Open the film budget template and resist the urge to start typing numbers into account 1100. A template works when its structure does the arithmetic for you, and that only happens if you set up the parts that feed every line before you price anything. The order below is the one most line producers follow, whether they're in a spreadsheet or in Movie Magic Budgeting.
You'll need three documents open next to the template: the script breakdown, a draft schedule or stripboard, and the cast day out of days. If you don't have those yet, the budget you produce is a preliminary estimate, and it should be labeled that way. For what the finished document is and how financiers read it, start with what is a production budget.
Step one: fill in the globals block
Globals are the handful of values that nearly every labor and rental line multiplies by. Enter them once at the top of the template.
| Global | Example value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| PREP_WEEKS | 3 | Line producer's prep calendar |
| SHOOT_DAYS | 20 | Stripboard |
| SHOOT_WEEKS | 4 | 20 days / 5-day weeks |
| WRAP_WEEKS | 1 | Returns, final paperwork |
| POST_WEEKS | 16 | Editor's schedule to picture lock |
| HOURS_PER_DAY | 12 | Planned day length on the call sheet |
| CREW_HEADCOUNT | 38 | Crew list draft |
Now a camera operator line reads 1 x SHOOT_WEEKS x weekly rate, and a catering line reads CREW_HEADCOUNT x SHOOT_DAYS x cost per meal. If the producer asks what 22 days would cost, you change two globals and the template answers in a second. Without globals you'd hunt through 40 lines and miss three of them.
Step two: set up the fringe table
The fringe table is a short list of codes with a rate and, where applicable, a wage cap. Each labor line gets one or more codes.
| Code | Description | Rate | Cap per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| FICA | Employer Social Security | 6.2% | Annual wage base |
| MED | Employer Medicare | 1.45% | None |
| FUTA | Federal unemployment (net) | 0.6% | First $7,000 |
| SUI | State unemployment | from payroll company | State wage base |
| WC | Workers' comp | from payroll company | None |
| PAYR | Payroll company handling fee | from quote | None |
| UNION | Pension and health or benefits | per agreement | Varies |
The first three come from the IRS. The rest depend on your state, your payroll company, and any union agreement, so ask the payroll company for a rate sheet before you fill them in. Don't borrow a percentage from another production's budget. Film budget fringes walks through state examples.
Caps matter more than people expect. FUTA stops after $7,000 of wages per person per year, so a weekly crew member earning $2,000 a week hits it in the fourth week. A template that applies 0.6% to every week of a 12-week run overstates that line slightly. It's small on one person and adds up across a crew.
Step three: price each line with the four-part formula
Every detail line is amount x units x multiplier x rate. The multiplier is usually 1 but becomes 2 when you have two of the same thing, like two boom operators on a dialogue-heavy two-camera day.
Here's the camera account for the example production, built from the globals:
| Acct | Description | Amt | Units | X | Rate | Total | Fringe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3301 | Director of photography, prep | 2 | weeks | 1 | $3,500 | $7,000 | FICA MED FUTA SUI WC PAYR |
| 3301 | Director of photography, shoot | 4 | weeks | 1 | $3,500 | $14,000 | FICA MED FUTA SUI WC PAYR |
| 3302 | 1st AC, prep and shoot | 4.6 | weeks | 1 | $2,100 | $9,660 | FICA MED FUTA SUI WC PAYR |
| 3303 | 2nd AC, prep and shoot | 4.4 | weeks | 1 | $1,625 | $7,150 | FICA MED FUTA SUI WC PAYR |
| 3310 | Camera package rental | 4 | weeks | 1 | $4,800 | $19,200 | none |
| 3311 | Expendables and media | 20 | days | 1 | $85 | $1,700 | none |
Two things to notice. Prep for the ACs is entered as fractions of a week (3 prep days on a 5-day week is 0.6), which keeps the rate consistent. And the rental and expendables lines have no fringe code, because they aren't wages. If the camera package is quoted as a "three-day week" (a common rental-house term where a week costs three times the day rate), enter the weekly price the house quotes rather than multiplying the day rate by seven.
Step four: fill the lines that come from the breakdown
Some accounts are quantity problems more than rate problems. The breakdown and the schedule give you the quantities.
