This mystical closet I’m speaking of contains thousands and thousands of only one item.  What’s in this closet?  A monkey wrench.  Yup, that thing when thrown disrupts any situation.

These monkey wrenches seem to hurl themselves directly at Line Producers when they least expect it.  You could be sailing along working on a cost report, quietly smiling to yourself that once again you saved the day by performing herculean feats and still not going over budget when BAM! you’re smacked on the side of the head by a monkey wrench labeled – “we need more pick up shoots”.

DUCK! Another monkey wrench hurling towards you-  Oops – not fast enough, hit the kneecap.  Before you fall to the ground you’re told you have to pay the show runner an additional five weeks because we really, really need him.

WHACK! Oh Man! The Elbow – a direct hit!   Jeez that smarts.  Another request for more edit time on top of the additional edit time you already gave.   Can you spell m-o-n-k-e-y w-r-e-n-c-h.

You can’t cry “FOUL!” when monkey wrenches are darting toward you like a stealth bomber.  Instead you need to learn to pad your budgets.  But be clever about it.  Production companies and networks are getting smart and they can see through pad and make you take them out before the budget is locked.  So put the pad where they don’t check.  Put it in your fringe, gas money, per diem, anywhere no one will really look.  Add additional personnel you’ll never hire.  Just pad, pad, pad to protect you from those nasty hits you’re bound to take on any production.

All you can do to save yourself and your budget is to whip out some serious bad ass thinking. That’s what they hired you for, to be able to think on your feet hanging upside down while flying over the Rockies.

Here’s a formula that might help: Expert negotiating, plus pad, multiplied by clever solutions, equals the slowing down of hurling objects in your direction. Because, in the end you, the Line Producer, will need to come up with solutions.

Don’t continually say, “We can’t afford it.”  No one likes that. Even you’ll hate yourself after a while.

BUT – when it finally comes to the ungettable ask. When you’ve asked beyond what the budget was meant to do – and you top it off with – “find the money,” then I have this to say – YOU show ME the money, cause I looked under my desk and it ain’t there. I even checked my wallet just to make sure I didn’t accidentally misplace it.   Asking for the ungettable ask – just pisses me off. Don’t do it. Because I’ve just given you 100 and 1 things that were never planned for, now you need to come up with a creative way to make it happen without costing more. That is why they’re paying you more than anyone else on the set.

And that’s what Line Producers really think.

What’s a cost tracker? It is the Line Producer’s spreadsheet that tracks your production costs on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.  It is used by Line Producers to monitor every single expense, as well as expenses yet to be incurred.  It’s a barometer that tells you if you’re on budget, under budget or headed for financial ruin.

There are several ways to keep a cost tracker, and I’ve yet to meet two Line Producers who keep track the same way.  As long as you know what you’re keeping track of, where the money is, and you can intelligently work with your production accounting department – then your cost tracker is working for you.  This is not a nice-to-have – this is an essential tool for any Line Producer.

Cost trackers are created by using an excel spreadsheet.  As in the example below, your spreadsheet should include the following:

1.    Account Number: Each line item in your budget is associated with an account number.  The account number comes from your accounting department.  If they don’t give you one, use the default given by your budgeting software program.
2.    Description of Each Item:  Self-explanatory.
3.    Total Budget:  The total amount allocated to that line.
4.    Actual:  What you’ve actually spent on that line to date.
5.    Balance of Budget:  The difference between what was allocated and what was spent.
6.    PO’s:  Purchase orders you’ve written for items that will be charged to your production.  The PO indicates the bill will be coming.
7.    Estimate to Complete:  This is an estimate of how much more you believe it will cost before final delivery. For example, if you’re getting lots of network notes and post production is taking longer, you will want to estimate higher in your editing lines and see where you can move money so that the over all bottom line doesn’t change.
8.    Estimated Final Cost:  This is an estimate of the final cost – all in – for that line.  Add your Actual Expenses to your Estimates to Complete and you will have the amount you are estimating it will cost for that particular line item.

In the example below you’ll see that we are over on many of the producer lines but we are saving money on the Supervising Producer and the Post Story Producer lines which gives us a savings on the bottom line.

The cost tracker is one of the many weapons in a Line Producers arsenal that allows them to win the battle and bring the creative vision to completion on time and on budget.