Film budgets can be daunting. Any good filmmaker knows what it takes to get her film made, and knows how to put together a simple budget for their project, but most new filmmakers aren’t intimately familiar with the vast amount of categories and line items found in a typical professional line-item film budget.
If you don’t know what you don’t know when putting together your budget, you’re not alone. Film budgeting has always been one of those film industry “black arts,” that seems to be rarely taught in schools or online courses.
But why should that be? Budgeting a film is a skill that’s at the core of raising money for film, and central to putting together a production team, and allocating the film’s resources in a way that optimizes the film’s ultimate success.
So why should budgeting a film, as a skill, be so unpopular and inaccessible, so (for lack of a better word) unlearned by filmmakers, while other skills such as directing, writing, acting, and even producing in general, are skills that are so vehemently pursued by new filmmakers? Three main reasons:
Reason #1 why very few people learn film budgeting: it’s a lot of math
Filmmakers unfamiliar with the budgeting process who lay eyes on a pro film budget for the first time can’t help but be overwhelmed:
Crew positions they’ve never heard of, perhaps even entire departments that may seem unfamiliar or even “extraneous,” confusing terms, counterintuitive math in some situations, the list goes on and on.
But even if a seasoned line producer sits the new filmmaker down and explains each budget line item, line by line, detail by detail, and that filmmaker is one of the sharper knives in the knife drawer, it’s still a massive, uphill climb for that filmmaker when it comes to “filling in the numbers” for each of those line items.
What’s the day rate of a Best Boy on a $2 million non-union film? How much is a camera package for a film where the DP might not be getting paid, but we’re paying the actors, and our total budget is $65,000? What do we pay our actors under the SAG Modified Low Budget rate if they’re only working 4 hours?
The answers to these questions are rattled off with ease by any seasoned line producer, but the fact is, the answers are the result of an ever-shifting grab bag of calculus that the seasoned line producer is doing in her head at any moment.
And that calculus? Well, it’s not easy to teach to someone. In most cases, it takes years of hands-on film budgeting experience: lining a script, breaking it down, knowing crew rates, knowing guild contracts, knowing gear rates, etc.
Adding to that calculus is the fact that all of those rates, all of those figures, all of those contracts and guidelines and schedules – they’re all in flux at all times. Rates and guild agreements are constantly changing from year to year, rental houses constantly tweak their prices to stay competitive and profitable, and what’s okay to pay a 2nd Assistant Camera on a show in March might not be what’s okay to pay that same cameraperson on the same type of show in December.
Reason #2 why very few people learn film budgeting: it ain’t glamorous
Directors have a “vision.” Writers want to move audiences with their words. Actors have burning desire to communicate with body and emotion.
Line producers who budget films? What motivates them? The perfect strip schedule. Staying on time and under budget. Saving money while making sure every department head has enough to do their jobs. All of these are boring, to most people. But not to line producers.
Creating a film budget takes a special sort of filmmaker: one with a creative head for numbers but who has no interest in being the star of the show.
Reason #3 why very few people learn film budgeting: the software is ridiculously expensive
Film budgeting software, by and large, has been dominated by one large elephant in the room since the mid 1990s when movie budgeting first came to computers. That elephant is Movie Magic Budgeting or EP Budgeting as its now known.
Flat out, EP Budgeting and Gorilla Budgeting are the de facto standards for budgeting a film at the moment. But with a subscription price tag of near $300 per year or $30-$40 per month (which seems cheap compared to the amount I’m anecdotally remember EP charging for many years, which was closer to $800), the bar to entry for new filmmakers using it and learning it is extremely high.
New filmmakers, mostly, if they’re buying any software, they’re buying something like Final Cut for $300 (or going with Davinci Resolve for free). Or they’re forking over their cash for a screenwriting program like Final Draft (despite there being numerous free or cheap alternatives.)
Otherwise, they’re spending their money on their films, not a piece of expensive budgeting software that they don’t understand how to use, and even if they did, they’d have no idea what to punch into the line items because they have no firm idea what that number should be.
With a lower bar to entry in the software arena, and with an easier set of tools available which lets the aspiring film budgeter get her hands on prices and contracts and rates more consistently and uniformly, perhaps the glamor will follow.
Until then, film budgeting will probably remain firmly in the realm of the experienced line producer; a black art which perhaps only the most dedicated of learners can pursue and master.
That all said, there are easy, cheap, and even free methods to budget a film.
The fastest, easiest route, in our opinion, is to create a film budget using Screenplay Readers’ film budgeting tool. (Shameless plug)
The next best way is to simply get your hands on a Google Sheets film budget template. There are many out in the wild, ranging from the remedial to extremely detailed.
But however you choose to create a film budget, whether its a free method or paying for an expensive film budgeting app, the first thing you see when you open the template or software will be an empty document with a lot of blank rows and categories, and a lot of confusing rows and columns and terms.
Don’t be daunted! It’s a lot of departments and columns and fringes and globals and codes and labor rates but it all makes sense once you get the hang of it.
We’ll dive into what all those columns and codes mean, but before we do, there are a couple of cardinal rules of film budgeting you’ll need to keep in mind.
