Calculate the Production Budget for a Movie

How do you calculate the production budget for a movie?

Originally Answered: How is a movie budget decided upon?

A producer breaks down the script to determine the number of actors needed (each actor gets a daily or weekly rate), the number of crew needed (crewpeople get daily or weekly rates depending on position), the necessary equipment, the necessary locations, the necessary sets and costumes.  All these things cost money.  Breaking down a script can give you a good idea of how many days you will need each crewmember for; similarly, you need to know how many days you need each piece of equipment for.  For example, you may need a helicopter one day, but you're not going to pay for a helicopter every day (it's expensive!).  So you plan for the days you will need the helicopter or whatever.

This is how the "below the line" budget is determined.  These tend to be fixed costs when you get to high levels of filmmaking, because a majority of the crewpeople will be union members -- meaning their wages are standardized.  Similarly, studio rentals and expenses are pretty standardized, unless tax breaks are involved.

Budgets can balloon out of proportion, though, due to the "above the line" talent.  These are the actors, the director, and sometimes the writers and producers.  These are the big-money stars, the ones that studios will pay large chunks of cash because they know audiences will pay large chunks of cash to see a Will Smith movie or a Quentin Tarantino movie.  Above the line talent is often a "brand name" like the aforementioned Smith and Tarantino -- a marketing tool.  Most above-the-line talent have certain "quotes," which are their standard rates.  Unless your project is special and happens to be a passion project of theirs, if you land high-end talent you have to pay them their quote.  And the quotes for Oscar-nominees and Oscar-winners are extremely pricey.

Combining below-the-line crew, above-the-line crew, equipment, rental fees, post production, marketing, prints and advertising -- that's how you get the total budget.

Now, many times when a budget like this is put together, the studio realizes holy crap that's a gigantic budget.  So this is when cuts are made, to the script and the scope of production.  Often a studio will have a basic number in mind based on what kind of film it is (tentpole blockbusters are $100 to $200 million; romantic comedies are $20 to $70 million; indie pics are under $15 million), and will then ask the producers to massage the script to fit their number.  In a case like that, the studio has an overall operating budget for the year.  They decide what percentage of that goes into film production, and then decide how much goes to each individual film.

How do I make a budget for a movie?

This process is not easily explained in a posting to Quora. There is an entire specialty in film whose job this is, the Line Producer.

In short, you have to figure out the ballpark that producers and executive producers want to hit. And you need a lot of information. Not only do you need to know if sets are being built or if shooting on location is going to happen, but you also need to know if the producers are favoring speed of production over perfect image and other art considerations (speed is critical for TV, for instance).

You really need to have some idea if the scenes of the movie are going to be massive, wide-shot, depictions of period or fantasy locations, or if this is a quiet and indoor drama. Is this a Harry Potter-style tent pole or Clerks.

And then you have to break down the script, scene by scene, figuring out all of the elements that need to be created and finished before the scene can be filmed. Wardrobe, set dressing, and similar for small films, up to months of set building and/or CGI creation for the big ones. And you count the shoot-days, based on the length of the script and an understanding of how much coverage the director intends to shoot (more takes equals more days of shooting; conversely a single-take scene takes a day or more of rehearsal).

And then you use your knowledge of the film production business, costs and union minimum rates to figure out how much this is going to cost. One sentence that sums up years of experience and trial-and-error.

Or you just remember to hire a Line Producer as part of your budget. And have them create your budget.

Originally Answered: How is a movie budget determined?

Generally speaking the producers will look at the narrative and try to determine the market appeal of the project with a variety of factors like potentially interested talent, scope, scale, their list of contacts, likely available financing participants, etc…all which will inform the choice of a budget target.

Two different sets of producers with different connections and track records might make wildly different movies with wildly different budgets, even given a broadly similar (though not identical) narrative genre in their scripts.

Filmmaker(s) group A has enough juice to get a heist script to a studio and Mark Whalberg, Jason Statham, Ed Norton, and Charlize Theron. They get a budget of about $60 million dollars and make “The Italian Job”.

Filmmaker B knows his writing partner Owen and his writing partner’s brother Luke, both of whom also are beginning acting careers. They make a short to demonstrate the idea of a feature length heist movie they want to make. They raise about $7 million dollars, mostly from friends, family, and private investors, and they make “Bottle Rocket”.

