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daily filmmaking tips

When making a movie it is important for all of the various departments to have all of the right tools to get the job done. To make this happen you need to have a detailed line by line budget divided by department. This is for all sized films, whether you have a 5 thousand dollar budget for a short film, or ten million dollars for a feature.

If your hair department needs chi flat irons, a hair iron, and hair shears, then you have to know how much money you can give the department to buy these (if you know early enough, buying products online usually saves you money) and how it effects how much money is left for other departments. If one department goes over budget, than you have to find the money somewhere, from another department. (and trust me, you’ll want to get that chi flat iron for the hair department)

Posted on November 5th, 2010 by admin | Leave a Comment
Filed Under Filmmaking Resources

So, you have an awesome script, talked to a few actors who are interested in bringing it to life, and you are ready to make your feature film directing debut? You’ll need money… a lot of money.

One thing that is important right off the bat, is to check your personal finances. Will you be able to support yourself for weeks or months while you’ll be making no money? Will you have to borrow money, live off your partner, or take out personal loans just to survive? Not many people know this, but raising funds and trying to get the budget for a feature film can be a full time job. You’ll have to go on meeting after meeting, put together a mega information packet on the project, a full proposal, a budget, and a timeline of how investors can expect to make back their money. This is no easy task. Which is why my first question is; are you able to work a full time job without getting paid?

Okay, so you cut down your monthly expenses and you’ll be working part time to make ends meet, or you’ve saved for 6 months out of the year and you’ve saved enough for the next six months, giving you plenty of time to look for big bunks to make your film. Good, that was the first thing to think about. Next, you’ll start thinking about how much you need. What is your film’s actual estimated budget?

Posted on August 2nd, 2010 by ThePit | Leave a Comment
Filed Under Filmmaking Resources

My Hollywood Dream, Entertainment News

Welcome to the weekly recap for the past week (8/24 through 8/31). Here is a list (by section) of some of the news that we covered, just incase you missed something.

Film News

TV News

Book News

Filmmaking Resources

Trailers (Movies, Video Games)

Reviews

Best Thing Ever

Film & Video Budgets by Deke Simon (with Michael Wiese) is an excellent book for anyone who is looking to budget an independent film. I bought and read it last year (the 4th edition of the book), and it was not only informative and easy to use, but I was able to use its guidelines and templates to complete a feature film budget for a script that I have been raising funds for. Read on for more details about the book.

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