Film Budgeting Cardinal Rule #1: Pay your damn film crew
If you have money to pay your crew, you absolutely should pay your crew. Even if it’s a tiny film and you’re pulling in a lot of favors and the pay you’re offering is only a fraction of what they normally earn.
If you have absolutely no money to pay your crew, know that (a) you’re likely going to be working with severely inexperienced people, and (b) you’ll probably want to offer to pay your crew a deferred salary at the very least.
A deferred salary on a film production is exactly what it sounds like: your crew gets paid later. The how, when, and how much of that “later” needs to be agreed to in detail by you and your crew.
When putting together a budget for a film in which you’re planning paying deferred salaries to some cast and/or crew, or are getting other services for deferred rates, you need to account for all of that in the budget so that you and your investors both know exactly how much money the film has to make back before profits start getting handed out.
This figure is your “nut” or your negative cost, and it needs to be accurate if you’re working with serious investors, vendors, and crew.
For example, if you’re paying your 20-man crew deferred, and they all work 20 days, and each of them is promised a measly $100 per day, you need to account for $40,000 in the budget. (20 crew x $100 per day x 20 days = $40,000).
The same goes for any deferred vendors, such as post houses. If the sound house you’re doing your sound mix at has agreed to do your sound mix for $20,000 deferred, you need to account for $20,000 in the budget.
Then that $40,000 deferred crew salary, and the $20,000 deferred payment to the sound house has to be paid to those folks before you or your investors start seeing profits.
Be careful with your freebies as well. If you’re getting a $13,000 camera package for the month from Panavision, and your buddy there is hooking you up for free, don’t add a $13,000 cost into the budget, just to fluff it up and artificially make your “nut” higher.
On the other hand, definitely let your investors and vendors know that you’re calling in favors to get a $13,000 camera package for free, and that this will augment the quality of the final film, making it more sellable.
Vendors who see that another vendor has already jumped in with a freebie are far less nervous about pitching in with their own freebies.
Film Budgeting Cardinal Rule #2: Every department needs money, not just camera
That is, every department on your film (makeup, art, grip, electric, etc.) is going to need a certain amount of money in order to do their jobs correctly, even on a tiny, no-money film.
If you’re going to scrounge everything, that’s fine (although you probably don’t need a budget), but you’ll need to acknowledge that in your budget, and make sure that the crew member you’re bringing aboard for costumes knows that they’re not being given a single dime to buy anything or rent anything with, before they come aboard.
Drill down into each department, preferably with each department head on your film, and find out how much they’re going to need to do their job, even if it’s just in a bare bones capacity:
Grip/Electric, Art Department, Camera Department, Production Department, Wardrobe Department, Makeup Department, Special Effects, Stunts, Weapons, Special Makeup Effects, Transportation, and any other department you can think of that your film is going to need to get made.
Keep in mind that every department is usually only focused on one thing: their department. But that’s a good thing, as that’s how it’s supposed to work: discrete “sections” of your crew all focused on their discrete workload and expertise.
When budgeting a film, it’s inevitable that one or two departments will be funded much more than many of the other departments. The goal is not to fund each department equally; it’s to complete the film in the most efficient, productive way possible.
So don’t be afraid to put vastly more money into department X than you do in Y and Z. It’s simply the nature of the business. And if the department heads of Y and Z don’t understand that, you’ll need to either explain that to them or perhaps find people to replace them.
The Line Item: the building block of a film budget
In simple terms, a film budget is a shopping list, and a line item is just an item on that list.
But line items, in a larger sense, are really where the rubber hits the road.
Making movies on a professional level, whether its a large film or a small film, requires an attention to detail that most new filmmakers can find either extremely intimidating, or overly complicated, or both.
This series of articles will seek to shed light each of the typical line items found in a typical professional film budget, using plain, simple English language to explain what each line item is for, when it’s needed, and why it’s needed.
Above the line vs. below the line, defined:
For clarity’s sake, let me first explain what the difference is between above the line and below the line, and why the word “line” in those phrases shouldn’t be confused with the concept of the “line item” term we use to describe each specific cost listed in a movie budget.
In any film budget, there’s the topsheet, followed by the line items of each category. Typically, a budget will start out with the “Above The Line” expenses.
Typically, above-the-line refers to producers, directors, writers, cast (including name actors/movie stars, etc.), and stunt cast/personnel. So “Above the Line expenses” would refer to all of those positions, expenses, and personnel.
“Below the line” then refers to everything and everybody and every expense that isn’t considered Above the Line.
More simply, imagine a line drawn in on a budget page. Above that line are your film’s producers, directors, writers, cast, etc. e.g. all the things and people that typically get paid more than everybody else due to their position, talent, fame, or uniqueness and/or value they represent to the film’s success or getting it funded or distributed.
Below that line are the workaday crew and costs which make up what’s typically the bulk of a film’s number of costs (although they could sometimes make up the bulk of the film’s budget totals as well, depending on how lopsided the above-the-line vs. below-the-line costs are.)
The line items in the film budget topsheet
With most pro film budgets, you’ll find that the budget has a topsheet. The topsheet is simply a summation of all the line items in all the various categories throughout the entire budget.
Topsheets have what could be considered “line items,” but those line items are really just totals, drawn from the actual categories and line items from the overall budget itself.
