Budgeting Sound for Film
The Right Script is Paramount
Before you move on to budgeting for sound, it is imperative that you have a really good script. Budgeting for the script first will allow you to budget seamlessly for everything else. It's best to have a script written by a screenwriter, or at least given to a good writer to edit, to make the three stages of filmmaking smoother.
Budgeting also starts with a healthy frame of mind and respect. With a good script, and a great respect for constructive criticism, each department will be able to add value to the project. This attitude toward the different departments is where the foundation of a good budget stands. Paying each department and trusting them is the highest privilege, and an expression of great respect. Not only does it feel good to pay a screenwriter and to trust the adjustments they add to the story, but so does paying a sound designer to contribute to the process.
Before you move on to budgeting for sound, it is imperative that you have a really good script. Budgeting for the script first will allow you to budget seamlessly for everything else. It's best to have a script written by a screenwriter, or at least given to a good writer to edit, to make the three stages of filmmaking smoother.
Budgeting also starts with a healthy frame of mind and respect. With a good script, and a great respect for constructive criticism, each department will be able to add value to the project. This attitude toward the different departments is where the foundation of a good budget stands. Paying each department and trusting them is the highest privilege, and an expression of great respect. Not only does it feel good to pay a screenwriter and to trust the adjustments they add to the story, but so does paying a sound designer to contribute to the process.
How Much Money to Budget for Sound
There is no exact figure to offer for how much money should be budgeted for sound. But the things you will need in preproduction are the same as production. The recordist needs to test the locations for sound, record during rehearsals, and have access to good microphones (for rent or purchase), a boom, and a user-friendly, good-quality recording mixer. All these needs mean time and money. On average the sound budget for a director/producer to consider is 5 percent of the overall budget. That 5 percent figure goes to the entire postproduction sound (not including music composition). This means that on a million dollar project, $50,000 goes to postproduction sound. Use this percentage on your own film budgets and it will come out to the same ratio of your overall film budget.
This doesn't include music in the sound department budget, not because music is not part of the sound department's team, they are, but rather, to emphasize that music --as something to spend money on -- is based on the cost of the composer, and that is separate. An A-List composer would cost more than a B-List composer, much like A-List actors are more expensive than B-List actors.
There is no exact figure to offer for how much money should be budgeted for sound. But the things you will need in preproduction are the same as production. The recordist needs to test the locations for sound, record during rehearsals, and have access to good microphones (for rent or purchase), a boom, and a user-friendly, good-quality recording mixer. All these needs mean time and money. On average the sound budget for a director/producer to consider is 5 percent of the overall budget. That 5 percent figure goes to the entire postproduction sound (not including music composition). This means that on a million dollar project, $50,000 goes to postproduction sound. Use this percentage on your own film budgets and it will come out to the same ratio of your overall film budget.
This doesn't include music in the sound department budget, not because music is not part of the sound department's team, they are, but rather, to emphasize that music --as something to spend money on -- is based on the cost of the composer, and that is separate. An A-List composer would cost more than a B-List composer, much like A-List actors are more expensive than B-List actors.
Misconceptions about Low-Budget Filmmaking
- Mega-Budget film tips are out of touch with the low-budget film realities -
When it comes to understanding budgets, most film students hunt for behind-the-scenes footage from large production films. While this is a good idea, many of these multimillion dollar projects don't have good tips for independent filming, leaving new filmmakers with few skills to evaluate their projects with. And in the end, they find that dubbing or faulty recording reveals the amateurism of the talent behind the project.
- Many Low-Budget film directors don't understand location sound -
On FilmSound.org, a question is posed asking why many "B" movies are almost entirely post dubbed, since that process is more expensive than recording on set. filmsound.org/QA/lowbudget-sound.htm
This common problem repeats mainly because it's often hard for directors to get excited about sound. They get more excited about cameras, the latest software, and incredible ways to capture their visual vision. The auditory vision gets dismissed simply because they allow sound to be unconsciously embedded with the mental image that it gets missed as something that is constructed.
Here is an example scenario:
A new director finds the perfect coffee shop with an exterior table on a New York sidewalk. The beauty of what he or she is trying to convey is perfect. Everything about the image is perfect. The actors look perfect in the scene, and it's everything the director wants. The scene gets shot on the best cameras at sunset with everything looking visually stunning. Free extras, helpful crew, cheap price on the location, and the lines are said with precise emotion.
