Every film has its own story of how it came together. Not every movie starts with a producer and who likes a script. Sometimes, a director will find a script and will have to find a producer for the film. Selecting a producer is difficult because it is tough to determine what was their impact on the film. The creative vision is the director, music is the composer, editor is the timing and pace, cinematographer is the visual look of the film. So how do you know what the producer did? First, there is usually more than one producer on a film. Each producer got that credit for some reason, even if he/she was only the star's hairstylist. So you need to know what the producer's role on the film was. You may want to ask the other producers on the film as a reference. You should also talk to the UPM to see how well the producer organized the film through the shooting schedule and film budget. Look at the level of actors in the film. If the film starred Brad Pitt, the producer either has a strong relationship with Pitt or with his agent. Most importantly, you need to see if the producer gets along with people and can accomplish his tasks of delivering the film to the distributor.
Being a producer is like being a project manager. They need to get the best out of the team in order to deliver the best possible product.
Check QuickFilmBudget.com for a sample film budget.
Showing posts with label director. Show all posts
Showing posts with label director. Show all posts
Friday, February 5, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Easy Film Production Cost Saving Tips p.1
The decision to shoot with a second unit requires taking many aspects into consideration. The impact of shooting with a second unit can have tremendous cost saving or cost creating effects on your film budget.
When deciding to shoot with a second unit, you need to consider whether a second unit would speed-up your shooting schedule or bring it to a grinding halt. A second unit has the ability to cover multiple shots simultaneously. Consequently, the amount of time it takes to film a shot could be reduced. This could result in weeks being shaved off your shoot schedule. However, you must realize that if the crew is not experienced enough, a second unit will get in the way of the first and slow down production. Orchestrating a second camera requires experience and planning to capture what the film shoot needs and avoid "crossing cameras". "Crossing cameras" is a term that means that a camera is in the shooting sight or picture frame of another camera.
If a DP is not good at orchestrating a two camera shoot, then production could grind to a halt and negate any time savings. In theory, shooting with two cameras should have no effect on the amount of film used since the second camera would have been used to shoot the scene even if there was only one camera. There is also a cost increase to your camera package that needs to be taken into account.
One more benefit to a second camera unit is that towards the end of production, if the scene does not require two cameras, the second camera unit can work on insert shots and pick-up shots.
This decision should involve the input of the producer, director, DP, UPM and 1st AD. The bigger the movie budget, the more probable that it would benefit from multiple camera units.
When deciding to shoot with a second unit, you need to consider whether a second unit would speed-up your shooting schedule or bring it to a grinding halt. A second unit has the ability to cover multiple shots simultaneously. Consequently, the amount of time it takes to film a shot could be reduced. This could result in weeks being shaved off your shoot schedule. However, you must realize that if the crew is not experienced enough, a second unit will get in the way of the first and slow down production. Orchestrating a second camera requires experience and planning to capture what the film shoot needs and avoid "crossing cameras". "Crossing cameras" is a term that means that a camera is in the shooting sight or picture frame of another camera.
If a DP is not good at orchestrating a two camera shoot, then production could grind to a halt and negate any time savings. In theory, shooting with two cameras should have no effect on the amount of film used since the second camera would have been used to shoot the scene even if there was only one camera. There is also a cost increase to your camera package that needs to be taken into account.
One more benefit to a second camera unit is that towards the end of production, if the scene does not require two cameras, the second camera unit can work on insert shots and pick-up shots.
This decision should involve the input of the producer, director, DP, UPM and 1st AD. The bigger the movie budget, the more probable that it would benefit from multiple camera units.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Easy Pre-Production Cost Saving Tips p.1
Storyboards are an extremely helpful tool to everyone on the film set during production. To enter production without storyboards is to your entire film budget at risk! An architect wouldn't expect builders to build a building without blueprints and a military general wouldn't start a war without mapping out a plan for the soldiers. Using the same logic, directors should not enter into production without fully storyboarding out the entire script. Of course, every plan is subject to change. But at least, you should start out with a thought out plan.
My first tip for saving money during pre-production is to storyboard the entire shooting script. This will save lots of money during production and help keep your production within your film budget because the crew can look at them to be on the same page. There is less of a chance of lights being placed wrong or production design going wrong if the crew can see the director's creative vision. Don't worry so much about making each cell a beautiful masterpiece. First and foremost, make sure that it's easy to understand and looks like how you want to shoot each shot (angle, POV, camera direction, framing, etc).
Studio films must abide by the guilds which include storyboard artists. These storyboard artists frequently consult with the director to understand and most accurately draw his/her vision. On independent films, the director will usually hand draw the first set of storyboards to capture all of the above mentioned purposes (angle, POV, etc.). If the director wants a professional version or maybe the crew can't easily understand the storyboards, then you can hire a storyboard artist. Like I said above, guilded storyboard artists can cost thousands of dollars. However, you can find much less expensive artists, like recent art school grads will do them for significantly less. (This is pretty common since art school students usually do this work on the side to pay the bills). Another even less expensive option that was recently introduced to the industry is storyboard software, like Storyboard which costs a couple hundred dollars usually.
To see how much money to allocate in your film budget to storyboarding, check out www.quickfilmbudget.com
My first tip for saving money during pre-production is to storyboard the entire shooting script. This will save lots of money during production and help keep your production within your film budget because the crew can look at them to be on the same page. There is less of a chance of lights being placed wrong or production design going wrong if the crew can see the director's creative vision. Don't worry so much about making each cell a beautiful masterpiece. First and foremost, make sure that it's easy to understand and looks like how you want to shoot each shot (angle, POV, camera direction, framing, etc).
Studio films must abide by the guilds which include storyboard artists. These storyboard artists frequently consult with the director to understand and most accurately draw his/her vision. On independent films, the director will usually hand draw the first set of storyboards to capture all of the above mentioned purposes (angle, POV, etc.). If the director wants a professional version or maybe the crew can't easily understand the storyboards, then you can hire a storyboard artist. Like I said above, guilded storyboard artists can cost thousands of dollars. However, you can find much less expensive artists, like recent art school grads will do them for significantly less. (This is pretty common since art school students usually do this work on the side to pay the bills). Another even less expensive option that was recently introduced to the industry is storyboard software, like Storyboard which costs a couple hundred dollars usually.
To see how much money to allocate in your film budget to storyboarding, check out www.quickfilmbudget.com
Monday, December 7, 2009
Domestic and Foreign Sales Teams
We all wish film financing was like having a wealthy uncle who could write a check so we could make a movie for however much we want. In reality, filmmaking is based on a reasonable business model where the goal is to make a profit. As everyone know, profit is defined as revenue minus expenses. After you have assembled your film package, foreign sales agents will evaluate it off of the three most important elements: 1) What is the genre? 2) Who is the director? 3) Who are the actors? Based on these answers, the sales agent will estimate the value of the revenue on the film. Unfortunately, most filmmakers never learn this simple concept which is used to value every film sold before completion. I used to work for a film finance company and I was amazed that they never read the script!
Now that you have a professional estimate of your film's sales revenue, you know that your film must cost less than that to make a profit. It is at this point, that you create your film budget by taking the total desired budget amount and back into each of the accounts.
If you would have first estimated your budget based on the script without any consideration to sales, your rich uncle could stand to lose a lot of $$$.
Now that you have a professional estimate of your film's sales revenue, you know that your film must cost less than that to make a profit. It is at this point, that you create your film budget by taking the total desired budget amount and back into each of the accounts.
If you would have first estimated your budget based on the script without any consideration to sales, your rich uncle could stand to lose a lot of $$$.
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