Budget Top Sheet or Detailed Budget?

As a filmmaker, you know that the investment phase can make or break the success of your movie. This process, when done correctly, will assure that the budget is planned wisely, the necessary funds are secured, and chaos will be avoided when you are shooting your film. When you are in the pre-planning stage of filmmaking, the first thing you’ll need is a Detailed Budget created for your script. From the detailed budget, a Budget Top Sheet will be created which provides a 1-2 page summary including every major line item from Development to Deliverables – giving you and your financiers a snapshot of the total cost.

These are essential documents for potential investors to review when determining if they want to invest in your film. A well-constructed Budget Top Sheet can go a long way in convincing investors that you have the ability to produce a quality film and bring them a reasonable return-on-investment (ROI).

What you might not know about the movie Budget Top Sheet is that creating one is as much of an art as it is a science; and this document will greatly influence the direction of how your movie gets made.

Why?

When you are creating a movie, you are going to need to budget for everything that is required to produce your film. These include but are not limited to: cast, crew, equipment, director, producer, locations, transportation, post-production, and deliverables.

Even though these same basic types of expenditures occur from production to production, how you budget for each one is best determined by your priorities and the scale of the movie being made.

What do we mean by this?

The Detailed Budget and Budget Top Sheet are not strictly fill-in-the-blank documents. For example, if your movie is a period piece set in the past, then you might need to budget more for production design, set dressing, props, vehicles, and costumes. Likewise, if your movie is a comedy or drama, then you probably need to make sure you have enough to pay for top talent.

Furthermore, unforeseen expenditures happen during the course of any given shoot. These include everything from cast and crew overtime, to unexpected security, parking, and transportation expenses. Very often, these unforeseen production costs are overlooked by first-time filmmakers.

Knowing how to create a balanced, realistic, and effective Budget Top Sheet is something that takes vision, attention to detail, and experience.

For these reasons and numerous others, it is best to trust the creation of your Budget Top Sheet to an experienced movie budgeting consulting service, such as Film Budget Pro.

FILM BUDGET PRO ANECDOTE: We have had a number of clients approach us and request a Budget Top Sheet that matches a predetermined bottom line total they have already presented to investors. Often this ‘bottom line total’ was just a guess at what the film should cost and wasn’t based upon a Detailed Budget being created from a breakdown of the script. Then after the Detailed Budget has been created, the resulting Budget Top Sheet bottom line total is much higher. It probably goes without saying that this creates an awkward situation when these clients needed to explain to their prospective investors why the bottom line has changed.

Are you beginning to see how creating a budget that effectively addresses the needs of your particular movie is critical? And this process can only be revealed by your having a Detailed Budget created and thus generating the Budget Top Sheet. The accuracy of the Budget is paramount to securing the right amount of funding for your movie.

Whether you decide to order a Detailed Budget or start with a Budget Top Sheet, working with Film Budget Pro is extremely easy.

You simply complete our Script Questionnaire that helps us to familiarize ourselves with the critical assumptions of your project. After reading your script, we will then conduct a phone call or meeting with you to further understand the vision you have for your script. Using all of this information, we then create the Detailed Budget which will generate the Budget Top Sheet.

We offer the Budget Top Sheet service as the first step to easily assess the bottom line total for your project. You can be certain that each of your movie’s key expense categories are provided in this PDF file document, because we use the same careful process when creating the Budget Top Sheet that we do building the Detailed Budget. While we always recommend ordering the Detailed Budget service, the Budget Top Sheet is a good first solution when you are working with a limited development budget. When the Detailed Budget becomes pivotal to you, the fee paid for the Budget Top Sheet can be applied towards the fee for that service.

Our turnaround time on the Budget Top Sheet is typically 2-3 business days.

At Film Budget Pro, we are passionate about helping filmmakers develop a roadmap to achieving their vision for their films.

With our combined 30 years experience in the movie production industry, we possess the knowledge and foresight to avoid budgeting pitfalls, and start your movie off in the right direction with a Budget Top Sheet that has been created by building a Detailed Budget.

Contact Us and get started today. The sooner we start creating your Budget Top Sheet, the sooner you can present this essential document to your investors and you can get into production!