Throughout production my aim was to keep on top of the money that we were spending from the budget. This meant that if either Katie or Alex asked about the money that was left in the budget I could bring up the expenditure log and show them. If I hadn't kept track of each and every bit of money spent then I wouldn't be up-to-date with how much money we were spending and then we may have gone over the budget without knowing. The importance of keeping track of the budget was shown when we had to extend the allowance when we were getting low for the re-shoot. As I now know we went over the budget, if I hadn't kept an eye on our outgoings, we may have gone over without realising.
I used the money expenditure log for exactly what it was meant for. I researched into ways to keep track of a budget in a previous blog post Handling the Budget During Production and the expenditure log seemed the most suitable method for me. As we progressed through the production period, I filled out the table with our outgoings. As the expenditure log is predominantly meant to record outgoings rather than income, any income I received, such as any clothing / prop returns I made within the 30 day store policy or any additional donations, I highlighted these in green so it was clear to see what was income rather than outgoings.
I initially researched into budgeting in the pre-production unit. While I was creating the budget and slowly deducting and adding amounts to the total, I kept in mind indie producer, Jennifer Westin's, advice. She suggested to have "a 'home base' location" (Westin, 2014) during production. I carried this forward in terms of each day we were outside on location we had an area inside where we could have a break. This area was used for somewhere to meet with the crew before hand and somewhere we could welcome the cast. When we filmed for two days at the Owl Academy, we had a small base area which was outside. All the other outside locations had bases inside, for example, in Margate we were based at the house we used for Sheila's house in the film. We also did this in the re-shoot as I wanted to act just as professionally in the re-shoot as we did in the main shoot week. In addition to this, on the final filming day in the main shoot week we were also primarily filming outside, scene 2, when Tim meets Luke and sees the van for the first time. However, as we did in Margate, we based ourselves in a house which was a 3 minute drive away. Although Jennifer's initial advice was to have "one primary location" (Westin, 2014) for the entirety of filming, due to the distance between each of our locations, this was impossible. Nevertheless, as part of my location hunting, I made sure we had a separate 'home base' for each location where our cast and crew could have a break. Jennifer also advised to "not have the whole film set in one location" (Westin, 2014). From the pre-production unit, I had each location confirmed and we already knew that the majority of the scenes were filmed in different locations. Fortunately, we didn't have to pay for any of our locations otherwise this may have had a negative impact on the budget.
Jennifer suggested to "shoot while locations are open" (Westin, 2014) as a location owner is more likely to charge if you want to shoot while they're shut. This would mean staff having to open up the premise when they're not meant to be in. I kept this in mind when organising the shoot day at The Bell Inn. When I was in contact with The Bell Inn landlord, I offered to either arrange the shoot for just before they open or when they are open. I let the landlord decide as I would rather film around his times rather than getting them in the pub when they're not meant to. I did this in order to prevent paying for the location. The pub opens for the public at 11.30am and he said he would be in the building from 9am which would suit him. This worked well because although the pub wasn't open for the public, the landlord and other staff members were in from 9am and they were happy for us to film from that time.
Re-shoot travel expenditure log
To keep the two travel expenditure logs separate, I created a new one for the re-shoot (see the main travel log in blog post Budget Before Re-shoot). I felt the need to create a new travel log, but not a new main money expenditure log as the budget was constantly changing and it made sense to continue this throughout the whole of the production and re-shoot period. Yet, creating two smaller travel logs instead of adding it all onto one and making one larger log made most sense to me. Below is the re-shoot travel log. It is smaller than the main travel log as we only re-shot once and conducted the voice over day. As I did on the main shooting period, I reimbursed the cast and crew the day after we finished filming. They took time out of their day to come and work with us so I wanted to reimburse them as soon as I could.
Comparison from estimated to actual budget
During the pre-production unit I overestimated some aspects of the budget in order to prevent going over the budget, however, this didn't quite go to plan. I overestimated on aspects such as the food for the shoot days, especially when we ate out as it was impossible to guess how much each person would spend. These days in particular were the days in which we actually saved money. Although I said that the cast and crew could get whatever food they want, they all ordered respectful amounts which I am very grateful for. This would be the reason as to why we underspent on these days. However, we overspent on a few more aspects which would have led to going over the budget. Van insurance was underestimated - when I calculated the price in the previous unit, I found the insurance for £88, however, as insurance prices are always changing I couldn't set this as the actual price. Reflecting back on the estimated budget now, I feel that I should have overestimated the van insurance as I know from my own car insurance that prices are always changing. Unfortunately I didn't think of this at the time. Nevertheless, in the main shoot week we spent £209 on the van insurance and I know for a fact that I wouldn't have overestimated that much, so we still would have been over budget on that. I also didn't factor in van insurance into the re-shoot costs, in case we had to use the van again for Tim. It was inevitable that Alex was going to have to use the van again as the van is at most locations.
