Budgets

This is a sample page from a motion picture budget;

Budgeting is a hugely important part of producing a film. When the script is still being developed, a rough budget will be made to convince producers and studios to give them the ‘go ahead’. During the pre-production stages a more detailed budget will be drawn up to ensure financing – this can sometimes be more 150 pages long! A budget is divided into 4 sections;
1) Above-the-line (creative talent),
2) Below-the-line (production costs),
3) Post-production (editing, visual effects)
4) Other (insurance etc)

There are many different elements that need to be accounted for and people that need to be paid;
Story rights: The right to produce a film based on a play or novel.
Screenplay: An A-list screenwriter can be paid a lot to write the first drafts of a script.
Dialog writer
Director: Usually a director's salary is about 7% of the final budget.
Cast: An A-list actor can ask for millions of £/$. However the rest of the cast are often being paid only the Screen Actors Guild minimum.
Production costs: The cost of shooting the film including sets, wardrobe, location filming, hotels and transportation.
Visual effects: (if required)
Music: The top film composers can also ask for millions.

Films often go over budget but technically they are ‘not allowed’ to do so. The Titanic is a very famous example of this, where the director James Cameron went way over on the budget but offered his fee to the studio. This is an example I found of the above for the film Spider man 2;
Story rights: $20 million
Screenplay: $10 million
Producers: $15 million
Director: Sam Raimi $10 million
Cast: $30 million
Tobey Maguire: $18 million
Kirsten Dunst: $7 million
Alfred Molina: $3 million
Rest of cast: $3 million
Production costs: $45 million
Visual effects: $65 million
Music: $5 million
Composer (Danny Elfman): $2 million.
Total: $200 million!

We are shooting our 2 minute opening to a film on a very low budget, so there are a lot of things we need to take into account. First of all we need to think about actors. Obviously we will not be paying anyone to act in it so we need to ask family and friends, drama students would be good. However it is important we choose people we can trust and who will be reliable, because if an actor doesn’t show up, it would completely bring film to a holt.

Secondly we need to consider the setting and location we will film in, and this has the greatest affect on the mise-en-scene and overall look. Again we will need to do things for free so filming in parks, woods, gardens, friend’s houses or school would be best.

The look of the actor is a huge factor and really adds to the overall look of the opening, and therefore it adds greatly to the effectiveness of our piece. Consequently costume, hair and makeup should all be kept relatively simple. This is not just because a simple, plain look is best and easiest when it comes to continuity, but also because all the clothes and make up will have to come from our group members, friends and family, as will the makeup artist and hair stylist, as we have no money to hire anything or anyone.

Horrors, particularly slashers are known for having great special affects. However we need to stay away from trying to re create gory, bloody scenes as it will just make our piece look very amateur. This is because we have very limited special affects therefore fake blood and fake wounds will have to be used, which will be very obvious and maybe funny to the audience. If we do decided to do a horror, this will definitely not be our desired affect.