American Cinema 9

American Cinema

Written Assignment #9

Written Exercise #9

How, typically, is a movie financed, and why are today’s movies so expensive to make? How are movies marketed and distributed? Have these aspects changed between the studio and independent systems?

     Making movies is a big business. According to the Motion Picture Association of America’s annual report, movies rake in tens of billions of dollars at the box office every year, and this number is steadily increasing, but as they say, it takes money to make money, and Hollywood spends a lot. Some of 2013's biggest movies had massive budgets: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire supposedly had a budget of more than $130 Million, while Warner Brothers’ latest superhero epic, Man of Steel, had a price tag of $225 million.

     Financing for movies can be acquired from a private investors, sponsors, product placement, film studios or entertainment companies. No matter the source, a budget for the making the movie will be developed. A movies budget refers to the process by which a line producer, unit production manager, or filmmaker prepares a budget for a production. The budget document is used to secure financing for and lead to pre-production and production of the film. Multiple drafts of the budget may be required to whittle down costs. A budget is typically divided into four sections: above the line (creative talent), below the line (direct production costs), post-production (editing, visual effects, etc.), and other (insurance, completion bond, etc.)

     There are several contributing factors to high cost of making movies. Even for lesser-known actors, pay can only go so low. The Screen Actors Guild mandates that actors be paid at least $859 per day. On top of this pay, the actors also need “fringes,” money paid in accordance with Screen Actors Guild instructions to provide for benefits and pensions, among other things. Also included are the other crewmembers that are needed to make production and post-production go smoothly and turn in a high quality finished product. Over a 30-day or longer shoot, paying the cast and crew alone can add up quickly and as things get more and more complicated, with the addition of effects like explosives or gunfire, every single person on that crew becomes necessary to make sure things run smoothly and efficiently.

     The equipment and supplies needed to film the movie are very expensive, too. Standard 35mm color motion picture film runs nearly $45 dollars per minute and a typical movie shoots about 15 times the amount of footage that winds up on screen, so a standard 120 minute movie could spend upwards of $80,000 on film stock alone, not to mention processing or the equipment to use it, which is usually rented for tens of thousands of dollars per week.

     Set design and effects also take large sums of money, especially in big blockbusters. Blowing things up doesn’t come cheap, between safety regulations and the material itself, these costs can easily add up to millions. Even the stunts for The Village, a relatively tame film, wound up costing around $3.9 million. Visual effects add even more to these numbers; depending on the scale of a production, hundreds of special effects artists can spend months working on a film.