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 director | week prep x $300/wk
2 week shoot x $300/wk | 300
600 |
| Craft service | 11 days x $65 | 715 |
| Director of photography | 2 weeks x $500 | 1,000 |
| First assistant camera | 5 days prep x $50/day
11 days shoot x $50 | 250
550 |
| Second assistant camera | 1 day prep x $50
11 days shoot x $50 | 50
550 |
| Camera expendable purchases | 100 | |
| “A” camera rental | 2 weeks x $200 | 400 |
| Tripod (allow) | 50 | |
| DAT tape purchase | 11 days x $5.75 | 63 |
| Sound package rental | 11 days x 100 | 1,100 |
| Makeup artist, allow | 120 | |
| Prop purchase | 65 | |
| DV stock purchase | 11 days x 2 x 7 | 154 |
| Cube truck rental | 2 weeks x $399 | 798 |
| Gas/tolls | 150 | |
| Overnight parking | 75 | |
| Catering | Lunches: 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 |
Go back to the main article: Top of the Class.
VOD CALENDAR
See the VOD Calendar →