We’ll break down each of these topsheet line items into more detail later, as each of them represent an entire category in your film budget, and that category can contain many, many different line items for various personnel, equipment, services, and other expenses.
So here are the typical line item totals found on the typical topsheet (below). Again, these are just the line items for each category, appearing on the budget topsheet, so that the totals for each department or category can be seen at a glance on the first sheet of the film budget:
WRITER / SCREENPLAY / STORY
This is the line item for the entire writing budget. Writers, writers assistants, etc., and/or the budget to secure any underlying rights to the story material. We’ll break
PRODUCERS
This is the line item for producer salaries, producer fees, and/or fees paid to studios or production companies for their services. Note, no fringes are listed here, typically, as those are relegated to the Above-The-Line Fringes line item.
DIRECTOR
Director fees, salaries, etc.
PRINCIPAL CAST
Salaries and/or fees for your main cast. Typically, movie stars or name actors fill this category, and this category may contain their per diems, travel, and other expenses, even though that information could alternatively be listed in the specific A-T-L travel (Above-The-Line Travel) line item.
SUPPORTING CAST
These are your day players, weekly players, or cast members who simply aren’t the big stars or the ones featured as much as the principal cast. They very much could be name actors, but they’re typically distinguished from the “stars” or “leads” on the film for a variety of reason, both political and financial.
STUNTS
Stunt personnel are considered cast, and are paid and treated as such, with many of the same perks, benefits, and drawbacks that the non-stunt cast is paid. Stuntpeople, however, do get paid a different SAG rate. It’s similar to the non-stunt SAG rate, but is usually a bit higher due to the dangerous scenes they’re asked to shoot. This line item also includes their material and prep costs, as well as additional crew, etc.
ABOVE-THE-LINE TRAVEL & LIVING
This line item on the topsheet represents the total spent on everybody’s living and travel expenses, but for Above-the-Line personnel only. As we’ll see when we break these categories down in a later article, the line items within this category range from plane travel to hotels to car service to car rentals, food, per diems, and a few more key ingredients required to keep the above-the-line (A-T-L) personnel housed, fed, and doing their jobs properly.
ABOVE-THE-LINE FRINGES
“Fringes” are everything you never read on your paycheck: Taxes taken out, labor union dues, medical, social security, payroll fees, etc. This topsheet line item sums up all of those fringes, paid to the A-T-L personnel only.
And now we get to the BELOW-THE-LINE topsheet line items, so I’ve gone ahead and drawn a line where the Above-The-Line ends and the Below-The-Line begins, so you can more readily visualize what I’m talking about.
PRODUCTION STAFF
Production staff includes your UPM, 1st AD, 2nd AD, Production Coordinators, etc. all the way down to your Production Assistants. And it includes the production office and expenses such as copies, courier services, radios – all the things the production department needs to do its job.
BACKGROUND TALENT
This is the topsheet line item for extras or stand-ins and all the expenses they might incur, such as agency fees, travel, costuming, casting, etc. Depending on the size of the film, they could be SAG extras, or they could be non-union.
CAMERA
This is the line item for the camera department, and it includes the DP, assistant camera personnel, the camera package itself, expendables, and lots more.
GRIP & SET OPERATIONS
Flags, silks, c-stands, apple boxes – all the equipment that’s not a light or a light stand. This is what the grip crew is responsible for. Trucks to carry the grip gear, personnel, dollies, you name it.
ELECTRIC & SET LIGHTING
If it lights up or plugs in, the electrics are in charge of it. Lights, globes, stands, generators, cables, as well as trucks and personnel.
PRODUCTION SOUND
The sound recordist(s) and their boom operators (mic operators) as well as their gear and expendables.
TRANSPORTATION
Picture cars (e.g. police vehicles, tanks, classic cars, or even contemporary cars). The transpo department is typically responsible for all the trucks and vehicles on a picture.
SPECIAL MECHANICAL FX
As visual effects have exploded in the last 20 years, it’s important to distinguish between computer visual effects and standard, old-school practical effects. Those are what the Special Mechanical FX department is in charge of. Explosions, gunfire, bullet hits, etc. They usually work in tandem with the visual effects department (VFX) and stunts.
ART
The art department is the domain of the Production Designer and her crew. They’re responsible for the practical look and design of the film overall. This line item includes the department’s crew as well as their expenses, such as materials, drafting expenses, etc. The following departments typically fall under the art department:
SET CONSTRUCTION
Skilled laborers (or unskilled, depending on your budget level), construction expenses, hauling, materials purchasing, as well as striking expenses (taking everything down).
SET DRESSING
Working close with the Production Designer or Art Director to make sure each set adheres to the Production Designer’s vision. This could include rentals of furniture, rugs, lamps, or mad scientist laboratory devices, or totally original fabrications (which would typically fall within a separate special department within the art department that specializes in fabrication).
PROPERTY
Also typically falling within the purview of the art department, the property department is responsible for all props. Purchases, rentals, crew, and other expenses.
WARDROBE
This line item consists of the wardrobe crew (typically a Wardrobe Designer or Key Costumer), support crew, rentals of costumes, creation of costumes, and/or purchasing costumes, as well as maintenance, cleaning, and repair.
