I’m going to skip through the obvious ones: cars flying into helicopters, your protagonist jumping out of a skyscraper window, shutting down Times Square, and insuring Tom Cruise. Instead, let’s take a look at some of the not-so-obvious elements that quickly add up in costs. I realized, budgeting these things over and over again, that while these have become obvious to a producer, they might not be so obvious to a writer/director.
Here are the top elements that consistently come up when discussing how we’re going to trim down the script to fit the budget (or rather, the financing.) If you’re writing with a low budget in mind, then it’s worth considering these carefully from the start:
1) Background Actors / Extras
You’d be surprised how quickly background mandays add up (a manday is basically manpower x days, so 2 extras for 3 days = 6 mandays.) To illustrate, if you have 3 party scenes that take place over 5 shooting days, with about 40 people at each party, you’re already at 200 background mandays! And we haven’t even started counting the miscellaneous scenes here and there that have 3-5 background actors each.
Background Actors are expensive on a number of fronts. First of all, if they’re paid Background Actors, then you have to pay them at least minimum wage. If you’re employing 200 background mandays for 8 hours per day at $10.50/hour (current CA Min. Wage), then you’re already at $16,800. And that’s assuming you don’t incur any overtime or meal penalties, and it’s not even including the fringes yet. It’s not out of the norm to spend $18,000 – $30,000 on extras on a low budget film.
Assuming you get all 200 background mandays for free, you still have to consider the crafty they consume on set (which you can budget at $3-$5/head); the lunch you’ll have to provide (around $7-$16/head); the parking you have to account for (your parking might be free, or you might be at a location which will charge you $5-$12/car); and finally your location site fees might go up as well just because you’re suddenly bringing a lot more people to the location, which will cause more wear and tear.
Questions to consider when trying to lower the cost:
- Does the script have any parties, bars, or events that require a large amount of background actors?
- Will your scenes with lots of background require a lot of shooting days to cover?
- If you had to cut a considerable amount of your background, could you cheat the scenes using less background and still have a powerful scene?
2) Day Players
Like extras, Day Players tend to add up very quickly as well. Since you’re likely going to be a SAG-AFTRA signatory, that means you’re looking at a minimums of $125, $335 or $630 per performer per day, for an 8-hour day. Again, this doesn’t even include +10%, which is customary to pay when paying SAG Scale, the fringes, and any overtime and meal penalties you may accrue.
It’s very easy to underestimate how many day players you’re writing into the script. That’s why films with only 3-4 actors are so easy to shoot at a low budget. There are no Day Players!
Questions to consider when trying to lower the cost:
- First of all, how many speaking roles does your script have? If it’s more than 30-35, that’s a lot.
- How many of your speaking roles only have one or two lines?
- Can some of your Day Players be combined or eliminated altogether without jeopardizing the scene?
3) Locations
Locations are an interesting one. All else being equal, 10 locations at 1 day per location, shouldn’t cost you any more money than 1 location at 10 days. So more locations doesn’t (directly) cost you more money. More locations costs you more time. Every load in, load out, or company move, costs you time. Load ins and load outs can cost you anywhere between 1-3 hours. Same for company moves.
If you’re at one location over the course of a few days, you can do a walk-away (which means you can leave your equipment standing on location, and avoid having to load out, and load back in the next day). Let’s assume that saves you an average of 2 hours each day. That means that over the course of 6 days, you’ll save 12 hours. That’s equivalent to an entire day of shooting. In this scenario, 6 days at one location gives you the same amount of shooting time as 7 days at different locations. That means you saved on one day of shooting, and shooting days are the most expensive element in production.
En fin, more locations doesn’t directly cost you more money. More locations directly costs you more time, which indirectly costs you a LOT more money.
Questions to consider when trying to lower the cost:
- How many shooting locations do you have in your script?
- Are there any locations in which only one scene takes place? Are they necessary?
- Are there any locations that can be combined into one location?
