Budgeting a production and Waterfall

Even student productions require financing to a degree, even if it simply to cover costs of bus fares for cast and crew which each group member agrees to pay for themselves.

I have known filmmakers who have self- funded there projects from savings, however seeking external funding, not only limits the risks to yourself, but is also a show of confidence from external groups in your project and vision which, when it comes to distribution and sales, can be a real boon; there are other parties besides just the film crew, interested in making the film successful.

Here is a copy of the budget for my recent project, Wife and Husband (dir. Chrissie Wood, 2014), something I created in Microsoft Excel as a simple record of what we expected to spend and what we actually spent:

Expected spend Wife and Husband (2014)

Actual spend Wife and Husband (2014)

You can see that we spent less than anticipated but that, broadly, we spent more on transport than expected and less on things such as location fees and set direction.

I kept a record of who spent what on an ongoing basis so that, we didn't have to be concerned with making sure we were all spending evenly on the go, but at the end of the project we could just assess who owed what.

My preference would have been to collect each person's contribution at the start of the project and have a packet of cash available on the go but this wasn't possible, so I spent a lot out of pocket, to be reimbursed later.

In preparation for my next project I put together an estimated budget including In Kind values, aware that for Wife and Husband most of our equipment rental was free but it's value is great.
I looked at quotes for equipment and studio hire from local vendors to get the values and included van rental, considering it might be cheaper and more logistically sound to use a production vehicle than transport equipment in taxis, as we did on Wife and Husband.

Waterfall
Summarised in the Film Finance 101 Independent Film Glossary (2014, online) a Waterfall is "the contractual repayment of and profit distributions to all the financial contributors to the production of a film, by order of priority." 

It can be described in a simple visual format but is essentially the agreement of which investor will receive their financial return at what point and in what quantity. The more investors a film has the more complicated a Waterfall will be, and will also include any percentages of profits that cast and crew are entitled to by contract.

On larger projects it would be advisable to hire a Collection Agency who will collect revenue from the film sales and distribute funds.

Bibliography

Car Hire & Van Hire (2014) [online]  last accessed Thursday 11th December 2014, at: http://www.enterprise.co.uk/car_rental/home.do?language=en

Edit Suite Hire Rates (2014) [online] last accessed Thursday 11th December 2014, at: http://www.manchestereditsuite.co.uk/#!rates/cgky

FILM FINANCE 101: Raising Money for your Independent Film Glossary (2014) [online]  last accessed Friday 19th December 2014, at: http://www.thebusinessofblackfilm.com/Film_Finance_Glossary.pdf

Quote from DECODE Hire (2014) [online], last accessed Thursday 11th December 2014, at: http://decodeuk.com/quote/

PONS, C. (2014) Producing and Production Management Workshop 6 [Workshop] Friday 5th December 2014, Sheffield Hallam University