Chapter 12

Costing a Production

All film-making involves a fight against the limits of money and of time—which usually amount to the same thing. At some point in the production process every film-maker—except perhaps for those lucky few who can indulge in documentary making from their own resources—will be faced with committing to paper, and perhaps to contract, a legally enforceable costing of the production. Getting this right is of course essential, not only to ensure that all costs are covered and that the film-maker gets some financial recompense for the time and effort expended, but also to arrange for there to be sufficient money left over at the end to invest in developing future projects.

Since the sums involved are often very large, ...

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