ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Oh James, it's a great question, and a rich one.

At it's simplest, it's crew x rate + kit x rate + ... The devil is in the detail, the three dots is where experience comes in, knowing all the things you need to add in, and making judgement calls on how to balance them. For instance, if you were paying a cast member £1M, but asking crew to work for £50 and a bag of chips it would be unbalanced and you wouldn't have matching abilities. Or spending big on art department but using a DSLR to shoot will not give you the best representation of the work you created.

Different crew roles command different rates, key department heads on parity for instance, etc. There's around 19 different levels, and what they're paid will depend also on the overall budget! There's also legal fees, insurances, location permits, transport, catering, payroll taxes and holiday pay, etc to consider.

The people who know this kind of stuff are called "Line Producers" or "(Unit) Production Managers". A Line Producer is in charge of spending the money overall, the PM might focus below the line more. Getting one of them to budget a script will depend a bit on how many feature films they've had distributed.

Giving a director £20k to "work on" a script may or may not be good value - everyone calls themselves a "director" and it's a broad church, from commercials to student shorts to mega movies. The ONLY thing that counts for a feature film director is distributed feature film director credits, look on IMDB. If the person wanting £20k can't show a handful of distributed features you like the look of, then (s)he's less good value than the one who can show you several good looking films that you like.

If your script is a short, or simple, you can have a pass at guessing a budget by looking at similar films and seeing the budget estimates on IMDB, and halving them (they tend to over-report hard costs).

Any help as a starter?

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Paddy, my friend, that has been immensely helpful, thank you so much.

If I was to go the route of trying to raise the fund myself (through the different initiatives that can be found on this site, etc) would you recommend me getting a Line Producer on board first?

For one of the two films I refereed to above, I managed to secure promissory notes from most of the cast (only 8 main actors), some of whom have name value, hoping that would help, but it always keeps coming down to over-all budget.

Also, thank you for addressing the £20k issue; I wasn't sure if this a standard part of the industry, or if someone clicked that I was out of my depth and decided to take me for a ride.

"Different crew roles command different rates, key department heads on parity for instance, etc. There's around 19 different levels, and what they're paid will depend also on the overall budget! There's also legal fees, insurances, location permits, transport, catering, payroll taxes and holiday pay, etc to consider."

Say the film had a £1M budget, what would these jobs be expected to be paid? If it's too complicated to go into detail, don't worry about it, thank you for the info you've already given me.

James

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

BTW as for what a line producer will charge you, the process is this -

They break down the script. They take every reference to a prop, location, number of cast, number of pages, etc and work out how many days you need each for, how many unit moves you need, how big a team you require. They'll talk to your prospective director and find how they envision the project looking, camera choices, whether you need a gull grip team, gimbal, or steadicam. They'll get opinions from an AD about how long they think is appropriate for the shoot. They'll get opinions from art departments about props costs. They'll get opinions from music clearing companies if you have a specific soundtrack in mind. They will add it all up, look at the balance, look at insurances, casting costs, office costs, production facilities suitable to each location, transport, fuels, taxes and cashflows... and give you a movie budget (and probably advice on where to film to get the best deals and different tax benefits).

It takes a couple of weeks, they will charge. It'll be 4 figures for 2 weeks of someone's professional experience, and the rate they charge for that experience will vary according to their experience. Generally a good line producer will more than pay for themselves by bringing in the right deals and providing all the right reports for the right investors and producers etc. I charge but offset it against my production fee if you proceed with me within a year, for instance. Some may charge a lower rate but not offset it against the production.

Film production is no mystery, it's really pedestrian, it's just a lot of things to remember and add up and organise. The value is in the experience and management style and problem solving ;-)

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Just seen your response James, glad it was helpful.

I really can't give a detailed breakdown, but roughly from minimum wage up to a couple of grand or so a week, depending on buyouts, box fees, what kit is included, etc. £1M is about the cost of making a movie to a decent finish if the script isn't too complex (it's cheap to write a dragon in a golden helicopter in the Arctic, but expensive to film it!). All films are compromises, so it's a tussle between the money available and the vision, and how you balance the spend.

As for cast "value", at £1M they basically have none. Committing to any cast can work against you as much as for you - if an investor wants to cast their daughter, you make a decision, and what if another investor likes that original cast member, but they're not available? You can suggest indicative cast, but then hold casting when you have some production dates. The actual value of any cast you can afford is not going to add to sales, no matter what their agents like to tell you. Again, this is why you'll get a line producer or co-producer who's been around the block and learnt some of those lessons already ;-)

For a £1M film, £20k development from a director seems a little rich, but depends entirely on their experience. There are plenty of inexperienced directors who'd be grateful for that as a final fee, but then they would be less reassuring to your investors as a safe pair of hands... And indeed the safe pair of hands is what investors like to see from a director and line producer!

