Lesson Plan budgets and allocation

1. BIG PICTURE
LA A – Understanding Pre
Production – second task on
budgets
KEYWORDS
Funding – Budgets – Above and
below the line spending - profit
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Evaluate the extent to
which pre-production requirements, processes
and documentation contributes to the success
of planning and delivering a specific digital
media product.
SUCCESS CRITERIA
Completed notes on budgeting
for film production
Take your seat. Bag under your desk.
Have your equipment and planner out.
Topic – Unit 4 – Pre Production
• Make a list of the different things you will have to plan to spend money on
when you are making a film.
• Obvious example – salaries/pay for everyone
• Less obvious example – the cost of electricity generators to power both
your set and the things around it like catering trucks.

2. TELL ME
STUFF!
TAKE ME
THROUGH
IT…
LET ME
HAVE A
GO…
DO I GET
IT?
1 2 3 4 5 6
SETTING THE
SCENE
JOINING UP
LEARNING
LINKS TO LAST
TIME
PASSING ON
KNOWLEDGE
GUIDED PRACTICE
& MODELLING
INDEPENDENT
PRACTICE –
APPLYING THE
SKILLS TO NEW
SITUATIONS
ASSESSMENT &
FEEDBACK
PULL IT TOGETHER
JOINING UP
LEARNING
LINKS TO NEXT
TIME

3. 1. As well as understanding where the money for your film comes from , you
also need to understand where that money is going to get spent
2. These things (obviously) go hand in hand – you are never going to raise
funding from investors (and so on) if you can't explain to them how you're
going to spend it
• Our example is quite old – Spiderman 2 – but
that's because there is a good article that breaks
down the budget into different departments,
tasks and functions in a useful way
• You need to explain how the budget is broken
down and explain what the money is spent on.
• I've read the article. Lots. Don't copy and paste it.
• The Distinction mark will come from
• Clearing showing your understanding
• Analysing specific well chosen examples
• Evaluating how these pre-production
processes ensured the successful production
of the film
1. Before the deals
a) Script and development
b) Licensing
2. During the shoot
a) Producers
b) Director
c) Cast
d) Below the line
3. Afterward – the edit
a) Special effects
b) Music
4. 'The Sell'
a) Prints and Advertising

4. How does all of this fit together?
1. Studios - and especially producers and finance
departments - will be experienced in knowing and
understanding what things cost and how much is going
to be needed
2. The starting point for building a budget for a big studio
movie will therefore usually be 'what is this one similar
to, what did that one's budget look like, and how do
we have to tweak it from there?'
3. There are some extras not in the article – a film
production will have different kinds of insurance, from
the 'standard' on set safety stuff, to compulsory 'Public
Liablity Insurance' (which pays out to other people if
the shoot damages them or their property) to
'Completion Insurance' that helps to pay out if the
shoot goes over budget.
• Look in detail at the information in the article –
the percentage of the total budget for each
item is a more useful piece of information than
the actual cash figure.
• Your answer for this doesn't have to be
continuous essay writing; headings and bullet
points and lists, along with prose explanations,
could work very well.

5. Use this information to demonstrate a wider
understanding, and tie it into the rest of your
work
• Once you've written up your notes showing your
understanding of the article, you should consider your
own Unit 10 film production, and the pre-production
work you did there, and consider what the real budget
implications for that project would have been if you
were making it as a commercial project and not as a
coursework task
• In other words – look back at your budget from Unit 10
LA B (your horror film opening) - what has this task
taught you about that budget? How might you amend it
in light of this task?
• Re-write your budget in accordance with that
understanding and post it to this task here (for now).
You won't just be developing your
work towards distinction in this LA
(and unit) but also in Unit 10, and you
are also setting up something here
that you can write about to
Distinction in your LA D Evaluation in
this unit.

6. We will visit the Distinction criteria - Evaluate the extent to which
pre-production requirements, processes and documentation
contributes to the success of planning and delivering a specific
digital media product – at every stage
1. Read and comment on another
students work
1. Have they explained what the
different areas of the budget are
2. Have they talked about the
percentage of the total spend as
well of (or even instead of) the
cash sums)
3. Have the covered everything?
4. Have they related this work to
their own Unit 10 production?
Evaluating for Distinction
1. Make the link between sourcing funding and having
a budget setting out what you’re going to
spend. There’s no point in trying to raise money to
make a film if you don’t have an accurate idea of
how much you need to raise.
2. Talk about on-set management during production –
creating a budget is one thing, keeping to it is
another. Explain that one of the Finance Office jobs
will be to monitor the budget day by day during
production.
3. More complicated – make a link between budgets,
raising funds and expected profits – how can you
convince investors that they will get their money
back – this ties in with all of the rest of pre-
production. Everything is connected to everything
else.

7. BIG PICTURE MY LEARNING
How did this
lesson fit into
your other
lessons?
What is my top
take- away from
the lesson?
Have you contributed to the lesson? Will you be able to improve
next lesson? Do you know what you need to go away and do?
o Have you kept up?
o Have you covered everything in
the article in your own words?
o Have you evaluated why
budgeting is so important?
o Have you related this
theoretical work to your
practical work in Unit 10 and
your budget for that
production?