MAKEUP & HAIR
Day-to-day makeup and hair for the cast, which could range from exotic to simple. This line item includes makeup purchases or “kit rentals” (typically the Key Makeup person rents their makeup kit to the production.
MAKEUP EFFECTS
This line item is for all the special makeup effects on the film. This department does sometimes works closely with the makeup and hair department, but don’t confuse the two. Makeup Effects (or MUFX) is typically only focused on special prosthetics, foam latex masks or prostheses, cuts, burns, gore, blood, aliens, etc.)
LOCATION EXPENSES
Location rentals, porta-potties, catering, permits, police and fire personnel – this line item covers the expenses of a film company’s day-to-day operations and logistics, whether it’s on set in a studio for 90 days or on location for 18.
ANIMALS
This line item comprises the costs of animal actors and their handlers, specific training, lodging, feeding, care, etc.
SECOND UNIT
A film’s second unit is typically a small group comprised of a 2nd-unit director, a 2nd-unit DP, and several other crew members who typically work separately from the main unit, in order to film stunts, special location shots, B-roll, or work tandem with the main unit on large, special set piece events that require a multitude of cameras and crews in order to capture well.
PRODUCTION FRINGES
Remember what I said about fringes (above)? Well, these are the fringes for everybody and everything below the line.
EDITING & POST
This topsheet line item sums up the fees and/or salaries for your editors(s), post house, colorists, etc. as well as any rentals for editing equipment or space, and any purchases required such as drive space, etc.
MUSIC
This line item is for your composer, or your sound supervisor, or both. Needledrops (aka song placements), original score, recording studio fees, musician hires, etc.
POST-PRODUCTION SOUND
Your post-production sound package (or your small film’s sound personnel’s) fees and expenses, such as ADR, sound editing, sound mixing, mastering, timing, delivery, etc.
VISUAL FX
This is the line item that comprises all the costs of your CGI, whether you’re doing it at ILM or hiring a small team of professionals.
DELIVERABLES
Masters (on harddrives, or on film, or on tape, including sound stems), and other physical items required by a distributor or studio in order consider your final film “delivered.”
POST-PRODUCTION FRINGES
Yep, the post people have these too, whether they’re union or non-union.
PUBLICITY
A PR firm, or marketing costs.
INSURANCE
E&O, general liability, etc. All policies your film requires are budgeted under this line item.
Then we sum ’em all up:
TOTAL ABOVE-THE-LINE (the whole A-T-L budget)
TOTAL BELOW-THE-LINE (the whole B-T-L budget)
ABOVE & BELOW-THE-LINE (both of those added together)
TOTAL FRINGES (all fringes added together)
And last, but not least:
CONTINGENCY
This line item is typically set at 10%. That is, it’s a built-in assumption that your budget is going to go at least 10% over. Some films go over by a lot more than that, and some come way under.
Two Film Budget Topsheet Examples
Now let’s take a look at what all that looks like in action, in a real film budget topsheet.
A few years ago, my company and I produced two feature films, from script to screen. We had no money and no significant investors, despite garnering interest (and even a few Letters of Intent) from a handful of name actors.
The road to production on both films was a long one, and a bumpy one. But we couldn’t have pulled either films without one key element: budget flexibility.
What’s film budget flexibility? It’s exactly what it sounds like: we were ready to make the film at two different budget levels – low, and high.
Of course, “low” and “high” are two very relative terms. In our case, our low budget version was $40,000, and our high budget was $200,000. Both levels of budget are completely peanuts to most mainstream film companies and distributors, but to us, $200k was, and still is, a lot of money.
The goal was to be ready to shoot either film for as low as $40,000, but do our best to raise $200,000 for each, in order to pay for a more experienced, faster crew, better cameras and gear, better locations, and better post production.
Here’s the topsheets for two different film budgets we made. These are just for one of the features we produced. Feel free to take a look at where we put our money, at least on paper, to give you an idea of where you should allocate funds in your own film’s budget.
A $200,000 Film Budget Topsheet
Below is the $200k budget. This budget includes the deferred salaries of all the crew, including a line producer. All the salaries are between $100 and $300 per day.
The cast salaries in this budget are non-deferred; meaning, they would be during the filming as per SAG’s Ultra Low Budget agreement.
The big expenditures are cast and crew salaries, and then $40,000 for a full post-sound package, which is pretty steep for a film at our level, but includes ADR, foley, sound editing, sound mix, and 5.1 mastering.
This budget also includes a whopping $15,000 for color correction. FYI, ultimately, we got our color correction for free, and our sound mix 100% deferred.
A $40,000 Film Budget Topsheet
And here’s the a $30,000 version of the same budget, which actually ballooned up to $40,000 by the time we were done putting it together.
This is the do-or-die, actual budget we used for the film as we started shooting it, since all of our production funds hadn’t come in by then.
Even with our film fairly meticulously budgeted, we ended up spending approximately $100,000 cash to get the film in the can and finished. With our crew salaries deferred, the film just has to bring in $100,000 or so and then everybody’s paid off and profits can start being shared.
As you’ll notice, they’re both topsheets only, as we did these budgets in Movie Magic Budgeting, and used one of their “big budget” templates, as our line producer was a bit new.