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Thanks again for your replies.

Do you know of a specific fund that can be applied for to get a LP?

Thanks, James

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Alas, no. A big difference between shorts and features is that features are fully commercial ventures, expected to make a profit, and there are basically no grants. There are tax breaks in the form of tax credits on spend, and possibly on EIS investors, etc., but at the end of the day you need to find your seed cash from friends and family, second jobs, convincing someone of your vision to lend you £5k, etc.

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Thanks Paddy, no problem. Do you know of any for shorts then, I've got some of those, too :)

Thanks again for all your help, buddy.

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

For shorts you can try any of the funds, but they're probably handing out far smaller awards than make it cost effective to get an experienced features LP to work on it. Better to find someone to collaborate with who is working up. Shorts budgets tend to be quite modest by comparison ;-)

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Cheers for your help, Paddy.

I've been trying down the route of getting shorts out there, if only to get my name out there and get a few credits.

Logically I'm thinking I should put getting features out there on the back burner and focus on the shorts, but budgeting a feature was just something playing on my mind (and the fear of being ripped off, of course).

Thanks again bud.

6 years, 8 months ago - John Lubran

This demonstrates one of several facets that makes Shooting People such a worthwhile entity. Thank you James for asking the question and Paddy for such a generous response.

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Hi John, thanks for the kind words, but I don't know how much thanks needs to come my way, I'm just an ignorant trying to get educated, Paddy's the one who did all the work here.

Thank you again, Paddy :)

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

No worries - people have been so generous with me in the past in this and other areas of various industries that it is my pleasure to offer something that somebody else may find helpful. The more we share, the more we demystify, the better for us all in the future.

And, of course, people may disagree with me, and that's great too, I always love seeing new approaches and ideas and challenging my own world view :)

So yes, thanks to James for asking, and John for the kind thoughts :)

6 years, 8 months ago - Marlom Tander

You can get a long way down the road by simply working up a spreadsheet.

A big sheet but on a 1M movie your biggest production expenses will be PEOPLE - their pay, and their bed/board and transport. DO NOT STINT on bed and board - people can crash in a cottage for a few days living on chips and tea, but they'll be throwing lights at each other after a couple of weeks if they don't have a decent bed and scran to look forward to each night. (So there's 100-150 per person per day before wages, unless they all live local).

So, work out a shooting schedule by breaking the script down to locations, and roughly how long each scene will take to shoot. Scene by scene you'll know the people you need and can ball park locations, props, costumes. Hire shops will give you a rough equipment package price.

IF you then think you can do it for your budget, then pay a professional to do it properly, and come up with a bigger number because of all the stuff they know about.

If you think 500K, then it might be doable at 1M. But if you think 1M, your professional will be going higher, and if you know you can't find 1.5M, save your pro fee until you have found a way to lower the cost by rejigging the script or scale.

Also, cost of sale. How do you plan to find buyers for your movie. Even if it's just "attend key film markets over a year", there's 5 figures in flights and hotels etc alone.

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Cheers Marlom, much appreciated.

What is the rule with filming-screen time? I remember reading something that was along the lines of a day's filming gives you three minutes of actual screen time or something along those lines? Or I suppose it varies from shoot-to-shoot?

The script I'm considering doing myself (as it were) only has 8 characters, it's got 7 places that need to be filmed (its all set in one house) and there's absolutely no extravagant shots or effects or anything that like.

If anyone here actually wants to see a copy of the script I have no problem sending it out. It's just a very simple (to my naive mind) script to shoot and I thought it would be easier to get that funded/produced than something more elaborate.

Thanks again,
James

6 years, 8 months ago - Marlom Tander

Shooting time is hard to judge, but if you assume a 6 week shoot you should be over estimating. If you are sure it's easy, work with 4 weeks. Less than 4 MIGHT be doable but it's not good to assume so at thjis stage.

Location - might be a house, but better to assume set builds, again, because over estimating is exactly what you want to do at this stage. OTOH renting a big country property might allow a lot of people to live on the location in rooms not used to shoot. This place is a grand a day, but if 10 people sleep there, it is in effect free due to hotel and taxi savings.

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Renting the big place for the shoot and having people stay there was what I was thinking, but with trying to stagger (not the right term) people's shooting days so that everyone wasn't spending all day everyday with each other because even with the nicest of people that will cause bust-ups.

