PRE-PRODUCTION; BUDGETING

As we are getting further into our pre-production, as the producer I need to start thinking about the budget for our film. The reason we have been holding back is because we aren't too sure about where the cast are going to be coming from, as we have started looking at that we know that our cast is most likely going to be coming from around the London area, so we can start to look at the budget now.

Example Budget 

Before I look into our own, I wanted to research what budget is, what the people in films who work out the budget think about and what they have to consider, as well as any problems they come across, so that I can better prepare myself.

-Know the story and script before considering the budget
-Know how much things cost so that you can apply a balance to each department, anything you haven't had before in a shot make sure to research and now how much they cost
-Make phone calls! When you know what you want call the people who can get it done, this applies to locations as well as other things
-Balance the money! If you know one department needs more money you have to discover what department loses the money, it's all about making it work across ALL departments with the set budget
-Always falls on the producers head
-Don't forget to budget POST PRODUCTION; things like sound/colour costs money
-Don't forget food for the cast and crew
-Remember there is no department better than the other, you have to make sure that if you take more money from one department for another that it doesn't compromise that department
-Serve the story well with the budget

The things that i know I need to include in my budget is
-Travel/Accommodation
-Food
-Location Allowance
-Props
-Possible crew costs (if we need to hire a DOP etc)

One thing I am not entirely sure about is how I am going to format our budget - was thinking about using microsoft excel because the budget is going to be something that changes all the time, it will need to be updates as much as possible so I would like to use a programme I am familiar with as well is something that is easy to access on multiple devices (eg laptop and phones).

I have started a preliminary budget by looking at travel, at the moment we are looking at having our main characters to be in for shooting on the following days -
- Marlo x3 days
- Nova x2 days
- Julie x1 day
- Mr Shipman x1 day
On the assume that our actors will be coming from the London area (as the beginnings of castings have taken place and that seems to be where they are located), I have found some example train ticket prices and started the budget with this.

Start of our Preliminary Budget