The things that move the bid
- Shoot days. Crew, equipment, studio or location, and catering all multiply by the day. Cutting a day is the largest honest saving.
- Crew size and hours. A base day is often 10 hours. Overtime is where a long day quietly beats a short one.
- Talent and usage. A spokesperson with a long usage term can cost more than the shoot. Keep the session and the licence on separate lines.
- Locations and travel. A stage you control is a different budget from a location, permits and a company move, and different again if anyone flies.
- Art and set build. Build days and strike days are crew days too.
- Post and versions. Editorial, finishing, and every cut-down. Social lengths are not free.
- Markups. Production fee and insurance apply on top of the sections they cover. See production fee and markups.
Four shapes of job
A one-day studio or tabletop. The camera package, the stage and a small crew dominate. Talent is light or absent. Post is a finish and a few cut-downs. The bid is sensitive to the gear list and the stage days, including pre-light.
Two or three days on location. Crew and location fees scale with the days. Permits, police, base camp and vehicles show up. If the locations are far apart, travel becomes its own section.
A talent-led spot. Director's fees, cast, agency commission and usage can exceed the cost of the shoot. Read those lines before you argue about the grip package.
A job whose picture is finished in post. Editorial, finishing and Section X (visual effects, design, animation) overtake production. Bidding the shoot tightly and leaving post as a guess is how these jobs lose money.
How to get a number you can defend
- Write the shoot days, hours, deliverables and usage before you open a line.
- Start from the AICP budget template and hide what this job does not have.
- Price crew and equipment from quotes or your rate card, then set fringes and markups.
- Read the top sheet and check that the largest section is the one the boards actually require.
- Put what you assumed, and what a weather day would add, in the notes. On a commercial bid those contingencies are not inside the total.
The step-by-step of building the bid is how to budget a commercial.