Indie Film Budgeting: Things That Cost More Than You Think

Adapted from my Indie Film Budgeting 101 class, I wanted to talk through the aspects of filmmaking that aren’t necessarily flashy or aesthetic to post about on Instagram after a long shoot, but are important things to consider when making your expected budgets.

Below is a by-no-means exhaustive list of surprise or unexpected costs that can come with making movies by yourself, but it’s a better place to start than I had. Do as I say, not as I did, etc etc etc

Transportation

Unless you literally live with all your collaborators, and even if you do… this is one of those things most filmmakers aren’t thinking about. So much energy is spent on where you’re going that you’re not considering how you’ll get there (and back), especially loaded down with gear and exhaustion.

You often can’t entirely avoid shelling out for transportation, so in addition to having a plan for how to get everyone to and from set, make sure you have money set aside for contingency transportation too. Like if, random example, your main actor shows up to set literally throwing up, manages to do all his scenes, but needs to get home safely and you feel responsible because you did end up letting him shoot with you because you didn’t have it in the budget or schedule to do reshoots, and he was already there…

Ahem. Random example. Unrelatedly, Colin Hinckley is a beast and you should hire him and read his book.

How to save:

• Set up carpools. If there isn’t reliable public transportation where you/your team lives, and people will have to drive or find a ride… be the one who helps organize that. This way, you’re not paying every single person a gas per diem or two-way Ubers for everyone.
• Send your call sheets well in advance if you can (so people can start making transportation plans) & follow up the night before so everyone is reminded of when/where to show up, rather than leaving it to chance and last minute chaos
• Don’t get lazy even after a long shoot day and opt for a taxi instead of the subway. Looking at you, me when I lived in NYC.

Crew kits

When hiring crew, you’re often on the hook not just for their labor cost/day rate, but the cost of their gear insurance, depleted gaff tape, HMU items, etc. If a crew member has to use their own stuff on your set, they shouldn’t have to take the cost of that stuff (or potential accidents/damage) out of their own paycheck, because it was on your behalf.

If you aren’t prepared for these costs, they can add up quickly. Personnel is like 70% of all film budgets, even ultra low-budget projects, and crew kits are part of that math!

How to save:

• Confer with the crew member in question and buy/rent separately. Depending on a variety of factors, a crew member’s crew kit fee will be higher because they need it to cover their entire kit just in case, but the things you’re actually going to end up having them use are cheaper individually. Like how sometimes props are cheaper to build than buy completed. If you have your own lighting kit, even if it’s a little less advanced, let the gaffer know you won’t be needing theirs. If you only have two characters with HMU needs, ask your HMU person what they’d planned to use from their kit to accomplish the look you want and buy the right shade of concealer/the right hairspray yourself. This isn’t always cheaper, but it’s worth asking so you know exactly what you’re paying for, and if there’s an alternative!

Crowdfunding incentives

Please, I’m begging you, do not list manufactured goods as incentives. From my article on The Financial Diet back in the day:

We charged $35 for the “official poster” perk and made about $200 dollars from it, but we actually spent $392.95 printing and shipping those posters.

To break that down even further, here’s the things I didn’t consider when listing a poster as a crowdfunding incentive:

• Each poster cost about $9 to have printed
• While I could buy all the posters I needed to ship in bulk, I had to mail them back out (after they were signed by the cast/crew, a Whole Other Deal I won’t get into right now) individually. Because I purchased them all at once, that means I had one poster tube I could use again. Each poster tube turned out to be about $6
• Shipping a poster tube even within the continental US was between $7–12 depending on the distance from New York, where I lived at the time

This happens for pretty much every crowdfunding campaign offering merch; I should know, because I’ve worked with hundreds. Even if they manage to get the items themselves at cost or for cheap, there’s still postage, plus the container you’re shipping them in, not to mention the cost of the hours of labor addressing and mailing all the stuff. And even if you aren’t actively losing money on each item, even if you still made a bit of a profit… was it worth it? Almost certainly not. The money you make from your crowdfunding campaign shouldn’t be going to print posters and mail coffee mugs… it should be going to making the damn movie.

Plus, let’s be honest: buying merch is the behavior of super fans, and you probably don’t have super fans yet… because your thing doesn’t exist yet! How many posters are on your wall from movies you haven’t seen yet? How many teeshirts do you buy per year from films that don’t exist yet, regardless of how nice they look? How many keychains does one key ring truly require, especially when you aren’t getting it for free at a bank or that career fair in college?

How to save:

• Only offer digital incentives under $100. I have some ideas for you.

Music licensing

We all probably have our favorite royalty free music library. Mine is BenSound. However, a lot of those libraries, especially the YouTube Audio Library (surprisingly robust! Worth scrolling through!), are only royalty-free if you’re A. using the music for a YouTube or Vimeo video and B. using it for non-commercial means. It may cost more if you want to distribute your project places other than YouTube, including but not limited to; theaters (including film festivals), streaming platforms besides YouTube/Vimeo, and platforms with a paywall. If you hope your film, in its current form, can find distribution of any kind, you may want to reread the terms of your music clearance.

