4. Stretching your Budget

When you are first conceiving your film, don’t think about the budget. Write your story first. Budgeting is the creative act of figuring out how to do justice to your idea in a way that doesn’t reveal that you are a struggling independent filmmaker.

Mira has always managed to fit the size of her budget in an interesting way without the need of being apologetic. Sometimes, as with Salaam Bombay!, she spends the majority of her money on high quality cinematography to guarantee that the film will look incredible on the big screen. For instance, the climax of the film takes place within the public spectacle of a Ganapati festival for the elephant god Ganesha. Rather than staging this event with hundreds of paid extras, Mira filmed during the actual festivities, protecting her main characters inside a small circle of actors who themselves were surrounded by the surging crowd. Because the budget allowed for only one camera, the strategy required careful advance planning to block the action and identify where to place the cinematographer and actors. The result was a grandly scaled set piece that effectively disguised the low budget.

Mira calls pre-production “cheap time”, because you can afford to really think through how to stretch your budget in preparation for the much more expensive phase of production and shooting. Such pre-planning is vital to preserving the intention and scale of your film. The cinematographer, locations manager, and script supervisor are your three most important collaborators in this endeavor. Together, scope out each scene on location, and design what will be the most effective vantage points for the camera. Your script supervisor will advise you as to how to maintain continuity, or self-consistent details, in your coverage of the various actions from scene to scene. (For instance, if a crowd riots at the sight of a gun, then you had better film a close-up of the gun!) The result will be a shot breakdown that serves as a helpful ‘table of contents,’ a kind of checklist that helps you to determine exactly which shots you need to get, and how to organize your production timeline to minimize costs and maximize your efficiency.

Throughout the shooting of your film, plan to collect a “bank of images” that don’t necessarily fall strictly under your scheduled shot list. Breathing space is essential for every films. In the edit room we may discover the need to show the passage of time, evoke a space, Or it's just can be a simply transition between locations.

Some directors schedule a day or more of pick-up shots and so does Mira. She believes in filming a bank of shots that can be used in many ways in the edit. Work with your cinematographer to make sure they understand what visuals you are excited by, and encourage them to explore the potential of each location. It could be a bird lands on a telephone wire, for instance. film that bird and put the image in “the bank.” Who can say, when it may come in handy.

Use natural elements to your advantage whenever possible. Instead of artificially staging weather conditions with expensive equipment like rain machines, wait to film your scene during an actual rainstorm. Mira recommends going into every exterior shoot with a plan A, when the sky is sunny and blue, and a plan B, where if it rains, you switch gears immediately to take advantage of the weather. Your film will look big budget, even when it’s not—but you have to plan effectively.

You must plan for worst-case scenarios and figure out how to turn them to your advantage. After the initial shooting for Monsoon Wedding had wrapped, four days of film reels were compromised due to X-ray damage while being shipped to New York. Rather than despairing, Mira had those reels processed anyway, and cut her rough cut with the damaged footage. Meanwhile, she applied for and was granted an insurance claim. She used the money for reshoots, but since she had already cut the film, she was able to assess the story for areas of improvement. She decided that more rain was needed, and was now able to afford rain machines for a key scene showing the bride caught in her car with her lover, and pulled into the drenching rain by the police. The seemingly disastrous loss of footage made possible one of the most visually striking scenes in the film.

To market their films to audiences, studios often rely on big name actors. But more money costs for big name. Carefully weigh the worth of different casting possibilities. It's not a very wise decision to spend a lot of money on a small role. It's just to give the film a boost in name recognition, nothing else. Instead, invest money in an actor who will raise the bar for the rest of the cast. For example, in Monsoon Wedding, the patriarch and center of the family is the character of Lalit Verma, the father of the bride. Because this role would affect the casting of every character around him, a truly great performer would be needed. Mira relied on the legendary actor Naseeruddin Shah, whose presence was enough to elevate everyone else’s performances. Mira used a variation of this principle in the casting of an unknown actor, Riz Ahmed, as the lead in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.The combination of established and lesser-known actors sharing the screen together resulted in stronger performances throughout the film.

LEARN MORE

Whether or not you’ve secured funding for your project, you should estimate how much your current vision will cost. If this is your first film, it’s hard to know where to start. The following resources will help you get the ball rolling, create a sensible budget, and begin planning a realistic production timeline.

Producer to Producer: Step-by-Step Guide to Low-Budget Independent Film Producing, 2nd Edition by Maureen Ryan (Michael Wiese Productions, 2017). This comprehensive guidebook is geared to emerging producers, and covers every aspect of the film-production process, from script development to marketing and distribution. Particularly relevant are chapters two (script breakdown), three (budgeting), and eleven (scheduling). Notably, the book features a helpful series of checklists (also available on a companion website) to help keep you on target for each stage of the project.

    Scheduling and Budgeting Your Film: Panic-Free Guide by Paula Landry (Focal Press, 2011). This clear and easy-to-read book explains the fundamentals of line producing, or managing a film’s budget,with tips for how to create shot breakdowns, organizing an efficient production schedule, accurately pricing costs, and optimizing each shoot.

