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Budgeting an indie film
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Contributed by
Glen
Berry
Glen Berry is an award winning filmmaker and the Editor of film underground. Berry has written for Moviemaker magazine and FilmFestivals.com
We have produced a number of scripts for TV. In essence we have, almost accidentally, put together a series of spoofs on the political and social situation in South Africa (where, believe me, people need desperately to start laughing at themselves). Because we've taken a slightly off-the-wall approach, the main-line producers find the lack of a familiar formula slightly disconcerting and too risky. So, in complete ignorance and arrogance, we've decided to produce at least one episode ourselves, and then take it from there. What I need now is to work out a budget! Can you help me with any examples, or standard budgets that I can adapt for our situation?
Unfortunately, there is no "standard" budget. Bud
gets are closely guarded trade secrets and getting straight answers about them is almost impossible. Although there are budget sheets that you can fill out line by line, they are generally not suited for professional use. Of course, big budget productions have an accounting office to handle jobs like this. However, that does not cover most of television production and independent film.
Many professional television and independent producers opt to utilize software packages such as Movie Magic to guide them through budgeting, script breakdown, shooting schedule and day out of days. I would recommend using this approach, provided that you can handle the $600 or so investment in the software.
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