Using that big budget template made each of the budgets some 60-75 pages long. I would’ve posted them, but it’s mostly page after page of $0 line items due to the hundreds and hundreds of crew that most high-dollar motion pictures are comprised of.
(For scale and reference, the film budgets created by Screenplay Readers are approximately 18 pages worth of line items, and they cover everything you’ll need, including all the details on crew, fringes, etc.)
A few notes on these film particular budgets
I believe Mel Brooks once said, or sung, “Hope for the best, expect the worst.” In our case as filmmakers, that means budgeting for a high-dollar scenario (or “high” as most indie filmmakers might define it), and a low-dollar scenario, which could mean $40,000, $10,000, $5000, or even $500.
Once you start getting down into the low-thousands, the utility film budget is somewhat diminished (After all, you can’t spend what you don’t have, so there’s no sense in budgeting for what you can’t spend), but planning out each and every expenditure and allotment helps, no matter what budget level.
In our case, we created a high budget and a low budget, and our actual expenditure came in around $100,000, which is $60,000 over our $40,000 “low” budget. And that was for a relatively smooth shoot and post process. For film shoots that go off the rails, as you might imagine, the sky’s the limit for overages.
Hands down, the most important element of a successful small film is your crew. Without the right people in the right crew positions, even a large film can hit the skids, get bogged down, swell with cost overruns, and sometimes even implode.
When crewing for a film, especially a smaller independent film, you need to know how to think like a crew member — that is, like a film professional who expects to be paid and/or compensated for her time appropriately, fairly, and in a timely manner.
If you’ve never worked as crew on a film, chances are, you probably shouldn’t be producing a film, as understanding a production from the crew’s perspective is one of the most important abilities a producer can have.
But even if you’ve got a few films under your belt as a crew member, the number of elements and/or negotiation points of what most crew members take into account when considering whether or not to take a gig can be quite daunting.
In this series of articles, I’ve broken down all of the salient / major negotiation questions that you’ll want to be prepared to answer before you start interviewing crew members for your film. Some may not be applicable to the size of your film, but all are worthy of learning for any neophyte film producer.
The Film Unions
Another huge factor you’ll need to consider when you create a film budget is whether or not your film budgets for union labor.
When we use the term “union,” we’re referring to the following film unions:
The Writers Guild of America
WGA West or East. The writers, basically.
The Directors Guild
DGA/DGAUPM. Directors, UPMs, Assistant Directors, basically.
SAG-AFTRA
The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Actors and stuntpersons.
IATSE
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. IATSE has a number of “Local” chapters, each with its own range of craftspeople represented. For example, Local 600 represents cinematographers and other trades, Local 700 represents Editors and other trades, etc. This can get confusing when it comes to rates, so remember that each Local, essentially, is their own mini-union but that all Locals share common contract terms and benefits outlined by the overarching general IATSE agreement.
Teamsters
Drivers, transportation coordinators, craft services, mechanics, and even location managers sometimes.
These quick descriptions give you the general idea of who/what each union is about, but there is a lot more to each of these labor unions, especially when it comes to how each union handles rates and agreements for varying budget levels.
Should my film be a union film or non-union film?
The first question you’ll need to be able to answer, even before you put out a call for crew, is whether or not you’ll be shooting the picture as a union film, or a non-union film.
When most people refer to a “union” film, as opposed to a “non-union” film, they usually mean that the film is going to employ crew members from unions, e.g. those listed above.
In general, these days you’ll likely only hear a film referred to as a “union” film if it employs crew members from IATSE or the Teamsters, even though that same film might employ cast members from SAG (Screen Actors Guild), itself a very powerful union.
Typically, a film can employ SAG actors and be under a full legal binding SAG contract, but is still commonly referred to, despite being perhaps technically incorrect, as “non-union.”
I won’t hurt your brain by parsing any more of the nomenclature, colloquial or otherwise, but the distinction is worth mentioning.
When considering to shoot non-union versus union, the answer usually comes pretty quickly to most smaller, underfunded or independent producers: Non-union is the way to go.
The biggest consideration on most producers’ minds is, of course, money. The first biggest distinction that goes into making the choice between the union and non-union crew is that union rates are fixed.
That is, rates are set at a fixed, set amount, and that amount is clearly stated in each particular union’s contract (the procedures, standards, and rules that both union members and producers have to agree to when entering into an employment arrangement).
Contract Rates vs. Negotiated Rates
Whereas an IATSE Prop Maker Foreman rate might be $2305.73 per week, a non-union Prop Maker Foreman’s rate could be any fraction of that, as all non-union rates are 100% negotiable. Whatever rate the Prop Maker Foreman negotiates with the film’s producer is the rate that Prop Maker Foreman makes for the show.
But if you’re thinking of going non-union just for the ability to negotiate a lower crew rate than what you’d pay to a union, keep in mind that there’s a litany of other negotiation points that you’ll have to agree on with that crew. You might think you’re saving a dollar, but you might actually be spending more in the long run, if you aren’t looking at all those other criteria: schedule specifics, wrap time/prep time, payroll… the list goes on and on, and we’ll get to them in future installments of this article.
Quality skilled film labor isn’t free
For now, suffice it to say that a union crew will likely take up a bigger chunk of your budget than a non-union crew. That being said, keep in mind that to get into a union, a crew member has to demonstrate a certain level of skill and put in a certain amount of time.
