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DOING THE MATH ON HOMEWORK

Micro-budget budgets are always deceptive in that they fail to account for the value of all the free labor and donated goods any ultra-cheap film requires. When he submitted this budget, Homework producer Anthony Katagas noted, “The real secret was deciding to make this film with some very experienced friends. Not much money is needed when you have Richard, Michael, Anne, Greg, Kevin, Paz, Evan and Issach all as committed as they were to do something original.”

Katagas also said that the film benefitted from “a lot of stuff we had lying around our office at Keep Your Head. The most important was our Final Cut Pro system, which had just been used for Michael Almereyda’s Sam Shepard documentary we produced with IFC. We cut Homework for free for 10 months and did a modest sound edit and color correction on the machine as well.

“And somehow,” Katagas added, “we were something like $1,800 under budget!”

Budget Line Price ($)
Cast ground transportation 75
First assistant directorweek prep x $300/wk
2 week shoot x $300/wk
300
600
Craft service11 days x $65715
Director of photography2 weeks x $5001,000
First assistant camera5 days prep x $50/day
11 days shoot x $50
250
550
Second assistant camera1 day prep x $50
11 days shoot x $50
50
550
Camera expendable purchases 100
“A” camera rental2 weeks x $200400
Tripod (allow) 50
DAT tape purchase11 days x $5.7563
Sound package rental11 days x 1001,100
Makeup artist, allow 120
Prop purchase 65
DV stock purchase11 days x 2 x 7154
Cube truck rental2 weeks x $399798
Gas/tolls 150
Overnight parking 75
CateringLunches: 11 days x 14 x $7
Breakfast: 11 days x 14 x $3
2nd meals: 1 meal x 14 x $6
1,078
462
84
Location rentals 1,500
Total $10,289

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