BudgetingBack
Film budgeting is the skill of creating a film budget, movie budget, or tv budget for entertainment content production. Film budgeting is the process of generating these key financial documents which enable and guide the financial and logistical expense of an entertainment, commercial or artistic production.
Film Budgeting and Scheduling
Film budgeting and scheduling is a commonly used phrase to express the expert craft of film budgeting. This is due to the critical importance of the production shooting schedule to the film budgeting process. The two terms are therefore somewhat interchangeable. More on scheduling below.
What is Required for Film Budgeting?
Film budgeting requires knowledge of film, movie and tv series production obtained through producing entertainment content for independent production companies, major studios, networks, cable television, streaming platforms and other distribution networks. An understanding of how a film is prepared, filmed, completed and delivered is a fundamental skillset required for the successful film budgeting of a show.
How Does Film Budgeting Work?
Film budgeting is an intensive process of calculating the costs associated with the above mentioned types of shows. A seasoned line producer uses all of their understanding of production gained over many years. The producer creates the film budget by carefully crafting a document which contains all of the amounts of funds required to ultimately deliver the picture to a distributor. It is therefore critical that they know what they are doing, how to do it, how to complete it, and how to deliver it – the production – to a distributor.
The Overall Result of Film Budgeting
All of the above factors are taken into consideration in the film budgeting process. Each item is determined as necessary or not, its amount of time needed, and its cost calculated and detailed. Once completed the sum of these calculations and considerations provide the principles involved in the production the overall cost, or the movie budget, or tv budget.