Q&A: How Long Does It Take to Write a Budget?

A production budget? What a question! No answer can be made without further questioning. Here’s a quick look at a few of those “further questions”.

Question: Is this the one of the first times you’ve written a budget?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you a long time.
Consolation: You will understand the detail of every line item on the budget, and so be in a better position to manage the production.

Question: Is the production or script unique compared to what you’ve done before?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you a long time.
Consolation: You will expand your repertoire and expertise with this new budget… plus your previous experience will help you to ask more of the right questions and therefore write a really good budget on the first pass.

Question: Do you have an example budget as reference (one that you did not write)?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you a rather long time.
Consolation: If you do the work to really reverse engineer how the example budget was written, you can write a good budget that will work for the production… catching the incomplete areas and the line items that are inappropriate for your particular production.

Question: Do you have a previous budget as reference (one that you wrote – and ideally, production managed)?
Answer: If “yes”, it will take you not such a long time.
Consolation:Your hard work over the years is paying off. In the previous (reference) budget you know and understand where the line items and calculations came from. You know the assumptions under which the budget was written, including which union or non-union rules. You know the script and actual shoot of the previous production and so can identify similarities and differences between that one and the current script – in order to concentrate your budget-writing effort. Every budget you write gets a little bit better… and this one will be an even better reference to you in the future.

What other “further questions” come to mind for you?

Happy budgeting!
Deb