How to save:

• The easiest way to save is to use your own music. Get a musical friend to record you something, play around in GarageBand, etc. If you simply do everything yourself, and you aren’t paying yourself… you see where this is going. There’s a reason I have edited every film I’ve written or acted in, and yet hate editing and do not want to be known for it. I sure am cheap, though
• However, in this case, the best way to save (time & money) is to actually pay for a song and a more robust-use license, which will cover your butt and ensure that no matter where your film ends up, you won’t need to re-score it or pay unexpectedly because of its new distribution. You’ll also probably have more music options because, naturally, you get what you pay for.

Film festival submissions

Careful- sometimes festivals also charge per category you want to be considered in (beyond “best [format]”). Do I think that practice is actively predatory and probably a red flag that the festival is a scam? Yes. But I also know how expensive it is to run a film festival, so I’m torn.

My advice for film festival submissions is fairly well-documented, but on a financial level…

How to save:

• Mark down earlybird submission dates for your target festivals. The difference in cost between an earlybird and a late submission fee can be double or even triple. It might extend your festival run, depending on when your film is completed, but if your goal is to save money, simply planning ahead and keeping an eye on the calendar is easy enough

Production insurance

You know, the thing you buy in case of an accident, injury, or other calamity? Which would NEVER happen to you, because you’re such a professional and it’s such a small project? Insurance is only a “wasted” expense until it REALLY, REALLY ISN’T.

How to save:

• Share insurance/locations with other productions. I know of many filmmakers who will “sublet” their broader insurance policies for fellow artists at lower rates, and I know of many more who will try to align their shoots to share a policy, a piece of gear, a location, etc, so both teams only have to pay half of what they might have to do on their own.

Hard drives

Always, always, always have a back up. External/extra hard drives are expensive, even if you’re only storing one copy of each file that makes up a film, but to then double that storage for insurance purposes? Post-production is an oft-overlooked phase of filmmaking and can oftentimes be one of the most expensive if you aren’t careful.

How to save:

• Honestly, it’s worth the expense. If you lose a day’s worth of footage because you didn’t have it backed up, what’s more expensive: that hard drive, or rescheduling and reshooting an entire day?
• That being said, can your team “donate” the use of their own hard drives/USB sticks for the project, at least until you have things picture-locked? I guarantee if you’re friends with other filmmakers, they have extra space on a variety of old hard drives.

Carelessness

In attempting to be efficient/autonomous, you can sometimes make mistakes. Not reading a contract closely enough, purchasing the first search result you see for a prop because it seems like it’ll work, not checking that the equipment you’re renting is compatible with your other gear… the list is endless.

I get it: a lot of the advice you get about making independent art (and tech) is to move fast and break shit, but that’s really only feasible if you’re also independently wealthy. We’re going to assume you aren’t, considering you’re reading an article about indie film budgeting. I promise, taking a beat and conferring with someone else on your team before making a purchase is not going to lose you momentum, not if it saves you from having to purchase the same thing three times before the first two times you weren’t reading the fine print closely enough and you ended up with useless things that you can’t return but also can’t use.

How to save:

• Try not to make rushed, unilateral spending decisions. Have an accountability partner for a gut check, even on seemingly inconsequential purchases
• Read everything, especially the dimensions of a product (don’t buy a $10 couch thinking it’s a great deal and then realize it was $10 because it’s a mouse couch)
• Make your breakdown first, have a production meeting second, then make purchases as late as you possibly can in the process so that by the time you’re putting your credit card down, you know exactly what/why you’re buying

Time

The number one hidden cost in filmmaking is time. For every hour longer you have to spend on set, in a location, with an actor, that’s money being burned on innumerable ancillary costs. Late fees for rentals, overtime fees, an extra meal because everyone’s hungry, an extra day with day rates and food and gear rentals because you wasted so much time you didn’t get all the coverage you need.

How to save:

• Be vigilant about pre-production, even if it means waiting longer to actually begin production
• Double check every plan with the main stakeholders
• Have contingency plans for everything, but especially for the more complex and vital aspects of the project. Be willing (and prepared) to sacrifice in order to ensure the priority coverage is complete

Need more advice on budgeting and shaving costs without losing your artistic vision? Take my video on demand Budgeting 101 course!

Bri Castellini is an independent filmmaker, a romance author, and, regrettably, a podcaster. She’s known for the 2017 short film Ace and Anxious (writer/director, 165k+ views on YouTube) and for her podcasts Burn, Noticed and Breaking Out of Breaking In, covering the USA television show Burn Notice and practical filmmaking advice, respectively. She can lick her elbow (not clickbait). Full work history and ways to hire her as a consultant can be found on her website BriCastellini.com