Budget highlights
Where'd that money go? Here's where.
It’s been a few months now and I still get goosebumps remembering the sight of so many people in the Belfair Laundry parking lot when I arrived. And the gear, good lord, the gear. That big panel truck parked out back and the hard shell cases and the stands and the rigging and and and. Yeah.
Writing is cheap, you sit at your computer and type some stuff. You hope it’s good. Hell, if you’re only online, publishing is cheap too; my web hosting plan is four bucks a month. This newsletter platform is free.
But movies. That shit is expensive.
Here are a few line items from our budget.
37.47: Dashboard cherubs for the Caddy
77.00: Elvis costume rental at the greatest store in the world.
144.85: Folding chairs.
300.00: Hard drives.
500.00: Water, bagels, sodas, and snacks to keep the cast and crew hydrated, caffeinated, and energized. Can’t have people getting hangry.
$604.28: Walkie-talkies and earpieces for communication across a field, a parking lot, two locations, and so the director could say "action" and "cut" to the actors in the car during driving scenes. (I wore one of these every day so I could hear the dialog at all times.)
700.00: A day’s business at the laundromat. That’s what it cost us to close it.
900.00: 1970 gold Cadillac El Dorado for three days. The owner threw in a trunk full of donuts on the last day.
1050.00: Lighting gear from a local supplier.
1035.00: Additional liability insurance for each location (the production company had their own but upped this just in case).
1728.20: Three days of meals and tips for the servers who were so nice to us and handled every dietary thing we threw at them. We’re not talking your garden variety gluten-free folks, either. They were great.
4897.32: Hotel rooms for cast and crew.
77,940.00: Ari Alexa 4k Super 35 camera. Okay, we rented that and then, propped the front leg of the tripod in the cupholder and stuck it out the sunroof of my car to shoot road footage. My heart was in my throat the whole time I was driving.
This is just the stuff, you know? It’s not the guy who drove the huge trailer with my car on it or the PAs who made endless coffee runs or the tireless lighting and sound crews, or our makeup artist. We rented a plane, for crying out loud, and a guy to fly it. We paid SAG-AFTRA rates to the cast (this was before the strike) and there’s more, of course.
Our current total is 46,792.02. We have some costs not yet accounted for — the composer and the editor, to name two, and an estimated 2500 or so in festival entry fees. Sundance is probably going to cost us 85.00 because we’re not done yet — fees go up the later you submit. I’ll probably stay with my friend in Salt Lake City because it’s a 45-minute drive from her place to Park City, so I won’t be paying for a hotel room but I’m going to need something to wear, right?
(See how mentally I’m already at Sundance? Cue audio of me giggling about how my first screenplay is in production for a short that has eyes on Sundance. I just… you guys. Jeez.)
“I don’t care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you’re also writing your Oscar acceptance speech.” —Nora Ephron
The fact that you threw in for about 75% of our costs remains nothing short of miraculous to me. I wanted you to see how we spent it.
As always, you rule. Thank you.
Folks keep asking if it’s too late to help out. It’s not and you are literally the best. Zelle to amy@potenza-productions.com or Venmo. Everything goes to an account dedicated to this project.
I entered us in some smaller festivals; I think I told you we were shortlisted for the New York Women’s Filmmaker Awards. What I didn’t tell you is that we won best script for The Same River Twice.
Yes, I’m following the strike news. None of the current work on The Whitehorse Exit is prohibited under strike guidelines. This is an enlightening and alarming read about how screwed the system is. Pay your creatives already. That’s not enough. Pay them more.