Budgets

• Feature film budgeting


  How to figure out how much it will cost to make your first feature film
• Typical Hollywood film costs anywhere between 50 to 200 million dollars
• Most low-budget indie films usually cost under 1 million dollars
• Some indie films cost much more than 1 million dollars
• Indie Spirit Awards


  Classify low-budget indie films as any films that have a budget under 20 million dollars
• Cassavetes Award


  Separate category for films shot with budgets under half a million dollars
• John Cassavetes is the og of independent American cinema
• Robert Rodriguez famously launched his career by making his first feature film El Mariachi for seven thousand dollars
• El Mariachi cost an additional hundred thousand dollars to finish the film and get it ready for a theatrical release
• Rodriguez ended up remaking El Mariachi with a higher budget and starring Antonio Banderas
• Analogy of building a home

  Similar approach to creating a feature film budget
• Factors to consider when creating a feature film budget

  • Number of shooting days
  • Cast and crew pay rates
  • Script costs
  • Stunts
  • Special locations
  • Visual effects and post-production
• Indie films typically shoot

  4 to 6 pages per day
• Scenes with mostly dialogue

  Shoot 6 pages per day
• Scenes with lots of action or stunts


  Shoot 3 or 4 pages per day
• Typical indie film script length

  80 to 90 pages
• Typical indie film shooting days

  14 to 22 days
• Most indie films shoot

  18 to 20 days with full crew, plus 1 or 2 extra days for pickup shots
• SAG actor pay for films under $200,000 budget


  Around $200 per day
• Pay for key crew members

  $100 to $500 per day
• Pay for secondary crew members

  Around $150 per day
• Reaching out to film schools for intern crew members is a way to fill out the crew
• Costs related to the script, stunts, special locations, visual effects, and post-production will also affect the budget
• Budgeting is a big topic, viewers are encouraged to comment on which areas they'd like more details on