- Above the line
- Costs for the people who shape the creative before shooting starts: rights, writer, producers, director and principal cast. Usually negotiated rather than calculated.
- Below the line
- Everything else it takes to make the film: crew, equipment, locations, sets, travel and post-production.
- AICP bid form
- The standard layout for bidding commercials in the United States, with lettered sections A to X and a top sheet. See the AICP budget template.
- Top sheet
- The summary page of a budget: each section's total, the markups and the grand total. How to read one: film budget top sheet.
- Line item
- One row of the budget: a crew position, a rental or an expense, with its quantity, days and rate.
- Day rate
- What a crew member or rental costs for one day, for a set number of base hours.
- Base hours
- The hours a day rate covers, often 10 or 12. Hours beyond them are overtime.
- Overtime
- Hours beyond the base day, usually paid at one and a half or two times the hourly rate.
- Fringes
- Payroll taxes and benefits paid on top of wages, entered as a percentage of labor. See production budget fringes.
- Production fee
- The production company's fee, a percentage of the production costs it applies to. How the markups fit together: production fee and markups.
- Production insurance
- Insurance on the production, budgeted as a percentage of the costs it covers.
- Handling
- A percentage added to some expenses, such as talent payments or travel, to cover the cost of processing them.
- Contingency
- Money for what cannot be foreseen. An independent film often holds a percentage inside the budget. A commercial usually names the items, such as a weather day, and does not bill them until they are approved. See film budget contingency.
- Bid
- The budget submitted to the client or agency. Once approved, it is the baseline the job is delivered against.
- Running budget
- The working budget after award: what each line is now expected to cost as plans change.
- Actuals
- What has actually been spent, from purchase orders, payroll and petty cash.
- Variance
- Actual minus the bid. Positive is over the bid. Negative is under. See budget vs actuals.
- Purchase order
- A commitment to pay a vendor, posted to a budget line before the invoice arrives.
- Petty cash
- Cash advanced to crew for small purchases, reconciled later with receipts.
- Overage
- A cost over the approved bid, ideally approved by the client and billed separately.
- Cost report
- The bid, running budget, committed costs, actuals and variance for every section. See the production cost report.
- Estimate at completion
- A forecast of what the job will cost by the end, combining what is spent with what is still to come.
- Wrap
- The end of the shoot, or of the whole job once the books are closed.
Production budget glossary
Production budget terms, in plain words.
Production budgets come with their own vocabulary. Here is what the terms on a film, commercial or photo budget mean.
Questions
Fringes are the payroll taxes and benefits paid on top of crew wages, budgeted as a percentage of labor.