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“Budgeting forces you to analyze every aspect of the project.” – Michael Hall

A detailed budget is essential for microbudget films. It keeps you honest, reduces surprises, and ensures you stay on track. The budget and script are married—they work together.

Think of this process as a continuation of writing; if the budget reveals any potential production problems within your script, you have this opportunity to adjustment before things get really real.

OVERALL BUDGETING TAKEAWAYS

Simplify your story to fit the budget you have – If the movie you want to make is outside what you know you can raise in funding, either pair down your desired project or consider shooting something simpler first. Trust me, if you try to squeeze something epic out of extremely limited resources, your project will suffer, waste the time of those involved, and more than likely go nowhere/not push your career forward.
Budget so you can focus on your story – Constantly think of audience experience: what matters to the story and how can your budget allow the time and attention to pay toward things that matter most?
Budget for the entire process – Don’t just budget for producing the film. Budget for post-production as well. As Mike says in the episode, films are made or broken in post and too many productions—at every level of the game—run out of money by the time they’re bringing the piece together. And when you’re done…
Double your post budget – This will allow a cushion, and it’ll most importantly give you the money you’ll need to get your film out there.

Top questions questions to consider while reviewing your script to budget:

What matters for the audience?
What can I remove that won’t affect audience experience?

TOOLS YOU’LL NEED

- Google Drive – This is what I used for budget spreadsheets (Google Sheets) and most administrative work on Counterintelligence. It’s free, shareable, a great place to stay organized, and easily exports to any other formats you may need later on.
- Excel – This is another option if you’re more comfortable here than in Google. I know some folks are. I’m not one of them, but I got mad respect if that’s you.
- Experienced post-production supervisor/producer – Before you get started budgeting, it may be beneficial to sit down with one or both of these people. Take them to coffee and ask for their advice, or for a tour of a budget they’ve made. Don’t ask for free work, just pick their brain. Mike wrote a great post about informational interviews here.
- Sample Budgets – I’ve taken the liberty of Googling this for you, as Mike recommended. Take a look at the different examples, shape them to your needs, and don’t forget to multiply the total by 20% to allow yourself a cushion.
- Final Draft breakdown tutorials – Below is a great video series on breaking down your script using Final Draft. It’ll save you a bunch of time in that phase of budgeting and includes way more internal features than I took advantage of. I produced what’s called a “Scene Report”—which you can download from the “Your Documents” section below—and manually organized it outside Final Draft. These tutorials present a much better workflow if you’re up for a learning curve. If you’re using another program like CeltX, be sure and look for Script Breakdown Functions, and if those don’t exist within your application, see my example still below for how a breakdown can look.

YOUR DOCUMENTS

The sample is a PDF for simple viewing, while the documents are formatted for Excel, and can also be used in Google Drive or Apple’s Pages.

Sample Script Breakdown PDF
Schedule 1 – Download XLSX
Budget Breakdown – Download XLSX

BUDGETING OVERVIEW

Budget Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production, and release.

For Pre-Production, you’ll mostly want to add up administrative costs relating to crew, insurance, payroll, incorporating your production into an LLC (which we cover next episode and in this blogpost), casting costs, and other basic costs incurred during prep.

For Production, tally up necessary wardrobe, locations, cost of food per-day, and props. Also tally up the total cast and crew.

For Post, tally up total crew (editor, sound mixer, colorist, etc.), any necessary software, plugins, hardware (computers, hard drives, etc.), visual effects costs, and other possible post needs.

For Release, tally up an estimate of your desired festival submission costs, costs required upon acceptance (i.e. travel and promotion) advertising costs, website construction and management, distribution meetings, distribution fees such as getting up on major platforms like iTunes, etc.

BUDGETING PROCESS

Here is the overall budgeting process I employed for Counterintelligence, in detail. It includes a step-by-step breakdown and some visual aids. You can download and use the related sheets above under the heading “Your Documents”.

NOTE: you don’t have to budget your film this way, and if you have a higher budget, your workflow and construction will be much more intricate. This is crafted specifically for tiny micro-budget films. Hopefully you find it helpful!

1: SCRIPT BREAKDOWN (Final Draft users should see above video)

Break each scene into 1/8ths of a page and make a list.
Reorganize this scene list in order of location.
Group locations into separate scene lists.
Note characters in each scene/location.

2: SCHEDULE 1

This is the first rough schedule in spreadsheet form. Copy each line from your script breakdown into a spreadsheet and separate each location into different modules (boxes).

These modules will form full snapshots of what needs to be shot at each location. Once these modules are complete you can add up their items to begin estimating how long each module will take to shoot, and start organizing the modules into actual shoot days.

The columns for each module are the same, and most are ripped directly from information on your script breakdown. Each location module contains the following columns:

Scene – Scene headings.
Scene number – The number of each scene from within the script.
Pages – Number of pages in each scene scene.
Page number – Page number each scene starts on in the script.
Locations – At least put a location name; at best put an address.
Characters – Each character appearing at a given location.
Props – Each prop required at a given location.
Costumes – Each costume required at a given location.

