Budgeting for medium budget movie

[jacmelien]

I don’t remember learning much about budgeting in film school. I have a (2) two million dollars budget for a movie and I would like to know if I should budget it the same way I would a $20,000 movie or should I hire a professional to do the budget? The movie is set to release in DVD. I plan to use $200,000 for equipment because I don’t want to use my old gear.

Any feedback is appreciated.

jacmelien@aol.com

[Rob]

Yea, I don’t remember going over budgeting in school either.

Anyway, i think you should hire a professional to help you out. That’s a pretty big budget, and I think if you have to ask how to go about budgeting, then that’s a sign that you should probably ask for help…nothing wrong with asking for help.

[composite1]

I must have been fortunate. The school I went to you learned basic budgeting in Scripwriting 101 ( I had to take it as a Graduate, very valuable class.)

I’m sure there are a number of books and software out there on the topic. On the ‘short and sweet’ sides take a look at “Producing & Directing the Short Film & Video” by Peter W. Rea and David K. Irving. Though it’s one chapter, they do talk seriously about how to budget. Recommended software, “Movie Magic Budgeting and Scheduling” MM Screenwriter and those two work together and I’ve used them to work out large projects without a lot of hassle. Granted you can do all of that stuff with Win Excel, but you’d have to build it all from scratch.

If you’ve got the cash to spare, definitely hire a pro to do your budget and don’t get mad when they start harping on you about where the cash is going.

[Author]

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