. So how much does it cost them to pay rent and put food on the table? Music will probably take a month or so to do, and people in most parts of the country can get by on $3000 to $4000 per month without killing themselves.

As far as gear is concerned, I don't disagree with jls4 entirely. But filmmaking at this level is all about discipline. In a sense I think it makes you a stronger filmmaker to HAVE to finish the film in 20 days, no excuses, rather than constantly returning a month or two later to grab another shot here and there. I would say that it's great to own the essentials – camera, tripod, a small Kino kit maybe. But do you need to own a jib and a dolly and everything else under the sun? No, probably not. Ultimately this is a very personal decision for everyone... it depends a lot on what resources are available to you, how you intend to shoot, how much money you have upfront, and so many other factors that I won't comment on it any more.

All right, off to set now. Later!
 
I think you can get someone to score your movie for less than that. I've talked to two composers who said they'd work for me for points. One is doing that already. Not to say that they don't deserve $100 a minute, but if you can pay them with points, maybe they'll make more. And they take a chance along with everyone else.

I think what you need to do is hit the Internet and start looking for people to help you. Instead of trying to get this huge crew which you only need 4 people besides yourself (Lighting/Gaffer; Audio; Camera; Asst. Producer) then you can lower your costs.

You can get meals for about $3.50 a meal per person. Talk to a catering company and because you're doing a large project they may be able to help you out. And don't forget buffet stores and resturants. In Georgia we have Ryans, Golden Corral. Heck Chick fil A and Moes cater as well, along with Subway. If you keep the food changing and provide fruits and vegtables you'll be fine. You don't need a "craft services" person, just send your Asst. Producer to pick up the food about 45 minutes before you want to eat.

You've got Production Manager at $3K, AD at $2K, 2nd AD at $1K and Crew at $4K. I say get a better crew and pay them $5K and loose the ADs and Production Manager. That'll also lower your food costs. Also you can use that money to get a better camera (if you like the EX1 over the A1. A CMOS vs CCD issue)

But again this is my super indie self talking. I talk about on screen dollars in the "24 diary" but if YOU KNOW what you're doing, you don't need all these ADs and such. You have to know. You can't let other people know for you.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
I think I am getting close (hopefully) at around $50,000 to make an indie film with no name actors on deferred pay, PM, AD, scored music, etc.? I mean obviously I could use a million, or ten million, but it seems doable on $50k given that I see guerilla filmmakers here making indie features for $2,000+.
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Last thing I'll say. I would try to get the main production cost as low as possible, pay your lead actors something, but not a lot, and try to save $8K to $10K for 1 or 2 cameos of famous people. You can go SAG (at least in GA) and not pay your main actors SAG wages. If they aren't SAG actors they don't get SAG pay. Don't tell your main actors that though - or they will hate you for life.

The reason why (now) I'd encouage you to go SAG is only so you can get a cameo from a famous actor/actress in your movie. But I'd try to avoid SAG actors because they cost money. Instead I'd try to do a serious Casting call and pay attention to SAG-e actors, that's SAG eligible. What SAG-e actors are, are simply actors who have worked on a SAG project, but didn't go SAG. These actors have the skills to be SAG, but for whatever reason have decided not to go SAG. This may be more difficult for you in your state. Here lots of good actors are SAG-e because we don't get many SAG projects but we do get lots of small commercials and such. SAG will suck your money dry. But if you can get a cameo by an actor who hasn't worked in a while for say $5K for 2 days which you can shoot 6 scenes. Then now that actor is in the movie.

Since we decided to do this, I've been in talks with several known actors (all-be-it known in the African-American Community). If I can get around their agents/managers and talk directly to them, I've noticed I can get them much cheaper. but if you don't know anybody you'll have to pay premium prices. I only have about $2,500 for this since I didn't have much money to begin with, but it looks like right now I may have one person for one day and one person for another day. So I might get the 4 to 6 scenes that I want.

Also doug is right about discipline. 100% right. However as long as you're and indie, you might as well take advantage of everything that being an indie is. And one thing is that reshooting is a fact of life. Heck even Peter Jackson reshot a few scenes of LOTR and how many times has George Lucas reworked Star Wars. Hollywood would do it, if they could. But economically they can't. But we can. Take advantage of it while you have it.
 
Thank you so much everybody for all the feedback. Though there are differences of opinion, I see the commonalities, and it is all helping me to get a better feel for costs, necessary and luxury personnel for making a film. Like a hawk circling its prey closer and closer, I feel as the discussion thread has progressed I am feeling more certain as to a realistic budget, who I will need to hire, equipment I will need or not need, etc. Again thank you so much everybody for all the help!

I am going to shoot a couple of 15-20 minute short films (just finished by first five minute film that I posted here on DVXuser.com a couple of days ago under user films) to gain some practice, learn the hats that need to be worn, then start preproduction of an indie feature.

Right now I am struggling on what genre to write and produce-- K.I.S.S. indie horror, or K.I.S.S. indie drama. Horror writing (thriller, supernatural) comes easier to me, but would require more CGI and all in production/post; Drama seems it would be quicker in post (no CGI effects), but I doubt my talents as a write for drama-- but then I will be having a paid mentor-consultant (Margot Prescott) help me through the screenplay start to finish as she has done for a couple of other screenplays, to make sure I end up with a quality screenplay no matter what genre. With Drama, I was thinking I could keep the # of actors low, maybe even film in and around my city so that cast and crew just sleep and eat (except lunch and craft table snacks) at their own home/apt, meaning I would not have to worry about lodging much, or renting locations. Tough decision which genre to go, I also want to consider sale value once done, but also my motivation and interest in the story which much be huge either genre to carry me through the writing, production, post.
~Randall :beer:
 
just thinking out loud here so it's only somewhat related to the discussion, but I'm at the AFM (American Film Market) this week and the first thing I've learned is that it's much easier than it looks once you've had a 20 year veteran break down the AFM process for you. And that I could take my $50K indie drama with no names and do about $100K to $200K in licensing to foreign territories. I also know that I can make a feature for less than $50K, without names, and retain the beautiful compositions and cinematography and the authentic performances from the cast that I'm known for. And I know that my marketing background means I can create a compelling poster and trailer that most buyers are making their decisions on.
 
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