3: CAST AND CREW LIST, PER-DAY

This is a simple list of each cast and crew member needed on each day, with their rates next to their names or job titles. Example:

DAY 1

Actor 1 ($125)

Actor 2 ($125)

DP ($__)

Sound ($__)

Wardrobe ($__)

Replicate this for each day in list form, then add up the total.

4: FOOD LIST

Same list format as above, but add up the presumed cost of feeding everyone on each day. This will fluctuate based on number of people on set, where your location is, time of day or night, etc. Research as much as possible, estimate, and add up the total.

5: GEAR LIST

Take inventory of gear you’ll need to buy or rent for each day and list it all out in the above format, per-day. Add up the total.

6: COUNTERINTELLIGENCE BUDGET BREAKDOWN

This is the final budget format; a seven module/block spreadsheet, each block comprising a different aspect of the budget. Each block contains a list of relevant people or items, their costs, returnability, etc. At the bottom of each block, add up that block’s total. The blocks are:

Props – Every prop from the script, listed out. Go to Amazon to research costs for all these props. Also note if each item will be returnable after wrap.

Cast – Cast list with rates based on the SAG minimum day rate ($125 p/day at the time), multiplied by how many days each actor is shooting, then totaled at the bottom.

Crew – Crew list with day rates you’re aware of, or ask around to get a feel for going rates if you don’t know what a certain crew member’s may be. Again, multiply by number of days on set for each person, and total up at the bottom. Also include post-production crew members where necessary.

Costumes – Similar to props, list each costume you’ll need, do some online research, and add up totals (NOTE: if you’ll need doubles of certain items, be sure to include that as multiple units of the same item). Also, as with props, note if those items will be returnable after wrap.

Additional costs – Production insurance, company incorporation, payroll company, kraft services costs, and other ancillary costs behind the scenes, added up for the total duration of the shoot. Also include the items Mike mentioned relating to promotion. Then double the cost of post and add your cushion here.

Equipment – Rental and purchased equipment you’ll need, added up over the course of the shoot (NOTE: Talk to your camera and sound departments, in advance for estimates on what may be needed). For rental costs, visit your local rental house’s rate sheet to add up costs. Here’s a sample of our rental house’s rate sheet. Add up totals for the entire shoot.

Overview – Here you’ll list out each block’s title and what their totals are, then add them for a total budget. Every time you make a change to a block, adjust that block’s total in the Overview and adjust your overall total accordingly so you can always have a quick snapshot of your overall budget.

WHAT I MISSED (STUFF TO LOOK OUT FOR)

Keep in mind as you begin adding or subtracting from your budget, that anything you add should be something that’s saving you time. Any savings you accrue by subtracting items from the budget should not add a ton of needless work.

Always weigh the time to money ratio while you refine your film’s budget. That said, here’s what I missed, so you won’t do the same:

Casting Director – I didn’t not initially plan on this, but opted to hire Rachel Meyer to save myself a lot of time. The result was a 10% increase to the budget.
SAG-AFTRA Production – Once I finally agreed to go SAG, our production was required to hire on a Payroll service and get production insurance (more on those details later). For insurance we went with Film Emporium ($481). For payroll we used Paychex ($240). More on these items in a few episodes.
Crew Rate Estimates – I failed to ask around for standard rates when building my budget, and was therefore a bit blindsided when it came time to lock down crew. Do your research in advance and don’t go forward until you know what your collaborators will charge. Reach out within your community for these answers.
Equipment – I didn’t ask for an equipment list from my DP, Mike Elliott, early enough in the process, so a few little things added up throughout. Again, always ask your collaborators before locking down a budget.
Hard Drives – I vastly underestimated the cost of hard drives for storage and post. Do yourself a favor: when you’re budgeting, roughly calculate estimated hours of footage and what that’ll translate to in data, based on your resolution. We shot in 4K, which is why I was a little surprised by the required storage. Take the time to do this math early so you don’t end up like me: spending $500 more than expected.

AREAS OF SAVINGS

Wardrobe, Props, and Food – All of these came in under-budget due to two factors: first, I tend to overestimate these items on paper to allow wiggle room, particularly if I’m uncertain or they come at a range of costs. Second, Art Director/Co-Producer Andrea Tolbert purchased strategically—keeping in mind whether things would be returnable or not—and bargain hunted all throughout.
Negotiating Rates – A few key collaborators willingly worked completely or partially for back end profit participation, forfeiting day rates or pieces of their fees for percentages of revenue. This kept costs down by over 200%, which is obviously huge. However, it’s essential to realize that asking this of collaborators is very tricky. Most movies never see a penny in return, so if you’re going to ask you must have a really good rapport already and all parties involved should be made aware of the risks. As far as investments go, they don’t get any riskier than films. Most professionals won’t accept this because they know this, but don’t be afraid to attempt a negotiation. It may save you a ton in the long-run, and if it works out, people can make more than they may have with just day rates.

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