I have a story idea. How much will it cost to make the film?

I get this question all the time. I wanted to start this blog to answer frequently asked questions. So lets get into it.

Often people approach me randomly or call my office and say "Hey I have this great idea for a movie. Can you help me make it?"

My answer is always YES. But the next question always gets them. "Do you have a script?" Often the answer is no. But they want to describe the characters and the plot to me and think that it will be enough to start producing the film.

The truth is that it takes a lot of work just to get the script ready and the script is the backbone of your project.

Without a good script we cant know how many actors you need. Or how many locations we will have to visit. We dont even know how long it will take to shoot because we dont know how long the script is.

So first thing is the script. And if you have no idea how to write one we can help. You describe the characters and the plot and we will work it out for you. But time is money. A good script costs between $1000-3000. Its a lot. But that is the smallest part of your budget.

People know it takes millions of dollars to make a great film. What they dont know is that you can make a good film for way less.

But when I say way less I mean between 100k-500k. And that is considered a micro budget.

Micro budgets are common in the indie film industry. So its not unheard of to make a great movie that people will love for a small amount.

Kevin Smith made the movie "Clerks" for less than 40k. And that turned into a multi-million dollar franchise.

I had someone come to me and say. Hey I want to do a movie about my life. My next question is "who are you?"

There are a lot of people that have struggled in life. And some of them have amazing stories. Like the shotgun preacher that started out as a motorcycle gang member and became a preacher and fought for the lives of children in Africa after building them a house of worship.

That was a great story. But I would say a 21 year old that lost thier parents and were in the foster care system and then ended up getting out and is currently gling to college doesnt sound very interesting.

But I could be wrong. At any rate. If you have an idea write it down. If you dont know how to write a property formatted script then take a class or hire a professional to tell your story. You never know.

The last thing I wanted to talk about is budget. If you want a serious film to be made based on your script then you will need more than a few hundred dollars and pure ambition. Actors dont work for free. Neither do film crew. And no one is going to be amazed by a film you shot on your iphone 14. "The Blair Witch Project" was shot by some film students from Orlando. The brilliant thing was they made it look like a complete amateur film. Shakey camera work and some really great acting totally sold the audience on the idea the film was found footage.

It was a brilliant idea but even though the students of the film school were able to use cameras from the school and did the acting and editing themselves, the budget was still around 50k.

So if you have a great idea for a story give us a call. But have your checkbook ready. We can help you starting at the scripting process all the way down to editing the final film footage. Just try to understand Huge Jackman is not going to give you the money for the film because you think he is perfect for the main character and thats who you want to direct your film.

I had a guy pitch a movie to me and he wanted this European actor to play the main part. And this guy was really famous. The client told me that he was Albanian and since the actor was also Albanian that all we had to do is give the guy a call and ask him to be in the film. I almost died laughing on the inside. It was very difficult to keep a straight face. It may have actually worked if the guy was related or a friend. But he had never met the actor in his life!

Ok. Thanks for reading my blog. I will try and answer more of these as they come up. But if this didnt answer your question please feel free to give us a call or send an email. We are happy to help with anything you need.