Film Training – How to Make the Most Out of Your Movie Budget

One of the things that can cause a lot of problems for a beginning filmmaker is lack of a good budget.

It’s just a sad fact of life that nothing is free, if you don’t count the air that you breathe. Since it does cost money to make a movie, you would be wise to figure out how and what to plan for, make a budget, and stick to it.

Even so, we do have a lot of advantages these days. With all the technology available to us we can fairly easily make a movie for a lot less that you might think, often for under $200. Now, you may have a bigger budget and want to get fancy, but for those of you who prefer to keep the lid on your budget, read on.

The selection of inexpensive digital movie cameras is fairly extensive. You just need to take the time to decide which one will fit your needs. Software can also be cheap, and some of it is available free of cost.

Let’s talk about making the budget and why you need it before you start making your movie. Sit down and list what exactly you think you need and what it will cost you. Here’s an example of what happens when a
film maker foregoes making a budget.

You are ready to begin film making and decide you don’t really need a budget since your plan is to just buy the cheapest equipment you can get. So, you run down to the store and purchase the most inexpensive digital video camera that you can find. You start filming your movie and all may go well until you realize that you can’t download it to your computer. The features are missing that come with some of the more expensive cameras. So, off you go to the store to buy the accessory you need to make your video camera download to your pc. Then, you have another surprise when you find out that the movie’s format is compatible only with very expensive software.

Do you understand what I’m getting at?

By cutting as many corners as you can and buying the cheapest equipment you can easily spend quite a bit more than if you researched things out a bit and made your budget ahead of time. If you had done that the video camera that you got would have been compatible with different kinds of software, including free and wouldn’t need additional accessories to work. Good film training tips need to teach the basics of budgeting for making a movie.

When making a low budget film usually the director will work alone or if he’s lucky he might have a crew of volunteers if the finances aren’t available. These types of films are made all the time and may take their place in history along with other low budget films. Throughout the history of movie making there have been movies made from extremely low budgets (one claimed $30) to those that have a budget of millions
of dollars.

You don’t have to necessarily let a lack of funds discourage you, but when it comes to budgeting, remember that haste makes waste and that is so true for making films.

Author Bio: Want some more good movie making tips for free? Check out this site: Movie Training Tips .

Category: Entertainment
Keywords: film training,filmmaking,film making,movie training,movie making, making a movie

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