Budget Round One

Today is the first day I've had enough information that I could assemble a budget that had any sense of reality. It's about twice what I'd like it to be which means - it probably can't be what I'd like it to be.

I am budgeting in an unusual way this time. Normally I follow the standard budget form, but this time I wanted to organize it in a way that made sense for this kind of production so what I've done is make four categories which I felt would be equal parts. I'm doing this to make sure the film is balanced. I don't think it is a good idea to spend 50,000 on your set and then shoot on DV because the equipment rental becomes 5,000. That seems imbalanced to me. So, the logic behind finding four separate categories is to think if you can get your set for 5,000... then it makes sense to get your camera for 5,000 too.

I've never seen anyone think of a budget this way - but somehow it is making sense to me on this project.

My categories are:

• Cast & Crew & Workers Comp
• Equipment & Stock & Processing
• Art Department & Sets
• Post Production & Legal & Insurance

Within a reasonable margin - they are the equal parts. Currently, somehow, I need to lower the expense of ALL of them. At least by 30%. Hopefully backend incentives might help in this effort. A shorter shoot might help as well. But there is a limit to how short of a shoot makes sense. There is no point in doing this at all if I don't get a movie that works.