Non-union crews can be experienced as well, and union members can and often do work non-union below the radar, especially when times are lean, but by and large, you can count on a more experienced crew if you’re going union. And that experience can translate to faster setups, more setups, better quality for your film across the board. To be fair, you can get speed and quality with a non-union crew as well. It all comes down to a simple equation: how much time and care you spend in hiring your crew members.
Just like any profession, you’ve got good and bad apples in both bunches. Unions, however, generally take care of their bad apples via education, retraining, or if all else fails, disciplining or booting them, whereas non-union bad apples generally keep on being bad apples until they’ve burnt every bridge.
But in the film industry, reputation is everything. Film industry crew are no different from any other tradespeople. They want to work with people who are (a) qualified at their craft, and (b) easy to work to with.
Beware: striking crew members!
Caveat: I mentioned above that it’s not entirely uncommon to find union crew working on a non-union film. But keep in mind that if a union discovers this somehow, they could picket your film, forcing the union members of your crew off the show, and possibly even pressuring your non-union members into going union so that the union can bargain for them. It doesn’t happen on smaller films too often, as unions know where the money is, but if your show is reasonably large, it’s a possibility to watch out for, however unlikely.
Overall Considerations
By and large, a union crew costs a lot more to shoot with than a non-union crew, and there’s not a whole lot of leeway when it comes to work hours, turnaround time (the amount of time between when a shooting day ends and the next shooting day begins), overtime, and more.
A non-union crew is a crew where everything is 100% negotiable. Schedule, overtime, turnaround, pay, payday, you name it. For most smaller producers, and even some larger producers, non-union is the only way to go.
But keep in mind, just because non-union crew have nobody representing them doesn’t mean you can exploit them. Your rates and hours need to be fair or else they’ll mutiny just as hard as a union crew.
Budgeting for Crew Rates and Work Hours
When budgeting a film crew for a union picture, the rates and work hour limits and thresholds are set by the union and you pay them. End of story.
But for non-union films, it’s a bit different. On a non-union film, rates are fully negotiable. However, work hours are still governed by state and federal labor laws.
The “Day Rate”
Many producers will ask a crew member to agree to a flat “day rate,” and many crew members, especially new or inexperienced crew, will often agree to it. These same producers will then work the crew for as long as they want, and not have to worry about paying overtime.
What the inexperienced crew member might not realize is that labor laws dictate that for the first 8 hours of a shoot, she’s supposed to be paid straight time, or for the first 40 hours she works in a week. But after those set hours, she’s owed time and a half (1.5 times her regular hourly rate), for up to 12 hours in a work day. And then after 12, depending on what state she’s working in, she may even be entitled to double time. (Twice her hourly rate.)
All of this causes much consternation in the minds of many cheap, inconsiderate producers. Figuring out overtime (AKA “O.T.”) and budgeting for it is something many of them find odious. So they end up hiring inexperienced crew. (Who often end up costing the producer and the film more money due to their inexperience, slowness, and/or flat out ineptitude, relative to that of an experienced crew. (But don’t try to tell some producers that. Some producers cranking out bad movie after bad movie would rather burn through a production with a newbie crew and end up shooting more days and paying more in rentals than try to convince their investors or buyers that a higher-paid crew or even union crew makes more financial sense.)
Minimum Guarantees
Every crew member deserves a “minimum guarantee.” That is, if your production stops filming on a particular day after 4 hours, you still owe them 8 hours in pay.
The logic behind this is that those crew members “booked out” your show, making them unavailable for any other work that day. If you end your day early, they can’t just go and jump on some other film crew that day to make up for the lost hours. Respect their time by offering a minimum guarantee.
Overtime Contingency
When budgeting your film crew, it’s definitely a good idea to set some money aside for when the crew does go over 8 hours, or 12 hours. If you’re a cheap producer working with a crew you’re paying a flat rate, with no time and a half or double time, then at the very least you’ll want money set aside to keep your crew from mutinying should you need to go long in those rare emergencies. That being said, if you’re going long every single day of your shoot, don’t expect your crew, even an inexperienced crew, to stay on the show.
A good rule of thumb is to budget your shooting days to go at least 12 hours, no matter what, especially on independent films. On top of that 12 hours you budget for, factor in about 10% contingency in case you go over that.
Paying Everybody Fairly
No matter what your budget level, there’s bound to be a bit inequity when it comes to how much Crew Member A is paid versus how much Crew Member B is paid.
Directors of Photography, Production Designers, etc. will generally be paid at the top of the “scale,” while Production Assistants and other departmental assistants will be paid at the bottom.
On a small film, it might benefit your production to pay everybody the same flat rate, and not worry about time and a half or double time, but that should only be if you’ve got a fairly cohesive group of people working on your film to begin with, and probably only if your crew is made of up largely inexperienced people.
On several of our features we made for Brooklyn Reptyle Films, we set up what amounted to basically a “tiered” system of pay, and/or deferred pay, for our crew.
Tier 1 – Production Designer, Director of Photography, Principal Makeup, Line Producer, etc. were all paid the “Key” rate, or the highest rate.
Tier 2 – Art Director, 1st Assistant Camera, Asst. Makeup, 1st AD, were all paid the “Subkey” rate, or the middle rate.