         StudioBinder provides customizable solutions for production managers, such as script breakdowns, shot lists, storyboards, shooting schedules, contact lists, task management and calendars, and more. Available at several different subscription levels, as well as for a free trial, the website also publishes a helpful blog filled with tips and ‘hacks’ for preproduction.

DID YOU KNOW?

The term ‘blocking’ is thought to come from Victorian-era drama, when show runners such as Gilbert and Sullivan would plan their productions by first creating a miniature model of the film set. And then to represent the actors using thin blocks of wood . Today, the term has evolved to mean working with performers to figure out their body positions, gestures, and movements on stage. In cinema, blocking also involves working out the placement and movements of the camera, and can impact the lighting, set design, and more. It is thus an essential part of the planning process during preproduction.

Blocking can be an art unto itself, and is similar in many ways to dance choreography. What is the "doing" of the characters in the scene? How can their motions embody the text? The movements of actors can be crafted during the rehearsal process in artful ways that reveal additional subtext in the dialogue, as well as reflect the relationships between characters, the viewer’s focus should be directed, and create effective compositions for the camera.

In this Class, blocking will be explored in more depth beginning with Chapter 8: Scene Workshop: Read-Through and Blocking. 

ASSIGNMENT

Part 1: Breaking Down Your Script

After completing your screenplay, there is an intermediary step you should take before drafting your production budget—create a script breakdown of all the production elements that will be required to tell your story. Begin by printing out your script and dividing each page into eight parts (you should literally draw horizontal lines across the page to delineate eight equal units of writing). This will help you examine your script in microscopic detail and ensure that you don’t miss anything. Next, gather a half a dozen or more highlighters of various colors. Comb through every page and every scene of the script, and designate a different color for each of the following elements:

Characters and extras: Identify each and every role that is explicitly mentioned in the script. You will then be able to draw up a cast list for your film, and estimate how much screen time each cast member will get. The general rule of thumb is that one page of the script equals approximately one minute of runtime in the final film. Realistically, an indie film should be able to shoot about two or three pages per day—so you can then extrapolate from that the number of shoot days needed. Record the expected time commitment from each actor and use that figure to estimate salary.

Props, furniture, and costumes: Identify every material object that is needed to ‘dress’ the world of your script, and then research and calculate the rental and purchasing costs for these items.

Vehicles and animals: Identify each instance that a character drives a vehicle or interacts with a pet or animal. These involve special considerations, such as insurance and appropriate handlers, that will impact costs.

Sounds and music: Most audio will be added in post, but take special note of instances where actors need to react to something audible in real time. Budget for any on-set Foley sounds or live music that is specified in the script.

Effects and make-up: Depending on the nature of your script, you may also identify instances where practical effects will be needed, such as fire or rain, or special makeup effects such as prosthetics, blood, or aging techniques.

Stunts: Action films aren’t the only genre to involve risky scenes for actors. Identify any potentially unsafe maneuvers in your film, and consult with a stunt coordinator to estimate cost for shooting those scenes safely.

You won’t be able to arrive at a realistic budget estimate until you itemize every potential expense in your screenplay, in addition to the daily salaries of your crew. The script breakdown is an essential prerequisite to production, and will help you identify ways to save money by calling out disproportionately pricey elements. Figure out what can be cut without losing anything essential for the story, and how to get the most bang for your buck.

 

Part 2: Storyboarding

Your Shot List Related to the script breakdown is the shot list. In the same way that you combed through the script for production elements, you should examine every scene to determine the kind of coverage—wide shot, close-ups, dolly shots, et cetera—you need in order to tell your story visually. As Mira suggests, this process is best done in close collaboration with your cinematographer.

For the truly complex set pieces in your film, you may want to work with a storyboard artist to help you visualize the framing, movement, and sequence of shots that you will use to tell your story. Think of the storyboard as how a graphic novelization would be of your script, where each panel will represent a new camera angle or a key moment in the action. The aim of storyboarding is twofold: to ensure that you get all the coverage you need on set to craft a coherent and exciting story in the edit room, and to do so in an economical way, so as to avoid spending time and money filming unnecessary shots.

Mira found storyboarding to be essential when planning a climactic action sequence for The Reluctant Fundamentalist, when an innocent bystander is shot in the midst of the chaos of a restless crowd, triggering a riot. The storyboard that her team created is included on the following page and is exclusive to this Class workbook. Inspect the panels in sequence, taking the time to visualize each drawing in your mind’s eye as though it were a freeze frame from the film. As you piece together the action, note the use of graphical arrows to show motion, including the movements of actors out of the frame or into a car, for instance, as well as the expected motion of the camera, including tilts, pans, and zooms.

If you want to compare this early visualization with the final edit, rent or stream The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The riot scene begins at 1 hour 55 minutes, runs for three minutes, and took 13 pages and 38 panels to storyboard. Examine how closely the two products match, and note places where the cinematography and editing diverge from the artist’s original rendering. Although there are considerable differences, you should be able to spot key moments that were retained from start to finish.

Choose one of the more complex sequences in your own film, and work with your cinematographer to scope out a vision for the scene. 

List all of the shots that you anticipate needing as raw material, and then work with a storyboard artist to map them out in a proposed sequence for the edit. If you need help finding an experienced and qualified artist, consider starting your search on Jorgen’s List, Upwork, or the public Facebook group “Frame Dump.”