Filmmaking is a huge responsibility for a director. He has to work with an entire team and oversee all the departments. From going through the script to checking the color gradation, he has to ensure that everything goes according to plan.
But there is one aspect that makes filmmaking a challenging job for many directors. It’s the money involved. Sometimes, directors complain about not having enough money to shoot films according to the way they want. But, on the other hand, they may have so much money that there is added pressure to make the movie a blockbuster hit. Otherwise, the investors may not want to work with the director again.
Indigo Suave, the founder of ASUAVE PRODUCTION, is a producer, visual artist, and director. He believes that budgeting a film lays the foundation for how the director can make the movie.
The uncertainty of investing in the film industry
The business aspect of a movie is simple to understand – for example, you invest a hundred bucks in the hope of making more from it. That’s your profit. But sometimes, things don’t go in your favor.
Indigo says, “There are lots of risks involved in filmmaking, especially when you look at it from a business point of view. Many filmmakers expected Inception to be a massive flop. However, it’s not only one of Nolan’s greatest movies of all time but also turned out to be the movie of the decade. This uncertainty puts producers in a spot of bother as their gamble may not pay off all the time.”
Suave already has three music videos under his belt and is planning to produce his first feature film. In a recent interview, he said, “The biggest challenge that I had to face before making the music video was setting a budget. Since this was my first project, I had too many things on my plate – shortlisting locations, budgeting transportation costs, accommodation costs, camera hire charges, technician payments, and tons of other things. It was a daunting task, to say the least. But fortunately, Alchemy, the first video, became a huge hit.”
Budgeting for films
Film budgeting is similar to making music videos, but you have to consider many more things. According to Suave, “You have to multiply a film’s budget almost ten times compared to a music video. And that’s just for creating the movie. There are additional costs for advertising and marketing. When producers provide an approximate budget of their films, they allocate almost half of the budget for marketing and advertising.”
Suave also mentioned that sometimes you don’t need to spend heavily on marketing if you already have a fixed audience for a specific genre. For example, when Suave released his third music video, Farewell, he could cut down on his marketing and advertising costs as people knew it was from a reputable director. This enabled Suave to make more profit from his second and third projects compared to his first.
ASUAVEPRODUCTION will soon release its new music video. Suave feels optimistic that it will also be a financial success like his earlier projects.
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