The Art of Scheduling a Film
Even if you have a definitive budget, you need to break down all the elements
of your film to determine how to distribute the money you have. These breakdowns also help you figure out how many days it will take to shoot your film.
You have to make your budget fit your schedule, so be prepared to do some juggling. If you’re on a tight budget, you won’t have the luxury of shooting your film
over a period of several months. Your budget may only allow you to schedule a
12-day shoot (every additional day is going to cost you money). Juggling includes
consolidating scenes. If you can shoot the scene in the cave in two days instead
of three, and the breaking-up scene in the car, instead of in the shopping mall,
you’ll be able to shorten your schedule, thus saving time and money.
Scheduling a film is like playing with a Rubik’s Cube, where you keep turning
and adjusting and twisting and tweaking until the elements fall into place.
And scheduling your film efficiently is essential to saving time and money.
Scheduling your film includes
Lining the script by going through and marking items such as actors,
props, wardrobe, and special effects
Putting those items on individual breakdown sheets, each representing
one scene from the film
Transferring the elements on the breakdown sheets to production board
strips
Rearranging the order of production strips to find the best shooting
schedule
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Paying later: Deferments or points
One of the ways to save money on cast and crew is to set up an arrangement
whereby you pay crew members some of their pay later for the work they
perform on your film. There are two ways you can do this:
Deferments: With deferments, you defer some of the crew members’
salaries. Deferments work by paying your crew a small amount up front
(if possible) and a larger amount in deferred pay if and when you start
seeing a profit from your film’s sales. I recommend using deferments
especially if you can pay something small up front; that way, you haven’t
taken advantage of the crew member.
Points: Points are similar to deferments, except that instead of a
deferred salary of a specific amount, you reward the crew with one or
more points to be paid if and when the film starts to make money. One
point may be 1 percent of the profits of the film. If the film makes a lot of
money, points continue to add up and continue to be paid as long as the
film makes money.
Offering points or negotiating deferments are good incentives to offer crew
when you don’t have enough money to pay them what they’re worth up front.
Doing so also lets you save money up front, money that you can put up on
the screen (into the actual production) and enhance the production values of
your film.