Originally posted by Quiver:

Diving the film in scnes is a pretty good idea.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It doesn't matter if you are doing a short or a feature, you still might want to estimate how much would it cost approximately... Here's an example:

1. Scene is about 1 minute long interior shot and there is two actors. Dialogue is something like this:

MATT
Hi, how are you doing?

CHRIS
Not bad, not bad at all. I just won the lottery and I'm gonna head of to some pasific island with my girlfriend and have sex couple of months in a row. How does that sound to you, friend.

MATT
You asshole. You'r too lucky.

Matt takes a gun from his pocket and shoots Chris in cold blood.

MATT
there...

Matt searches the body for the lottery ticket and founds it. The ticket is just too bloody to see the numbers.

MATT
Oh shit! What a stupid asshole am I!

Then Matt shoots himself.

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Ok. Here's the scene. So you need a place to shoot it. Let's say that your friend has a good place. You can use it for free. You also need clothes. Normal clothes from your wardrobe will do. You need a gun, blood, lottery ticket. You have to buy a toy gun 10 USD. Some ingredients to make your own blood mixture, 5 USD. You need to light the scene. You can do it yourself, but you need 3 lamps. Rental price is 10 USD for each. Camera, you have. You'r gonna film both guys during the dialogue only ones because your actors are so good. So you'll need about 3 minutes of film (I'm guessing) cost of super 8mm would be about 14USD with developement. At this point your cost are 54 USD. The shoot is done in 3 hours including the lighting. You estimate that with transportation and everything you'll need 2 days to shoot everything. You then have to pay your crew for 2 days of work. You get it?

...just do this with all the scenes and you'll end up having an estimate how much will it all cost. But remember that if you are doing a feature or a short that is very difficult to shoot you really need a producer to calculate the costs. Unless you are one yourself. I'm not, but I can still figure out more or less how much a easy short would cost. It will probably take one day or so to do this...