The first question every client asks is what a film costs. The second question, usually a few weeks later, is why it cost more than they were told. That second question exists because of how our industry answers the first one.
A range is not a budget. “Somewhere between eight and fifteen lakhs” is a way of deferring a conversation, and the deferral always gets paid for later — either by the client in overages, or by the production house in margin it quietly absorbs to keep the relationship. Neither outcome is good, and both are avoidable.
A line budget is the film written out as expenses, department by department, before anyone spends anything. Ours runs to around a hundred and twenty lines across nine headings. The headings stay the same even on a one-day shoot where several of them are zero.
Director, producer, writer and principal cast. On commissioned work this is often the smallest section. On a feature it can be the largest, and it is the one most likely to move once casting starts, which is why we lock it before pre-production rather than during.
Every person on the call sheet with a day rate, a number of days, and prep and wrap days where they apply. First AD, DOP, gaffer, key grip, sound recordist, production designer, costume, makeup, script supervisor, DIT, runners. If a name is missing from this list, that person does not appear on set, and the film is worse for it.
Camera bodies and glass, lighting package, grip truck, drone unit and expendables. Because we own ours outright, this line carries no rental markup and is usually well below a comparable quote from a house that rents everything — but it is still a line with a real number against it, not a favour folded quietly into the total.
If a client cannot see which department a rupee went to, they have no way to make a trade-off. And trade-offs are the whole job.
Location fees, permits, liaison, security, parking, unit vehicles, travel, accommodation and food. This is where budgets quietly explode on out-of-city shoots, and where a production team earns its fee by knowing what a permit in one state costs versus another.
Set construction, props, dressing, wardrobe purchase and hire, prosthetics. On brand films this is often underestimated by a factor of two, because the reference deck everyone approved has a set in it that nobody costed.
Offline and online edit days, colour grade, sound design, mix, VFX shots counted individually, titles, score or licensing. Counting VFX shots at the budget stage rather than the delivery stage is the single most useful thing a producer can do for a client.
Mastering to each required spec, platform QC, subtitles per language, dubbing, and the social cutdowns. Almost every client needs more versions than they initially say, so we now budget for the versions they will need rather than the ones they asked for.
Equipment and public liability cover, statutory compliance, and a contingency line that is stated openly as a percentage rather than hidden inside other departments. If contingency is invisible, it gets spent invisibly.
Handing a client a hundred and twenty lines sounds like a way to invite a hundred and twenty arguments. In practice it does the opposite. When a budget is one number, the only available response is “that is too much.” When it is itemised, the response becomes “can we shoot this in one day instead of two,” or “do we need the crane,” or “what if we drop the second location.”
Those are productive conversations. They let the client trade money against ambition with their eyes open, and they let us protect the things that actually determine whether the film works. A director will give up a crane to keep a proper sound recordist. A client who can only see one number never gets offered that choice.
The budget holds until scope changes. When scope does change — an extra location, a bigger cast, a VFX shot that was not in the boards — it comes to the client in writing, with a number, before we spend. Not on the invoice. Not in a call after the fact.
That rule will cost us occasionally. There will be days where a variation is declined and we shoot the smaller version. We would rather that than the alternative, which is the invoice that arrives with a surprise in it and the client who never calls again.
If you are commissioning a film and you have been handed a range, ask for the lines. Any production house that cannot produce them has not planned your film yet.
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