If F. Gary Gray (IIRC) and Statham and Donald Sutherland and Ed Norton had been attached to “Bottle Rocket”, they would have realistically been able to raise a much larger budget, and if it had been Luke & Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson pushing “The Italian Job”, they would have gotten a far lower budget, though since it was a remake IP with at least some studio support.

Richard Brown, I am a produced filmmaker and former chemical lab owner.

Answered Dec 12, 2016 · Author has 2.1k answers and 2.3m answer views

Originally Answered: how much does it cost to professionally make a film?

The questions are:

1.    Who is the audience?

2.    How much money do you want to make?

Today, you can rightly say, “The world is my audience” with sites like Vimeo, where you can join Vimeo Pro for $17 a month, and they give you 90% of the money the audience spends on your videos.

As to making money with a video:

1.    You need to make something people will pay to see.

2.    You need to produce it to a standard which makes your viewers want to recommend you to others.

The “legends” of low budget are just that: “legends.” The Paranormal Activity legend is that Oren Peli made it for $15,000, half of that was buying the camera. While the production was very cheap, Hollywood saw the brilliance of combining reality television with horror, and spent many, many, many times their budget getting the film ready and then still more marketing the film. It made a fortune. Before this there was the “Blair Witch Project.”

Basically, you need to be ORIGINAL, have a great cast who are believable, and maintain a sense of tension throughout your horror film. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, about the only genre applicable to very low budget is in fact horror.

Originally Answered: How do I make a budget for a movie?

First and foremost you need to breakdown the script. There are several software progams that help automate the process ( Gorilla, EP/Movie Magic). You breakdown each scene by location, set, actors (who works that scene), day or night, props, wardrobe etc….

Once you’ve done that you “schedule” the script. This is your best estimate of how much can you get down in how many hours. Once that work is completed you can thin figure out how many days you will have to shoot. and decide what level you have for cast and crew.

If you have any questions, let me know

Originally Answered: What does a movie production budget include?

What does a production budget include is kind of a strange question.  Typically, it contains money.  The money is used for the various aspects of production.  You know, Art Department, Grip and Electric, transportation, Production, payroll, talent, locations, food and water.  The list kind of goes on and on and you can drill down to all kinds of stuff.  But that's just production.  You didn't ask about development or post production.  

Originally Answered: How much does a movie cost to make?

To paraphrase Bobby Bowfinger in the movie “Bowfinger”, one of my favorites BTW, “All movies cost exactly $2,184. The rest is just accounting.”

Good films can be made for next to nothing….if you have a good story to tell. There are major motion pictures being made with iPhones like UNSANE and Tangerine for goodness sake!

Stars, period costumes, CGI, big name director, multiple locations, big casts, etc. cost lots and lots. But money doesn’t guarantee anything.

Define professional. If you mean it only uses professionals to shoot the thing then that is usually necessarily a lot more than one that doesn't. However you may find that the “non-professional” film is better or as good as the professional one. Also you may have professionals working on deferal or at a reduced rate, others might be on full pay, all on the same film, depending on what the individuals motivations are. How many locations are we talking? How many actors? Of what calibre? Set dressing, need a lot or barely any? Is this an action picture or a drama? Want to shoot with natural light or go high key or low key? 90 minutes or 120? The answers to those questions all make a difference. As you can see it's a far from simple question with no simple answer. If you’'real talking a simple shoot, whatever that means… You should be able to get it done for around 100k and pay everyone at least minimum wage. That's not to say a 50k movie wont be as good or better, just too many variables including taste. And thats to get it made. Not accounting for the script cost or for much postproduction and certainly not any marketing.

You should have a few things before you calculate a budget:
1. A firm understanding of exactly what you'll need to complete your film
2. A spreadsheet
3. Phone numbers for several rental houses and crew ( to quote prices)
4. A calculator

After you have all of these things it's just a matter of getting the exact numbers of what everything will cost and calculating them together. Depending on the size of your project this can be a lot harder than it sounds.

Originally Answered: How can a budget be set for a movie?

To make a movie within budget and preparing budget are inter-related . Preparing excel sheet with these 4steps will give total picture..

1.Preproduction

2.Shooting

3.Post production

4.Promotions

1.Pre production:most important thing is preparing script with shot division followed by story board .this gives clarity about number of lights required,propertys and costumes. all this comes under pre production.

2.Shooting:Number of actors,Technicians ,assistants,Make up man ,Art department, food ,transportation and their pay followed by number of days

3.Post production:Editing,DI,Music,Dubbing..

4.Promotions:Charges for Platforms like social media,YouTube Promotions, TV interview slots…