Two of the guys actually filmed their own short film in a house that is exactly like I had in mind when I was writing it, only they were a bit cheeky and just said they were writing there, not actually filming, so that might be a problem (though I imagine for the right price the owner would be agreeable).

Thank you again to everyone who has replied, I really wasn't too sure if anybody was going to bother, or if I'd get laughed out of here. Thank you all.
James

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

"rule" for pages per day depends hugely on the location. On location, doing exteriors, you may get as few as 1.5pp/day and in a completely controlled studio set as many as 10pp. It all depends, bit there's a reason people use studios ;-)

Speaking of which, reasons to use studios (they can be quite cheap away from London) are that you have everything right there on the spot. It may not sound like a big deal, but you have parking, toilets, dining spaces, you control all the light, you control all the sound, you have offices, internet, phone lines, can take deliveries, have makeup rooms and mirrors, have dressing spaces, have areas for props holding or prosthetics manufacture. You can have your DIR and sync and assembly edit all working suitable shifts to see the results in the morning You might even have a basic hotel nearby so save on travel, and a laundry on site to save on perdiems (and which costume will likely use too).

Sleeping in the place you're shooting, even dining or using the loo in the place you're shooting, can be a false economy. People get kettled and need personal space. Especially once they're over 30. Any kitchen noise or toilet flushes will interrupt your filming, just doesn't work.

Shortest we've shot a feature was a fortnight. It was intense, but we had scripted and structured it that way with a bunch of "found footage". 22 days over 4 weeks is pretty common and you can do a lot in it if you focus. Each shooting day carries overhead costs - catering, accommodation, fuel, hires, day rates, location fees, permit fees, whatever. Some costs are weekly for real elapsed time, others accrue pet working day, but in either case, the biggest savings are in getting to the line ASAP.

Oh, and as Marlom notes, don't underestimate the cost of accommodation. It's why so much gets shot within the M25, so you don't need to accommodate as is very rich in crew. Whilst £500k sounds like a lot of money, it quickly isn't when you've got to find £5k a night for hotels! ;-) I'm currently on an event where our hotels themselves run into millions!

6 years, 8 months ago - Marlom Tander

Shooting and living in same place.

I seem to have missed the link off, but to work, you really need a huge house, ideally with wings. As Paddy says, you need the space to control noises off.

Which reminds me - NOISE.

When you go to a potential location, just stand and listen. For a good few minutes. Can you hear traffic? Can you hear planes, trains, machinery or people?

This is very important if you are city person. Your ears are used to tuning out the day to day noise, but your mics will catch it.

6 years, 8 months ago - Yen Rickeard

All good advice above. You can also look through your script and do simple things like counting the number of locations, and working out whether you can cut the actual movement of people by using one location for two. (ie move 50 yds and point the cameras in another direction can miraculously move your script to a lake or park or housing estate) Every time you see EXT NIGHT in your script you risk a whole load of extra cost. Add rain, add another tranche.
Studios give you everything you need, but they do cost. So does location of course, but there are lots of places that cost very little, you have the sky for light and reflector boards to assist, but also weather to contend with. Don't rule out location, it has been extremely cost effective for me.
As soon as you turn your brain from writer to camera, you will see the script in a whole new light.
So back to your question, cost depends a lot everything set out by others above, but also on your script, and how production friendly it is.

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Yen, I totally agree that you do need some locations, even if only as establisher and not to get claustrophobic! You need a balance. Or at least you can choose a balance. Whilst studios are/can be expensive (well the studio itself may or may not be, but the set build will be real money), they can pay for themselves just in the extra quality shooting hours you can get in a day. It's great to do a full day's shoot and not have to pack down, just leave everything in place ready to pick up in the morning - it can save a full 2h a day quite easily...or get you those 2 extra hours on camera ;-) Then adding in the convenience and not having to travel to base for lunch etc...

I'm just urging people to at least cost it out - if it doesn't work for them, no harm in checking, but it can make substantial savings if the script fits as you wisely say :)

6 years, 8 months ago - Glyn Carter

Marcus Markou wrote and produced "Papadopulous and Sons", a family drama shot in London, for around £1m. Being a uniquely generous guy, he has made his budget public, and Stephen Follows has summarised it in his blog: https://stephenfollows.com/full-costs-and-income-of-1m-independent-feature-film/

I think the detailed budget is available somewhere online, but you'd have to search for it (or contact Marcus).

There is another approach, which is to go guerrila. I can't recommend Chris Jones's Guerrila Filmmakers Masterclass highly enough - he's promoting it in this bulletin, and the earlybird cost is just crazy value. It's an intensive crash course on producing on a budget. And buy his book.

