A budget that stays honest when the schedule moves
A line producer holds two documents that must agree: the top sheet a financier reads and the line items the production actually spends against. Maintained separately, they diverge — and a top sheet that does not reconcile against its detail is the fastest way to lose a financier's confidence in everything else you have prepared.
The usual cause is that the budget was built from a breakdown that has since changed. Scenes moved, a location was lost, a day player became a hold. The schedule knows; the spreadsheet does not.
Here the budget derives from the same breakdown and schedule everything else uses. Element counts drive department lines, cast holds drive cast cost, shoot days drive crew and equipment. The numbers move when the plan moves.
Where the numbers come from
Each figure traces back to something in the script rather than to a cell someone typed.
- 01Script breakdown
The element inventory — cast, background, props, vehicles, stunts, VFX — that every department line is costed from.
- 02Shooting schedule and DOOD
Shoot days drive crew and equipment; cast hold days drive cast cost. An actor idle between two distant scenes is usually still being paid.
- 03Cast and crew rates
Regional rate bands so figures reflect the market you are actually producing in rather than a US default.
- 04The budget
Top sheet and line items built from the same source, in your own currency, across 110 supported at checkout.
- 05VFX costing
The line most reliably underestimated at script stage, enumerated from the breakdown rather than remembered from a read-through.
Currency is not a display setting
A production plan denominated in the wrong currency is a rough estimate wearing a suit. Crew rates, equipment hire and location fees are all local, and converting a foreign total at the end hides the fact that the underlying assumptions belonged to someone else's market.
Budgets are built in the currency you actually spend in, with regional rate bands for cast and crew. That matters most in exactly the markets international production software treats as an afterthought.
What a line producer should know we do not have
No licensed union ratebook. Gorilla's Ratebook carries over 11,500 verified rates across more than 200 union agreements integrated into budgeting, and for a US union picture that is decisive — we use regional bands instead.
No Movie Magic Budgeting export. If your financier or completion bond expects an .mmb file, that is a hard constraint rather than an inconvenience.
Deeper budgeting mechanics — fringes, globals, sub-groups, tax-credit modelling, deferments, fourth-level detail — are more developed in Gorilla and Movie Magic. What we trade for that is a budget wired to the breakdown and schedule automatically.
Common questions
Can I budget before the script is locked?
Yes, and most productions do. An early budget from a treatment or partial breakdown is a planning instrument rather than a commitment; it tightens as the breakdown and schedule firm up, because those are what drive the numbers.
Does the top sheet reconcile against line items?
Yes — both views are built from the same underlying data rather than maintained separately, which is the usual reason the two drift apart.
Can I export to Excel?
Yes. Budgets export to PDF for distribution and XLSX so you can work in the tool you already use. There is also a free budget top sheet template if you want to start from a blank one.
How are cast holds costed?
From the Day Out of Days, which computes work, hold and travel days from the shooting schedule. A day player appearing in scenes shot three weeks apart is a hold in budget terms, and that only becomes visible once the schedule exists.
Do you handle tax credits and incentives?
Not as a modelling feature. If incentive modelling is central to how you budget, Gorilla and Movie Magic are ahead of us there and we would rather point you at that than overstate what we do.
What currencies are supported?
110 at checkout, with budgets built in your own currency and regional rate bands for cast and crew.
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