Budgeting

I suppose I should first tell you what in a generalized sense a budget is and why most people haven't got a clue how to establish or read one - let alone commit to abiding by one. Yes, that's right I used the word commit, because that's what a budget is, it's a commitment! When you decide to research a budget you are about to do one of two things, either you are determining the fixed value of a quantified whole, by listing the component parts of that whole then assessing a value for each individual component and then totaling the list and accepting that the total is the true value of the whole. Or, you are stating a total amount of funds available for a given period of time then listing the individual debits (otherwise called commitments) already assumed to be necessarily required during that time frame in question and then determining if the amount of funds available will yield a deficit or a surplus of funds.

This last description should sound quite familiar to you because it is what each of you ought to be utilizing each month to determine if you have enough money to live on for the next thirty days! By the way that part about people not having a clue how to establish or read a budget, well that's true. The overwhelming majority of Americans have no budget for their own monthly expenses or income - they just make it and spend it, make it and spend it, then assume (or pray) it'll all come out OK! So it's no wonder that ninety-five percent of all Americans are in debt when they die!

Now that's truly something to ponder. Only five percent of Americans die in the black, meaning with a surplus of cash! Now let me describe the condition you are in as a film-maker when you realize the budget you believed to be an accurate reflection of your shooting script, is in fact no such thing at all. The film budget you thought would protect you, is an extravagant collection of numbers with little relation to your script or your vision. Does the budget represent by way of camera movements, the words on the page, the actors dialogue or the schedule? It's a hard fact to bear if it has no relation to your project at all! The filmmaker's budget should provide clarity and insight, allowing for a visionary experience of a highly creative enterprise.

Film budgeting calls for nuanced interpretations, proactive by nature and design, subtle delineations and precise spot-on assumptions qualified from experience. These assessments are called assumptions because we are talking about predicting the future where people have a stake with a lot of money invested in you. Are you telling the impartial truth to justify how much they intend to make? Your film budget is, a translation from the screenplay into dollars. When a budget is developed with political impartiality, the true numbers based on integrity, it is a pure reflection of the derived creative work. It should be therefore, a real blueprint of what will be required to manifest the script in film-making business terms. A film budget is an abridgment between the writer's vision and the director's raw, uncut footage.The derivation by series of refined assessments and projections, which when properly accumulated and articulated, allows for every detail of the final script to be executed with the best, uncompromised production value we see on screen.

Budgets are matrixed between numerous categories and sub-categories, all of which must be balanced in ratio within specific categories as well as balanced in ratio to the whole. Every script is unique and therefore so is each film budget, despite having structural similarities to other film budgets they are all unique. Before you can shave it down to a lesser amount or increment a budget you must first apply and derive the true translation in contemporary terms. Developing and building a budget requires a great depth of prior experience in the production of filmed media, but this alone is not enough, it also requires a particular sense about the world, an ability to grasp abstract concepts, not the least of which is to assess how long it will take for a series of event to occur and how much it will cost to go from nothing to something.

In the hands of someone who is fluent in the language of film production, a budget is a topographical map, an engineering blueprint and a clear set of instructions all in one. Unfortunately, many budgets are either developed or more likely later revised by committee, with a political corporate agenda, in other words heavily influenced by non-creative people whose intentions (usually myopic) are highly suspect and whose input can effectively sabotage an otherwise successful production!