Anything Goes : Budgeting by David Anthony

Hi David, I founded http://FilmBudget.com in 1997 to assist fellow filmmakers in the creation of a finance and camera ready film budget and schedule package. This is critical for investors, distributors, foreign sales and production. In addition to producing 'Reign Over Me' (Columbia Pictures) & 'The Upside of Anger' (New Line Cinema) my credits can be found here: http://www.filmbudget.com/credits.shtml or via http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0082784 in addition to a European drama I produced in 2012 and a British film this summer. I can be contacted best via http://www.filmbudget.com/contact.shtml or info@filmbudget.com and am happy to offer Stage 32 members a 25% discount on all services. All the best in production and life, Jack Jack Binder Producer

Your services sound excellent, but I barely have any money to my name. What avenues are available to me?

Hi Anna! Recently confronted with the task of estimating the budget necessary to produce one of my own screenplays, I started by browsing the websites of WGA and SAG. There you can learn (for absolutely free!) the guild minimums for writers, actors, and other performers at several budget scales. For the rest, two sites I found helpful are these: Technically about filming documentaries, and author says up front the figures are now outdated, but 150-200% of the listed figures should be a valid estimate for any filmmaking-- http://www.tonylevelle.com/documents/28.html A website devoted to television crew wage rates, keep in mind that TV isn't nearly as dicey as movies, so if you're budgeting for a movie rates can probably be somewhat lower-- http://www.callingallcrew.com/crew-rates/

I use Movie Magic Budgeting 7. If you can't afford the software you can always pay someone to do a budget for you.