Start with locations, in the 3600s. For each location, count prep, shoot, and wrap days from the board. A house used for scenes 12, 14, 31, and 32 on shoot days 3 and 4, with a prep day and a restore day, is 4 fee days. At a $2,500 shoot-day fee and a $1,000 prep and restore fee, that's (2 x $2,500) + (2 x $1,000) = $7,000, before permits, police or fire, security, and neighbor payments. Location fees vary widely by city and property, so replace the example rates with real quotes as soon as the location manager has them.
Background sits in the 2100s. Add the background count on every scene scheduled for each day, take the largest simultaneous count per day (not the sum across scenes, if the same people cross over), and total by day. A day with a diner scene of 12 and a street scene of 20 using the same pool is 20 people, not 32.
Catering usually lives in the production or location accounts, and the math is CREW_HEADCOUNT plus cast and background on each day x meals per day x cost per meal. On a 12-hour day with a second meal, budget two meals. Craft service is usually a flat daily amount.
For per diem and lodging, if any of the crew travel, use the lodging and meal rates for the city as a check against quotes. The GSA publishes federal per diem rates by city, which many productions use as a reference point, though union agreements and deal memos set what you actually owe.
Step five: price above-the-line from deals and agreements
Writer, director, producer, and cast lines come from deal memos or, before deals exist, from placeholder amounts that the producer approves. Mark placeholders clearly (many templates use a "PH" note in the description column) so nobody reads them as agreed.
Cast lines for union performers should use the rate sheet for the agreement the production will sign, priced from the day out of days: work days, hold days, and travel days for day players; weeks for weekly players. Add the union's pension and health contribution as a fringe code, plus payroll taxes. If the production isn't signatory yet, check which tier the budget total puts it in before choosing the rate sheet; the tier projects post explains why that choice can move the total.
Step six: post, other costs, contingency
Post is where templates tend to be thin. Walk through the post schedule with whoever will supervise it and price editorial by weeks (editor and assistant editor x POST_WEEKS, plus edit system rental), then color, sound design, mix, music, VFX, titles, and deliverables as separate lines. VFX and music budgeting covers the two hardest accounts.
Then fill the "other" section: production insurance, E&O, legal, accounting, payroll service, publicity stills, and general office. Finally set contingency as a percentage of the total above and below the line. Ten percent is the common starting point. Check the top sheet formulas so contingency isn't calculated on itself.
Checks before you send it to anyone
Run these on the finished template:
- Change SHOOT_DAYS by one and confirm the total moves by a plausible amount. If it moves by nothing, lines are hardcoded.
- Sort detail lines by fringe code and confirm no rentals, purchases, kit fees, or per diem have a wage fringe on them.
- Confirm every weekly crew line has prep and wrap as well as shoot time.
- Search for placeholders and make sure the producer has signed off on each.
- Compare the above-the-line share and the post share with a comparable film you know. Big differences need a reason.
- Check that the top sheet total equals the sum of the detail pages. Broken SUM ranges are the single most common spreadsheet error in circulated budgets.
Mistakes that show up on the day
A template filled from national averages instead of local quotes looks fine until the first rental invoice. A budget with no prep for the art department looks fine until the production designer's deal memo arrives with six weeks on it. A background line priced at the largest scene count on the day, instead of the pool, looks conservative until someone cuts the wrong thing to pay for it. And a fringe table copied from a California show and used in Georgia gets the state taxes wrong on every labor line.
The worst one is sending out a spreadsheet with a hardcoded total on the top sheet. Once financiers have seen a number, it's very hard to change.
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
A spreadsheet template is fine for shorts and most indie features. Productions move to dedicated budgeting software when they need multiple budget versions tied to the same detail, formal fringe and global libraries, and exports that a studio or bond company will accept without re-entry. Storiara's Budget module is another route for early passes: it calculates a first budget from the project's breakdown, schedule, and cast and crew entries, organized into above-the-line, below-the-line, post, and other sections with account codes, and exports to Excel so you can keep working in a template like this one.
For a finished one-page summary to send with a pitch, use the budget top sheet template. For a feature under $2 million, the indie film budget template has accounts sized for that range, and the film budget estimator gives a quick range before you open either.