Producing : "Guestimating" a Budget by Brooklyn Hudson

The last time someone asked me, a screenwriter, to get a budget they weren't legitimate. Don't do it. Find another producer or director who isn't wasting your time.

If you have the money to have a UPM/line producer/AD do a budget and board, then it can't hurt. If you aren't comfortable parting with the money, a very general way to approximate is to look at a movie with similar production requirements, and Google the budget. For example, maybe your script is similar to SIDEWAYS. You Google the budget for a rough estimate, and you figure that an indie version can do it cheaper than Alexander Payne's better funded version. Don't worry about actor fees. You can approximate the BTL budget, or you can allow for scale rates for actors, director, etc.

I think S32 has some webinars on budgeting btw.

Thank you so much. I've been searching for similar films and their budgets. I'm surprised how many are not out there on IMDB and the like, but I have found a few. I'll search for webinars on the topic as well.

Here's the S32 class: https://www.stage32.com/classes/Budgets-Cash-Flows-and-Cost-Reports And here's my S32 class, which has nothing to do with budgeting. Rimshot. https://www.stage32.com/classes/How-To-Hook-Your-Reader-In-Only-5-Pages

Regina, you're awesome!!! Thank you so much.

Unfortunately, comparisons are mere fabrication and imagination. Real film investors know this. A stock answer to the original question ( which is also true ) : Most films can be made at numerous budget tiers, yielding very different films, and sometimes not so very different (other than casting which of course is huge); a given feature can be funded at $20,000 , $200,000 , $650,000 or $2,000,000 . What you get for the price tiers are more professional crews, and more professional / recognizable actors. You also get a few but not a lot more shooting days and post time. $20K and $2M are both low independent budgets; it just depends who you are talking to and what you are talking about. Some people laugh when I call $1M micro budget, others think it's not humanly possible to make any movie for as little as $200K. Most scripts will fit the whole range of dollars. One time this isn't generally the case is period films; they need $. As to locating budgets on IMDb, be VERY careful and realize most quoted or "estimated" budgets on IMDb for indies are placed by the filmmaker or distributor for sales positioning and are PURE fiction. Example: FILTH TO ASHES, FLESH TO DUST cost $15,800 cash money plus another $3K to finish. The film is listed as having a budget of $100,000. It is also listed as grossing $156,000 which is wrong... it's brought just under $1M in the 4 years since that number was accurate. This is one example, not an anecdote. Lies about budgets for ego or sales reasons are normal business, unfortunately. In the spirit of getting a film made and not leaving $ on the table, you'd be smart to have a real UPM breakdown the budget for a targeted amount you believe you can get. Once you do that, you need to kind of stick with it, because if you then tell an unsophisticated investor you could make it for less, they think you had padded the budget and will run; or at the very least they assume you don't know your numbers. Keep your options to yourself in other words. 2 final things; most new filmmakers grossly underestimate or overestimate what a film will cost. And 2nd, just because person X can make a film for $X doesn't mean you can; many indies involve favors called in for free, and a very polished looking film made for no money may benefit from an entire team of pros pitching in for a first time director colleague. Who you know, in other words, can be priceless.

Good answer Royce. the bottom line is varied and yet the line items can be at least worked to give an investor confidence that you have fully considered the details.

Recently, Kevin Smith provided his budget for his very successful small indie feature "Clerks" to help out indie filmmakers like yourself. Here's the link to it: http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/12/kevin-smith-shares-original-c...

Royce, thank you! I really appreciate the time you took to write a detailed response. Everyone's responses are so helpful. Priceless.

Respectfully, I'd like to speak to some of Royce's points in the context of the original question. First, Royce is discussing "investors" who can sniff out improperly vetted budget estimates. He's right. However, the OP Brooklyn posted asking for advice because a "producer" (not an investor) wants a budget estimate. This producer might be asking for a ballpark budget estimate for any number of reasons. For example, maybe the producer likes Brooklyn's logline, but he doesn't want to spend 2 hours reading the script unless Brooklyn thinks the movie can be made for under $20M. Maybe he has a good track record producing sub-$20M movies. For the purposes of taking the next step and convincing the producer to read her script, Brooklyn is likely able to come back to the producer and say, "My script is a contained thriller like XXX Movie, with limited locations, and a small cast. Like XXX, the main set is an apartment. There are no action sequences. Therefore, I'd want to be to make the movie at around $XX." That will often suffice. Second, in "Hollywood," describing our budget targets by using comparable movies is typically what we do in many stages of selling, packaging, developing, etc. (I'm not talking about the indie film space when you're going out to financiers who will kick your tires.) If an agent says, "That's a smaller movie. It will have to be made at a price." I might say, "Yes, I agree. It should be made on the scale of XXX Movies, which were $15-25M." That shows that we're on the same page, and that gets us to the next step. But again, it depends on the situation. I'm not saying that Royce is wrong. I'm only saying that Brooklyn might not be in the place of approaching investors, since she's specifically asking about a producer right now.

Hi Regina, I read the original post the first time... it's easy ... substitute the word "producer" for the word "investor" and I stand behind what I wrote. The minutiae of why I am more concerned about money-guy than middle-man has to do with experience and is a diatribe unto itself. I'll spare you at this time ;) In any case, what one presents to a producer is as though one is talking to an investor- or should be! Gotta keep your story straight. That said, my own producing expertise is very limited; 10 funded and dozens of never-funded very-independent films, none successfully funded over $1M and usually under $200K, which I'd gamble is 99+ percent of what happens here on Stage32 and seems to be what is discussed here. I have zero experience producing in the "Hollywood $15-25M budget" realm and no clue where / how / why that came into this; maybe you do and can speak to how that works some more and it's great that you'd share your expertise here if that's the case - thanks- and if in fact Brooklyn is being courted by that ilk of producer, she should have professional representation, a top sheet and a line item budget drawn up by a working UPM / LP... zero question, money well spent. Sorry for any assumptions I made Brooklyn- I answer questions on boards knowing many will read, not just one, and I trust you and others to sort the wheat from the chaff. (Unless you are gluten-free, in which case you reject it entirely ;)

Regina hit the nail on the head regarding where I am currently with this project, and why I was asking, the information you are giving me is also very valuable. As for representation, I recently left my manager ( two weeks ago after a NIGHTMARE with this woman going off on a producer's assistant for no reason...nightmare, I tell you!) and I am meeting with another, but I have a great entertainment attorney, whom I trust. I have an actor who is very well known, but not A-list, but I have not yet discussed how much money he will "require". I know this particular film (a drama) can be made for $150k without him (maybe less), but with him, I would like to see the budget be $10m to $15m and actually produce something of that level. Don't get me wrong, I have seen amazing films made for $20k. My director is highly skilled and I love his style. He is well known for his commercials, music videos and award winning shorts, but this is his first venture into features, so he is not breaking our bank. Basically, it's two actors (one in particular) and locations, that raise the bar for this project.

Hi Royce, just want to respectfully say that I believe you're right. If someone is at the stage of kicking your tires, they'll most likely sniff out a guesstimate. But if you're not at that stage yet, then a guesstimate will suffice in a lot of situations.