Upcoming Film Festival Sponsorships

Quick Film Budget is proud to sponsor the following upcoming Film Festivals:

GI Film Festival
BVEW's F*ck Valentine's Day Competition
Green Bay Film Festival
UK Film Festival Guild

Thanks to everybody who attended our seminars in Los Angeles. We always enjoy demonstrating the Quick Film Budget technology as well as answering questions. More than anything we appreciate the opportunity to meet our customers and hear about their projects and how Quick Film Budget helps them.

For more info go to www.QuickFilmBudget.com

Check QuickFilmBudget.com for a sample film budget.

Easy Film Production Cost Saving Tips p.3

Producing films forces you to make decisions everyday during production with the ultimate goal of making the best film possible. The reason I added the word "possible" is because you are limited by your film budget. One element of filmmaking that filmmakers have little control over is the weather. I once produced a movie in Vancouver where the story was set in Los Angeles. We had made the decision to shoot in Vancouver for financial and creative reasons. During our first location scout it rained all week. As most people know, Los Angeles has a reputation for rarely having rain. But the director and I looked at each other and thought "free special effects". By this, we meant that studio films often have to designate large fees in their movie budgets to special effects companies and visual special effect companies in post to add rain to the film. In Vancouver, we would get it for free! We thought of all the great cop thrillers that had so much rain throughout the story that it became a theme: "Seven", "Road to Pardition", etc.

As luck would have it, it never rained a single shooting day in Vancouver (only on non-shooting days)!

For a sample film budget, check out www.QuickFilmBudget.com

Easy Film Production Cost Saving Tips p.2

On a low budget film, product placement can save costs in craft services, props and set design. In order to get these products, it usually only requires a friendly call to a product placement company. I once received a shipment of 1000 cans of pepsi for free. Ducati once allowed my film to select any motorcycle to use for the production for free as long as the mileage stayed below a certain level. Even Hustler sent a box full of magazines because the scene read "Guys reading Hustler magazines." All of these items save money in your film budget and allow you to spend your movie budget on other expenses. On bigger budgeted studio films, these companies will not only donate these items but will also pay to have them in your film or run an ad campaign promoting your film and their product (think BMW and James Bond)!

For a sample film budget check out www.QuickFilmBudget.com !

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.

Music and Composers

One of the last touches to your film is the music and film score. You must understand both the long and short term ramifications of how you approach this decision. Sales agents will often tell you to score the film with the most popular songs to make the film sound as similar to a studio and the most commercial possible. However, your film budget will probably not be large enough to buy the rights to the songs so you are putting them in your film with the hope that whoever buys your film will pay for the song rights. This is often a major mistake by filmmakers because buyers will often deduct such a cost from your purchase price. The even worse outcome is that no big studio wants to buy the film and the offers for video assume you own the music rights and then you have to rescore the film with songs your movie budget can afford and hope that the distributors / buyers still want to buy your movie.

My advice is to hire a music composer within your movie budget who can create music that sounds creatively right for your film. It's also a good idea to create a package deal with a music composer that includes all the music and songs in the film. The composer best understands how much everything will cost and will probably be able to get the best deals due to his/her relationships in the music industry. Also, their creative and financial interests are alligned with yours assuming that they care about their career.

You can get a sample film budget at www.quickfilmbudget.com