The Budget – Defining the Beast!
The budget is the beast that must be slain, and the only way it can be defeated is if it is approached head-on, in a no-nonsense manner. Know the beast. Slay the beast.
Remember when your parents told you not to be afraid of the dark? That once you put the lights on, all the monsters went away? The budget it like that. It won’t be slain by ignoring it, or giving yourself false hope that you’ll “find a way” to do it.
Whether you’re doing a film for $100,000 or $5 million dollars, the question of how much the movie will cost is central to getting the movie done.
Let us say that you’ve finished your script, and now you want to produce it on your own. You need to know how much it will cost. The easy solution is to go out, buy Movie Magic Budgeting and Movie Magic Scheduling and do it yourself. The programs will only cost you about eight hundred dollars and you are done.
Right about now, if you’re following closely, you have some questions. What is Movie Magic? How do I learn how to use it? Will it prepare the budget and schedule for me?
I you didn’t get this far, and ran out and bought the program, you missed the point
If you are a director with a script, and you are trying to raise money for your film, and you’ve never been an AD or UPM, don’t spend the money on Movie Magic. Hire an experienced line producer.
No one would think of buying a CAD program and designing their own house – and then giving it to contractors to build – if they weren’t an architect. No intelligent person would buy an American Medical Association manual and attempt to perform surgery on friends or family. For some reason, however, people think a program will prepare a schedule and a budget for them. It will not.
The biggest skill one needs to prepare a schedule and budget is experience, an ability to read between the lines and understand how much things will really cost. I have said this before and I will say it again: The biggest difference between independent films and studio films is that when studio films go over budget, they go over budget on paper, and when independents go over budget, checks bounce and films remain unfinished.
The smallest independent film of, let’s say $100,000 or so, is still going to spend real money. If you don’t think $100,000 is real money, then you need a reality check. Find a person in your area who has prepared budgets before, negotiate a reasonable fee that you can afford, and pay them. You will save a fortune, and maybe your movie.
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