Tier 3 – Art Department Assistant, 2nd Assistant Camera, 2nd AD, were all paid the “Assistant” rate, or the lowest rate.
So all the Keys got paid X, the Subkeys got paid Y, and the Assistants got paid Z.
You don’t have to use our system, or any particular system (unless you’re shooting a union film of course), but whatever system you use needs to be fair to all crew members. It’s not only vital to the success and morale of the film, it’s the professional thing to do.
Where to find updated film crew labor rates
For the latest and greatest union rates, we like to recommend the Paymaster Rate Guide. It has pretty much everything you need when putting together a film budget for a union crew.
For a non-union film budget, you’ll want to do your homework when it comes to crew rates. On the one hand, you want to make sure you get the best, most experienced non-union crew possible without breaking the bank, but on the other, you want to make sure that the rate you’re offering your crew is competitive or at least not too far off the mark from what your crew gets paid typically on other non-union shoots.
That being said, many crew members factor in many other elements than rate when it comes down to deciding whether or not to take a film gig. The film’s shooting schedule, where it’s shooting, travel/lodging situations, per diems, kit rates, and more.
Quick note: An experienced crew is worth the money
Nothing tends to bog down a shoot more than an inexperienced crew. And there’s few things worse than sitting at your premiere and watching actors on the screen who don’t quite know their craft.
Loading your film up with an amateur cast, or a newbie crew, might seem like a great way to save money on your film, but I recommend you resist the urge.
Generally speaking, crew that demands they get paid for their work are going to be 20-40 times faster, better, and more professional in general, than any unpaid analog, no matter how spirited or eager that unpaid person seems to be.
Spending just one day on a film set, a new crew member can learn five hundred new things, and learn how to do their jobs ten times better. Extrapolate that over a 30-day shoot, and you can imagine how much better overall a crew member with the experience of just one 30-day film shoot is, when compared to a newbie.
Now extrapolate that over even just 5 or 6 film shoots, and you can see what I mean when I say it’s more than worth it to bring aboard experience, and to pay for that experienced crew.
Then take a crew member who’s worked on 50, 60 films or shows, and the comparison between what they know and what a greenhorn knows isn’t even fair. Experience can make your shoot go faster, your cast and crew happier, and your film, well, frankly, just better. Don’t cheap out on people.
Should you budget your film using SAG actors? Applying SAG actor rates to the budget of an indie film with little money, or when your film has no budget, might seem like a luxury for many filmmakers with limited funds. But paying SAG actor rates (that is, working with members of the Screen Actors Guild) can often make the difference between a bad film and a good film, if for just one reason only: if your film works with SAG, you have a much larger variety of potential actors to draw from. And that means you have more opportunities to cast the perfect people for your roles — both in terms of flexibility with your schedule and budget, and in just simply raw acting chops and compatibility with you and your team.
Budgeting for SAG actors
Technically, the guild is called SAG-AFTRA, and it’s a combination of two labor unions that represent not only actors, but recording artists, stunt performers, news writers, DJs, dancers, announcers, and many other professionals in the audio-visual arts.
The two guilds were formed in the 1930s with the goal of securing labor protections for actors and performers, who were often pitted against deep-pocketed studios and networks who — to put it mildly — weren’t always looking out for the best interests of the professionals who appeared in their films or helped them sell soap on their radio programs.
Today, SAG-AFTRA represents almost 200,000 people, who pool their resources, time, and political clout in order to bargain with an even more ruthless and powerful set of studio and corporate titans. In my opinion, it’s a strong guild, on par with the strength of the WGA (Writers Guild of America).
Low budget and SAG
SAG actually makes it pretty easy for smaller productions to budget for SAG actor rates by giving several different options for filmmakers to choose from when hiring SAG actors.
Those options are in the form of what SAG calls “Agreements” and they’re branded under a sub-branch of SAG which SAG refers to as SAG-INDIE — focusing on independent and small film.
SAG contracts for small films. All data below is accurate as of 8/17/2025. Make sure to check with SAG-INDIE for the most recent changes, as these agreements do change frequently.
The SAG Student Film Agreement
Under this agreement, your film must be no longer than 35 minutes, your budget no higher than $35,000, and you must agree to pay your SAG actors a negotiable rate (which could mean minimum wage if you find actors willing to do that) but whatever you pay or don’t pay up front, the actors need to have received a minimum of $125 per day before the film can appear on any distribution platform, including YouTube.
Further, the SAG actors you hire have to provide signed consent before the film is distributed in any way. That means you’ll need to get all the SAG actors you’ve used on your film to sign a document, which you provide to SAG, showing that they’ve approved of the film.
Aaaand, not to mention, but you also have to have a producer on the film who is enrolled in an accredited educational institution. (Hence, the “student” in “student film.”) What they mean by “accredited” usually means not an internet college or some other hinky “webschool” or similar. Make sure you check with SAG before you assume your school is accredited.
SAG’s next level up,
the SAG Ultra Low Budget Agreement,
…is similar, in that you pay your SAG cast $249 per day. The only differences are that you (a) don’t need their consent to release the film, (b) the film can be longer than 35 minutes, (c) your film’s budget can’t be higher than $300,000, and (d) you can’t defer the actors’ pay, meaning the checks have to be written to SAG so that SAG can pay your actors as you shoot, or in advance.