However, when it goes to the sound department, what they see and hear immediately is a nightmare. The actors are talking over traffic, and because it is Summer, an overhead fan is blowing over the actors almost rhythmically in between each line. On one character's shot there is a siren in the distance that gets picked up by the mic. But the director pays no attention, because he has an unrealistic perspective of technology. The director cares so much about the visual that he forgets how all these shots will be cut together in the final edit.
So the final edit comes along and on shot there is a siren, and the next edit of the other actor no siren, but a large fan and traffic honking. On the next edit, siren, and then on the next no siren, all happening with traffic ambiances going hot.
In this scenario, by the time the film reaches the sound department, it's a classic story. The director calmly sits with the sound editor and views the film containing all of the unwanted noise, and is immediately concerned and begins pointing fingers. The director says, "You need to fix this." But the sound editor says that they can't. Then the director replies, "But there are filters for that, right?" And the sound editor says that there are, but they are only for last resort and they can't fix everything. Besides that, the man-hours involved in editing would go through the roof. Furthermore, the sound editor informs the director that the unclean dialogue will need to be re-recorded, because the overlapping sounds (traffic, fans, sirens) on the recording can't be taken out since it was recorded with the dialogue.
This scenario is so common, because sound is so subconscious—it's hard to conceive how it is constructed for storytelling. It should be recorded and edited for developing a scene, actually chosen layer by layer, piece by piece, and so recording all these sounds in one shot and on a singular track limits these options for a director, sound editor, and sound designer.
The point of sound in a story is to lead the audience to feel as if they are part of the story. If the edited audio does not convey a sense of reality, then the audience will never be able to fully enter into the story, and they will find themselves checking out. This is a crucial concept that is important to grasp in order to have the right perspective for a sound budget.
In a nutshell, save more money than you think you will need for sound in your budget.
This common problem repeats mainly because it's often hard for directors to get excited about sound. They get more excited about cameras, the latest software, and incredible ways to capture their visual vision. The auditory vision gets dismissed simply because they allow sound to be unconsciously embedded with the mental image that it gets missed as something that is constructed.
Here is an example scenario:
A new director finds the perfect coffee shop with an exterior table on a New York sidewalk. The beauty of what he or she is trying to convey is perfect. Everything about the image is perfect. The actors look perfect in the scene, and it's everything the director wants. The scene gets shot on the best cameras at sunset with everything looking visually stunning. Free extras, helpful crew, cheap price on the location, and the lines are said with precise emotion.
However, when it goes to the sound department, what they see and hear immediately is a nightmare. The actors are talking over traffic, and because it is Summer, an overhead fan is blowing over the actors almost rhythmically in between each line. On one character's shot there is a siren in the distance that gets picked up by the mic. But the director pays no attention, because he has an unrealistic perspective of technology. The director cares so much about the visual that he forgets how all these shots will be cut together in the final edit.
So the final edit comes along and on shot there is a siren, and the next edit of the other actor no siren, but a large fan and traffic honking. On the next edit, siren, and then on the next no siren, all happening with traffic ambiances going hot.
In this scenario, by the time the film reaches the sound department, it's a classic story. The director calmly sits with the sound editor and views the film containing all of the unwanted noise, and is immediately concerned and begins pointing fingers. The director says, "You need to fix this." But the sound editor says that they can't. Then the director replies, "But there are filters for that, right?" And the sound editor says that there are, but they are only for last resort and they can't fix everything. Besides that, the man-hours involved in editing would go through the roof. Furthermore, the sound editor informs the director that the unclean dialogue will need to be re-recorded, because the overlapping sounds (traffic, fans, sirens) on the recording can't be taken out since it was recorded with the dialogue.
This scenario is so common, because sound is so subconscious—it's hard to conceive how it is constructed for storytelling. It should be recorded and edited for developing a scene, actually chosen layer by layer, piece by piece, and so recording all these sounds in one shot and on a singular track limits these options for a director, sound editor, and sound designer.
The point of sound in a story is to lead the audience to feel as if they are part of the story. If the edited audio does not convey a sense of reality, then the audience will never be able to fully enter into the story, and they will find themselves checking out. This is a crucial concept that is important to grasp in order to have the right perspective for a sound budget.