There are downloadable budget templates on the internet, not just useful for budgeting, but serving as a checklist of things that need managing (it's a long checklist, even for a short film). (I think Chris has a budget template available as part of the course - check, maybe. If so it's worth the fee for this alone.) (No, he doesn't pay me.)

Since you clearly aspire to be more than a writer trying to sell a script, the other "must-do" is to make a short film. Write something under ten minutes based on your feature, as proof-of-concept. (You could do 3-5 minutes, but it's a useful exercise to force yourself to film over two days). Or put out a call on the SP Screenwriters Bulletin. Cast and crew it via SP for expenses-only, and/or ask around if you know actors and crew. You'll get beginners shooting on DSLR, wanting a credit - they might be inexperienced, but that doesn't mean they're not talented and energetic. Do it for as little as possible, but try to think of everything (like insurance, music, sound edit & grading, and festival fees).

I've made eight shorts. Six cost less than £1000. And two of those have won awards. Many filmmakers can tell the same story. Anyway, the objective isn't to win awards, it's to learn the process, and it's way cheaper, quicker, and more satisfying than film school (apart from the parties).

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Thanks for that link, Glyn.
I've spent the last few hours trying to pick the best two or three scenes from the script to boil down into a 5 min short.

I do have several scripts that I'd be happy to sell and have nothing else to do with, it's just this one in particular has dug in under my skin and combined with the director who wanted 20k from me, I thought I'd better ask people in the know.

Thanks everyone again.

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Long and short of it - if that director can attract at least 10x their fee in investment, they're maybe worth it, but if they can't, what's their point? ;-)

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Good point. The director has won awards for their drama, but when I met up with Director, it was clear that there was a misunderstanding in a lot of the jokes. I think for drama they would have been the right person, but not for comedy, and I also don't believe they would have attracted money by their name alone.

6 years, 8 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

If their awards were for dramatic FEATURE films then it comes down to the actual awards they received and box office figures - if they won a BAFTA for a succesful (profit-making) feature film then they have some sway. If they won the jury prize at the Llandeilo Festival of Film held in a church hall one evening for a short film then the award means much, much less...

Feature film world is showbusiness, and that's 1/3 "show" and 2/3 "business" - you have to be able to show your value one way or another (financially) ;-)

6 years, 8 months ago - Mark Owen

Hi James.

I haven't read all of these replies, but just to add that I believe putting featuress on the backburner is sensible.
Experience with shorts produtions will count for a lot. Do a lot until you feel comfortable making the transition.

Best,
Mark

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Hi Mark,
Thanks for adding to the thread.

I don't particularly want to produce the feature myself, and would have been more than happy to hand everything over, I just am at a point where I want to get the film made and am smart enough to realise I need a lot of help with the technical side of things (Mega Thanks to Huck on that front!).

I have recently had a short script produced by Upwall Pictures (I've posted it in the Discuss forum) and they will probably be producing another two soon.

6 years, 8 months ago - Mark Owen

Excellent James. Well very best of luck with it all, I hope it will all be great! :)

6 years, 8 months ago - James McCann

Thank you Mark, and thanks again to everyone who has so far contributed to this thread, very much appreciated.

6 years, 7 months ago - Vinca .

Hi James,

It’s not a directors job to see what it will cost to make something. An Assistant Director is more likely to have a better grasp on things as they would do the shooting plan /schedules/breakdowns and work with the Line Producer/Production. Essentially the money side is the job of a producer, it’s not the job of the screenwriter or the director.

Key factors of costing a script are varied. How big is the cast? Are they paid or unpaid? Where are your locations? How many are there? Are they far apart? Interior/Exterior, moving car etc.., How complex is the lighting design? Are there a lot of sets for production design. How many camera’s will be used? What camera and lenses will be used?
Can you work with a reduced crew or do you need a bigger crew,? Can crew double up (hair and make-up, camera/DOP for example) and then all of the costs associated with post.

I’m working on my feature length directorial debut so what you’re talking about I’ve just done this. I wrote the script knowing I wanted to make a small budget film. I raised 100% of the budget through private investors, so pretty clear on how to cost a script as I had to explain many line budget breakdowns!

I would strongly advise not to pay someone to read your script. Paying someone £20 to read your script and to do a breakdown is insane. Find someone willing to collaborate to produce your script.

Lastly a scriptwriter sells their script to the company that makes the film. You might get a mix of rights and a fee. You might be kept on as a writer, it depends on the deal brokered. What you will not be required to do is raise money for the script you wrote unless you intend to produce a film yourself.

If you’d like me to go through the basics with you over the phone send me a message, it’s absolutely no problem.