SAG Short Project Agreement
…which limits your TRT to 40 minutes, your budget to $50,000, and your shooting schedule to a max of 30 days, but there’s no consent required to release your film. However, rates are $249 per day.
If you can’t afford SAG actors
SAG actors work all the time on non-SAG projects, for free or for very cheap. We don’t advocate not paying your actors, or trying to skirt SAG regulations, because we believe in the mission of SAG and other film unions.
However, we do recognize the fact that without a constant new crop of up-and-coming filmmakers making films, there’s no next generation of large-budget filmmakers and studio films. And the same goes for actors — without building connections to filmmakers and other industry people, and without getting experience and expanding their skills on film sets, actors can’t grow.
So SAG actors work on non-SAG projects. They do it under the radar, or they do it out in the open. It happens all the time. (Not that we condone it.)
Truth is, SAG can’t track every production and keep tabs on every single actor to determine whether or not the actor is complying with guild regulations by working with SAG-signatory film companies only. But to be fair, SAG does do a pretty good job of keeping things flexible for their members and workable for the non-studio level filmmakers looking to draw from the SAG talent pool.
That said, the more experienced and solidified in the film industry the actor is, generally speaking, the less likely they’ll be to take a chance on doing your non-union film for peanuts or non-SAG rates.
Can you find non-SAG actors who are skilled and awesome? Of course. Are they hard to find? Not at all.
To join SAG, all an actor needs to do is get three credits working as a background actor (extra) on a film or show, and they become SAG eligible, which allows them to pay their dues and join the union, so the bar to being a SAG actor isn’t exactly high, high, high. Which means that just because you’re going SAG it doesn’t mean your film is automatically a better film, but it does mean that you’ll have a larger pool of talent to draw from when casting.
Other SAG rates
Once you head past the Ultra Low Budget (maximum budget of $300,000), you’re into SAG’s Moderate Low Budget, which is for films between $300,000 and $700,000, and the SAG rate jumps up to $421 per actor per day, or $2,105 per week.
After that, it’s the Low Budget Agreement (max budget $2 million OR max $3.75 million if you meet SAG’s Diversity-In-Casting Incentives), where your SAG actors are paid $783/day or $3,915/week.
Finally, beyond that is the SAG Theatrical rate, which is for films with budgets higher than $2 million, where the actors are paid the full SAG actor rate, which is $4,326/week (remember, these rates, like all others in this article, are accurate at time of this article’s publishing, but check with SAG to get the most current rates.)
And remember, with each of these contract/agreement levels comes a lot of other specific rules, requirements, and regulations both you and your SAG talent have to stick to. Like all guilds, SAG is there to protect its people, and if you’re going to use SAG talent, you need to stick to the rules. Understandably, sticking to the long list of rules and requirements (e.g. meal times, call times, turnaround, etc.) is partly why many new or small-budget filmmakers eschew using unions like SAG on their film, but take our word for it: if you can work hand-in-hand with SAG and stay on the up-and-up, your film is likely to turn out much better.
How to budget for SAG actors
First, pick which SAG contract/agreement and SAG actor rates are a fit for you and your budget.
From there, you can figure out your day rates for your cast and budget accordingly, whether you’re using day rates or weekly rates.
Then, wrangle your fringes. Fringes are the payments you have to pay which are on top of the actors’ regular rates, and include unavoidable charges such as FICA, Federal Unemployment Insurance, State Unemployment Insurance, Worker’s Comp (usually handled by your payroll company as an extra charge), and then your Pension and Health benefits for your SAG actors. These fringes are due for most contracts, but there is considerable leeway given for SAG’s smaller contracts, so talk to your SAG rep before budgeting for fringes. You may be able to defer or skirt some entirely.
When budgeting your actors, you’ll need to figure out how long they’re needed for. A good rule of thumb is to always budget for more days than you think. Most small films are always short on time and cash, and end up having to bring actors back for pickups.
A good AD (1st Assistant Director) or UPM (Unit Production Manager) will help you schedule your actors in a way that makes the most sense, as far as getting the most bang for your buck out of them, so make sure you hire the right AD/UPM before sitting down to budget your film.
Finally, take a breath. I know this is a lot. Making movies for me has always been: pick up the camera, grab some people, and go. But while SAG and other unions do have a way of slowing that whole process down and adding cost to your picture and making it less fun and perhaps more weighed down with paperwork, keep in mind: the truth is that going paying SAG actor rates gives you vastly more options in casting, makes many perceive your production as more legitimate and professional, and, generally speaking, pretty much separates the amateur actors from the professionals. (With the caveat, again, that not all SAG actors are necessarily great. It’s just that with relatively few exceptions, all great actors are pretty much SAG.)
So if you can get used to that fact and you can dial your film in on a SAG agreement that works for you, the rewards can far outweigh the drawbacks, in terms of performance, flexibility to fit your production’s style, schedule, and budget, and just pure professionalism. Not to mention getting you prepared for when you step up to the next level, where it’s pretty much pay SAG actor rates or nothing.
Hi
Any chance you could make a budget for something being produced in the UK ?
many thanks,
Alex