4 Budget
While you’re planning and researching your film, you should begin to put together a projected budget. It goes without saying that it will be helpful to know how much the film will cost you, but it’s also an essential document for pitching and fund-raising.
We’ve been told an average budget for a feature documentary is around US$500K–600K, and that isn’t deemed expensive. Our film cost a third of that, but read on.
Filmmakers’ Costs
We were also given some interesting budgeting advice from a panel of seasoned filmmakers. If a Director gets paid US$100K, the Producer fee should be US$25K, as they can typically be doing about a quarter of the work. If you are bringing an experienced Producer on board, their fee can be 2.5% of budget. But ...
Get The Documentary Filmmaker's Roadmap now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