4) Animals
Animals are expensive. Both in time and money. Time because animals rarely do exactly what you want them to do on the first take. It takes time to get the animals on set, it takes time to get them to perform what you want, and it takes time to get them off set. Animals cost money, because if it’s a trained animal, you’ll have to pay for the Animal Trainer/Wrangler; you’ll have to pay for the Animal Rental itself; and finally you’ll have to pay for Transportation and/or Food Costs. And these are pretty hefty costs. It’s not unheard of to spend $2,500 on one animal for one day of filming.
Additionally, if you’d like to have the “No Animals Were Harmed” logo in your film, then you’ll have to pay the American Humane Association $500/day for a Site Rep to monitor your shooting activity.
Questions to consider when trying to lower the cost:
- Do you have any animals in the script? Can they be cut without jeopardizing the scene?
- Do the animals need to be trained? If so, training days will be added, which will bring up the cost.
5) Minors
Minors are expensive for similar reasons that animals are expensive. They cost time and money. Sometimes it costs more time, because depending on the age, minors might not be as quick to perform as adults. But the bigger cost in time is that you’re limited in the time that minors are allowed to work. Depending on the age, the time they are allowed to work is more or less limited. This means that if, for example, you have 12 hours of work that needs to be performed by a minor, you won’t be able to shoot that all in one day. You’ll have to break it up into 2 or 3 days of filming, which means you might have to add a day of shooting, which you otherwise might not have needed.
Obviously a wise 1st AD will schedule the day so that you are using the most out of the time with the minor, and any time before or after is being spent efficiently shooting other coverage. But in some cases, you have no alternative but to just add a shoot day to complete the work.
Minors also cost money because in some states, like California, you’ll have to hire a Studio Teacher for every day that a minor is on set, which means additional costs in wages, crafty and catering.
Questions to consider when trying to lower the cost:
- Do you have any minors, explicitly or implied, in the script?
- Can those minors be performed by someone 18+ playing younger?
- Can any of the minors be cut, without jeopardizing the scene?
6) Closing Down Roads / Driving Sequences
You’re probably not considering closing down Times Square or doing a high speed chase on the 101. But there might be some other scenes which you might not realize would either require closing down the road, or at a minimum require police assistance, which is expensive.
Any time an actor is driving, and you’d like to cover the scene from the front or side of the vehicle, you’ll likely need a Camera Car with a Process Trailer. You won’t necessarily need to shut down the road for this, but this will require that you have a number of police officers on motorcycles assist you. This entire orchestration could easily cost $10,000, when you add up the costs of the Camera Car and Process Trailer Rental, the Camera Car Driver, the Police Officers, the Police Motorcycle Fees and Permitting Fees.
Another thing to consider is that if you’re having your actors cross an active street, or if you’re having your cast or crew drive on a street in any way other than ‘with the flow of traffic’, you’ll have to either shut down the street or have police officers control the traffic for you. Again, the Police Fees add up very quickly, so be very considerate of any time you’ll need to control or shut down traffic in order to be able to safely shoot the scene.
Questions to consider when trying to lower the cost:
- Are the characters ever driving a vehicle? If so, how do you plan on covering the driving sequence?
- Can the scene in a moving vehicle be shot while the vehicle is parked or in another location altogether?
- Are the characters ever crossing a street, or performing a scene that would be dangerous without complete control of the traffic around them?
7) Music
People would be surprised quickly music costs add up. Music Rights are always the most expensive. Whenever we hear a piece of music, whether it’s non-diagetic music over the main titles, diagetic music coming out of a radio, or being hummed by a performer, that piece of music needs to be cleared. That often means expenses to hire a Music Supervisor (or an attorney) and of course the expenses for the Music Rights itself.
The best guard against this is to try as much as possible to have a composer create all the music in your film, and avoid music rights as much as you can.
Questions to consider when trying to lower the cost:
- Are there any known songs that are integral to the scene or script?
- Do the characters ever listen to music on camera?
- Can any music described in the script be originals created by a composer?
