Basic Budgeting: How to do a budget for anything over 20K!

Here's a quick and easy guide to budget a film for anything over 20k, which is a number small enough to probably use a word doc alone! Here's a great strategy to make it happen more easily!



1) Have a completed screenplay, schedule (made in movie magic scheduling) and day out of days if possible.


2) Set your ideal target SAG budget range if going union:

Micro-Budget: $20,000 (Very low cost)

Ultra Low Budget: $300,000

Moderate Low Budget: $700,000

Low Budget Agreement: $2,000,000

Basic Theatrical Agreement: $2,000,000 above


3) Just a note, a good rule of thumb is to think about the budget in these types of percentages:

ATL - 40- 50%
BTL - 40%
Post and everything - 20%


ATL - 40% per below

1-3% writer
5%  producer
3-5% director
25% Cast
2% to play with


4) Next click here to use Rivet.ai if you want to and pay $250 you have them generate figures for your budget based on basic information - while I don't believe ai should be used in filmmaking on the creative side, I think it has business uses that can help producers! Also, once it generates this budget, you should modify the numbers a bit to your needs.


5) Next, take the ai budget and then take those numbers and input them yourself into movie magic budgeting until you get a final budget! This can then be utilized and updated as needed!