Where does the budget go?

I've read that Clerks. cost about 27,000 dollars. Where the fuck does all of that money go?

Okay, I first thought, "Money goes to actors, crew, rights to music and product names, and getting film processed" Where does the rest go? I've seen Clerks, and not counting the copyrighted music, it seems like that movie could have been made for absolutely nothing, since he got his friends to play the roles. Aside from the few things I mentioned, where did it go?

Also, Kevin Smith had six million dollars for Mallrats. How did that cost six million?

The reason I ask is because I was planning on... no, I'm forced to go the low-budget route. Not that I mind. But apparantly, low-budget is something like "under 10,000 dollars". Yeah. Guess I'm gonna go absolutely NO budget. I can't raise double digit thousands.

Anywho, anyone got an answer as to where all the budget money goes?

Edit: On top of that, I read that El Mariachi cost seven thousand to make. That I can understand. Somewhat. But El Mariachi came out looking better than Clerks. More professional-looking, I suppose. And not because it was in color. But Jesus Christ, that move cost 20,000 dollars LESS than Clerks. Even still, where does that 7000 dollars go?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 22, 2004 02:18 AM: Message edited by: FadedNumber ]</font>

clearing copyright can cost an absolute fortune because it involves lawyers and record companies and artistes who want compensation.

apparently most of that $27,000 (about 95%) went on the soundtrack. I read it on the internet so it must be true [img]wink.gif[/img]

crooked features is costing miker and I at least ?6,000 and most of that money is going on the actors in terms of travel expenses, accomodation, costumes and food.

Locations are costing us virtually nothing (about ?500). Props have cost us about ?600. We are still waiting to hear how much public liability insurance will be. We also spent about ?600 on sound equipment.

You can add to that the cost of buying/hiring a camera which for a feature length project will be a fair amount as well. A company in london was renting panasonic dvx100 and canon xl1's for ?80 a day (obviously thats ?80 each). Depending on what your goals are of course you can make do without a "top of the range" camera.

You can make a movie for less obviously by casting only your friends and making sure your script doesn't require anything you can't find, make or provide yourselves. In which case it's who you know not what you know that makes a difference (which is true 99% of the time anyway)

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 22, 2004 05:13 AM: Message edited by: Kiff_Kroker ]</font>

by the time of finishing shooting on my feeature mortus illumina (which is in three weeks hoorah!) i would of spent over ?30'000.

again most of the cost like miker and kiff have gone on logistics for cast and crew.

Insurance is now a flippin joke and is absorbing quite a bit of my final budget shoot.

The most expensive bit of filming on the film is a tracking shot (which you can see if you go to my photos) in a bar. to acheive that shot , taking in the lighting, equimpent, costume, location, crew and cast. etc was ?2500 to get that shot.

and dont be fooled by rodriguez el maricahi, millions were spent on post on that film.

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Originally posted by FadedNumber:
Edit: On top of that, I read that El Mariachi cost seven thousand to make. That I can understand. Somewhat. But El Mariachi came out looking better than Clerks. More professional-looking, I suppose. And not because it was in color. But Jesus Christ, that move cost 20,000 dollars LESS than Clerks. Even still, where does that 7000 dollars go?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's what I know from read various articles/books about both films... El Mariachi was shot on 16mm, then transfered to video for editing... at the end of it Robert Rodriguez had a master copy on video (this is why it was so cheap) - then once the studios liked it, they footed the cost of rediting and transfering it back to film (which I believe cost a fortune).

With Clerks, Kevin Smith did the whole thing on film (black-n-white so its cheaper - well it was back then), edited the film - the final product was on film... then when the studios liked it, they spent a small fortune on the soundtrack rights!
Not sure how much of the $28,000 budget was actually spent on the soundtrack, probably spent on film processing.

If you go digital, the cost overheads for processing footage is so cheap, that you can focus the rest of your (or the funder's) cash into cast/crew/location/etc...

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 22, 2004 07:20 AM: Message edited by: Vertino ]</font>

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Not sure how much of the $28,000 budget was actually spent on the soundtrack

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Apparently the $28,000 all went on the production of the film, Miramax forked out for the soundtrack rights which actually cost more than the film took to make.

First off 28,000USD is nothing. It is a drop in the bucket and if you expect to make a sucessful movie on that amount--II hate to rain on your parade but it probably won't happen.

The other thing is just because someone else did it doesn't even come close to saying that you will. If you give Vermeer a cup of dirt and some water he could paint you a spectacular picture--You give the same tools to someone else and they will give nothing but moist dirt.

Movies like painting if you don't have talent you ain't gonna get it no matter how much you spend.

If those two slightly contradictory statements make sense....

Good Luck

If you've ever been on a set, then you would know that the smallest amount of crew you can get away with is around 7-10 people.

Add in your cast, communication requirements, scheduling, paying something for the location, film costs, developing, transfering...

the point is on a day to day basis your absolute minimum costs will be anywhere from 500 hundred dollars to 2,000 dollars.

Now multiply that by the number of days for the shoot. Now remember, the more you condense the schedule, the more people power and costs you need to meet the grinding schedule.

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First off 28,000USD is nothing. It is a drop in the bucket and if you expect to make a sucessful movie on that amount--I hate to rain on your parade but it probably won't happen.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And now for me - First off, I know. Luckily for me, I'm not necessarily trying to make a 'successful' movie. I'm just trying to make a movie.

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The other thing is just because someone else did it doesn't even come close to saying that you will. If you give Vermeer a cup of dirt and some water he could paint you a spectacular picture--You give the same tools to someone else and they will give nothing but moist dirt

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Second of all, I'm not expecting to get recognition, really. Like I said before, I'm just trying to make a movie. BUT I want to have a quality film, as much as it can be. Something that my family, friends and I can enjoy. And hey, if other people want to see it, that's cool too. But I'm not expecting this thing to launch a film career or anything. I just want to make a quality-ish movie, and I was wondering what makes the production of a movie so expensive.

People tlk about processing, but the cost of just shooting on film is very high not even taking into account proccessing and telecine.

Equipment rental will set you back big bucks too. Most of my film budget goes on film stock. I cant understand people who use DV and then blow all their "saved" money on accomodation for actors and food.