Although I included food costs for the crew in the estimated budget, Katie, Alex and I agreed to try and sort the travel for the crew ourselves to save money. This didn't go to plan due to circumstances such as Katie not being able to drive her car over the shoot week and the fact that the van only had two front seats. As a result of this, Alix had to get the train to each location and Katthaliya drove herself to the locations. They were both completely fine with this, it just meant spending more money out of the budget. Beth and Harriet I was able to take to the different locations as they live local to me so there was no extra expense there and I was also able to drive Gina on her days. When Aidan helped us out, Alex was able to drive him in the spare seat of the van. In addition to this, Alex Baldwin, George and Jack didn't want any reimbursements for their fuel, which we were really grateful for.
We were initially under budget for costumes as I only had to buy two hoodies for Tim and Luke and a cardigan for Sheila. As I explained in the previous unit, I only brought cheap clothes due to the fact we were going to get them dirty and we didn't want to spend too much on clothing that had the intention of getting dirty. However, closer to the shoot week I felt it would be best to buy a few more hoodies and cardigans so we had more than one chance to get the blood stains accurate. As Tim get's covered in blood when he slips and pierces the dog I thought that he would be needing more costumes that the other two characters. Especially with the fact that Luke and Sheila only get a hand print on their shoulders, this is more controlled than spraying blood over someone. As a result of this, I felt confident in getting a few more black hoodies for Tim and a fewer amount of grey hoodies and cardigans. Altogether, I had 4 black hoodies, 3 grey hoodies and 3 cardigans. Surprisingly, when it came to shooting we only used one hoodie for Tim but we used 2 out of 3 of the grey hoodies and cardigans. This was still a success as I had enough grey hoodies and cardigans for the amount of times we tried the blood hand print. Luckily for the re-shoot I was able to wash the hoodies and cardigan and they came out as clean as they would've been in the shop, as a result of this, I didn't have to spend even more money from the budget. However, due to buying a couple of clothing pieces for each character, we went over budget on costume. I believe that this was worth it though, as we were able to continue doing the blood splatter and hand prints until we were happy with them.
I was thankful for the fact I added in 'Shoot day extras' on the budget as we had to buy a total of 4 packets of additional AA batteries for the tascam. None of us realised the amount of power we would need as we haven't created as much footage a 20 minute film needs like this before. We also welcomed Mark into our cast at the beginning of production. As a result of this, I had to add in his travel reimbursement. As he was local to the area this wasn't a lot more which was beneficial towards the budget.
Although I considered van insurance for the main shoot week for Alex to drive the van, I didn't consider Tim driving the van, even though I always knew he was going to need insurance. However, I didn't consider van insurance within the re-shoot costs which added a substantial amount to the budget. Although we didn't know what part of the film we would re-shoot, if any, I should have considered the idea of the additional van insurance. Even if we weren't re-shooting a scene where Tim drives the van, Alex would need to have been insured on it to get it to the re-shoot location. As I said previously, when I created the estimate budget, I didn't know if we would re-shoot or not, however, I should have considered it. For the re-shoot we had to insure Alex and Tim on the van for the same amount of time as we didn't need the van for as long this time, whereas, in the main shoot week we didn't need Tim insured on the van as long as Alex. However, we may have been more aware of the possible additional insurance cost if I had considered it in the initial budget.
The final budget sheet is shown below. The rows highlighted in red are when we overspent on each part of the budget and the rows highlighted in green are when we went under budget. The rows in white are aspects of the budget I didn't initially consider and had to add in throughout production. The table shows we went over budget by a total of £162.91 which leads me to believe that suggesting for us to put in an additional £100 each was a good choice as we received about £43.57 back at the end of the re-shoot period.
Reflection
- I brought the clothing with the intention of getting dirty just before the main shoot days, however, as we re-shot the scene with the blood I had to keep the unused hoodie and cardigan for longer than expected and it passed the store returns date. As a result of this, I wasn't able to return the unused clothes which meant we didn't get any money back from the costume into the budget.
- After I had completed the 'actual cost' column I realised how beneficial it was to have the two columns in order to compare the individual costs. By updating the initial budget and separating it out like it is above, I was able to compare each individual cost to see where we went over and under and by how much. This was helpful to work out the difference of each cost from when I planned the budget in pre-production to what we actually spent in production.
- Throughout pre-production and production I have learnt to consider absolutely everything that may affect the budget. It was difficult to predict exactly each cost that was going to be coming out of the budget, however, I may have been able to predict a few more than what I did. For example, additional van insurance for possible re-shoots was quite obvious as I knew the van was featured in the majority of the scenes, but I simply didn't think to add it to the budget.
References:
- Westin, J. (2014). 10 Tips for Successfully Producing a Micro-Budget Feature. Available: https://www.indiewire.com/2014/05/10-tips-for-successfully-producing-a-micro-budget-feature-25970/. Last accessed 23rd Oct 2018.
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