In a nutshell, save more money than you think you will need for sound in your budget.
A Professional's Advice
". . . filmmakers with no money to spend on their films probably won't get many useful tips from behind-the-scenes DVDs about hundred million dollar movies. The terrible truth about nearly all low budget movies is that they have abysmally bad scripts.
Unfortunately, since the filmmaker has usually written the script him/herself, she/he is under the delusion that the script is fine, and what they need is a good DP. Moderately good DPs are fairly easy to find, and they are desperate to show what they can do.
A byproduct of showing what they can do is that they monomaniacally dominate the set, making it impossible to record good sound. That's why many low budget movies look OK, and sound bad. Even if they have reasonably good actors . . . and many of them do because reasonably good actors are also easy to find and desperate to show what they can do . . . the acting will seem bad because only a genius actor can turn a poorly written scene into something interesting.
So, most filmmakers with small budgets should spend most of their money on the script, by hiring someone to write it who has some idea of how to write a film. If the script is good, or even if there is a really good scene or two, it'll be easy to find people, even sound people, who know what they are doing to work on the movie for little or nothing."
- Randy Thom lowbudgetsound.blogspot.com
Resources
Below are some web resources and sample budget and legal forms that will come in handy
short_film_agreement_1_13.pdf | |
File Size: | 621 kb |
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ultra_low_budget_agreement_1_9.pdf | |
File Size: | 1090 kb |
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modified_low_budget_agreement_1_7.pdf | |
File Size: | 1130 kb |
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low_budget_ageement_1_5.pdf | |
File Size: | 1093 kb |
File Type: |
preliminary_information_sheet_student_short_film_4_23.pdf | |
File Size: | 1163 kb |
File Type: |
preliminary_information_sheet_low_budget_modified_low_budget_ultra_low_budget_4_22.pdf | |
File Size: | 757 kb |
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diversity-in-casting-incentive-information.pdf | |
File Size: | 164 kb |
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background-performer-incentive-information.pdf | |
File Size: | 132 kb |
File Type: |
5_million_feature-5th.xls | |
File Size: | 134 kb |
File Type: | xls |
digital_feature_budget-5th.xls | |
File Size: | 80 kb |
File Type: | xls |
digital__no_budget__feature-5th.xls | |
File Size: | 56 kb |
File Type: | xls |
documentary-tape-5th.xls | |
File Size: | 42 kb |
File Type: | xls |
industrial_budget-5th.xls | |
File Size: | 55 kb |
File Type: | xls |
music_video-5th.xls | |
File Size: | 52 kb |
File Type: | xls |
student_film-5th.xls | |
File Size: | 54 kb |
File Type: | xls |
sample_financials.xls | |
File Size: | 176 kb |
File Type: | xls |
blank_financials.xls | |
File Size: | 175 kb |
File Type: | xls |
In-Class Assignment
Although it is imperative that you obtain a great script and place heavy emphasis on quality audio, the low-budget filmmaker still needs a budgeting guideline to follow.
The basic guideline of 30-60-10 is a good place to start, with 30% of the total budget going to the main players (producer, director, writer, and cast), 60% going toward production costs, and 10% left for post-production. This is not a one-size-fits-all budget, but it is a fantastic place to start.
Today, you will be given a dollar amount to budget out an independent feature film. You will use the following percentage guidelines to determine the amount of money you will be allotting each position.
Download the Independent Film Budget doc below, get your total dollar amount from your instructor, and begin calculating each line.
Save your doc as LASTNAME.budget.docx and turn into Blackboard. This will be due Sunday night by 11:59pm. Late entries will receive a ZERO grade.
The basic guideline of 30-60-10 is a good place to start, with 30% of the total budget going to the main players (producer, director, writer, and cast), 60% going toward production costs, and 10% left for post-production. This is not a one-size-fits-all budget, but it is a fantastic place to start.
Today, you will be given a dollar amount to budget out an independent feature film. You will use the following percentage guidelines to determine the amount of money you will be allotting each position.
Download the Independent Film Budget doc below, get your total dollar amount from your instructor, and begin calculating each line.
Save your doc as LASTNAME.budget.docx and turn into Blackboard. This will be due Sunday night by 11:59pm. Late entries will receive a ZERO grade.
independent_film_budget.docx | |
File Size: | 112 kb |
File Type: | docx |