tv budgets – Maria Lokken

Tell The Truth

Maria — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 14:00:15 +0000

Sometimes you make mistakes. Sometimes the mistake is so huge you feel certain this will be the one that will get you fired. Maybe even blacklisted from ever working in this business again.

Mistakes run the gamut from:

Oh Shit – I told the Show Runner s/he could start next week but I actually don’t have money for him to start for another two weeks and he’s already in the office working.
Damn – Somehow I left the Field Producer off the budget and I need to find $28,000 dollars.
Smack Me Upside My Head – I didn’t get the location agreement signed and we won’t be able to air anything we shot.
Shut Up – The network is expecting the first episode on March 2nd and I told the post-production department delivery was March 10th.

After you have made the mistake you have a few choices:

Leave and start a commune in Idaho.
Come up with a story that implies you had no idea there even was a problem until JUST THIS MINUTE and then blame someone else.
Secretly try and fix the problem before too many people find out.
Tell your Executive-in-Charge of Production– “Hey, we’ve got a problem.”

Anything but #4 is gonna get you going the long way around nowhere into a slimy pit of bad shit.

TELL THE TRUTH. Most people don’t. They lie. Don’t do it.

Here’s what the truth will get you:

People will be pissed at you; but hey do you remember who was pissed at you 2 years ago? Exactly my point. Everyone will get over it.
You will have more people working to help you solve the situation. You’ll need more people because when you’re in the thick of a nasty ass problem, you’re problem-solving skills are not the sharpest. You need reinforcements and quite frankly you’ll need ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. You may even need ‘out-of-this-realm’ thinking.

Whatever you’re particular “If I tell them I will die” situation is, remember this is television. It’s your job, it’s important, it’s someone’s company, it’s a lot of things, but it’s also just television. Tell the truth. Work hard to fix it, and because you’ve worked your way to Line Producer you usually can fix it. If you’re honest and you swear on a stack of time cards you’ll never make that mistake again, you’ll likely be forgiven and hired again.

For all you Budgeting Nerds

Maria — Sun, 14 Dec 2014 03:15:42 +0000

For those of you who have used Movie Magic Budgeting and have had to create separate cost trackers using an Excel spreadsheet– you know what an absolute pain in the ass it is to transfer information from one document to another.
For those of you who have no idea what the heck I’m talking about let me briefly explain –I’ll try to make it painless.

Movie Magic is a budgeting tool many of us use to create budgets. But it’s not designed (even if they say it is) to keep track of your costs on a day-to-day basis. To keep track of costs, Line Producers typically create a separate cost tracker using an Excel spreadsheet (see my blog post on cost trackers). The problem is – we have to manually enter every single account code, line item, and description into the Excel spreadsheet. It’s not only a weekend time sucker ( no one really has time to do it while they are gearing up for production) it’s also fraught with the possibility of mistakes. There’s the potential to omit an entire line item, or possibly transpose numbers – instead of giving the Associate Producer a $250 day rate, she now makes $520, etc., etc.

There is an answer – praise the software geniuses – Showbiz Shark. It’s a software program that allows you to convert a Movie Magic budget to Excel in seconds with calculations and subtotals in place. It’s a Line Producer’s dream come true. For. Real. I’m not joking.

Click here to see the Shark in action.

You Cut the Budget to What?!

Maria — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:00:07 +0000

There are really only two tricks to producing on a small budget – hire the right people and do as much as you can yourself. Gone are the heady days when budgets were plentiful and the Brinks Truck backed up to your office and spilled piles of money onto your doorstep. We’re living in a time where we have to learn how to produce on smaller budgets while producing the same great quality work. I affectionately call these minimalist budgets, “Working on the I and I tour. “ (The insult to injury tour). Where once you had 3 production assistants at your beck and call, now you’re the beck and call girl. No shame, it’s just people aren’t shelling out large sums of money these days.

So, to keep costs down and value high here are a few recommendations –

1. Don’t bring people on board until you absolutely need them.

2. Hire the sharpest production manager or line producer you can afford and have them negotiate the best possible terms with crew and vendors. Make sure they run the production schedule as if they were directing the Rockettes – not a single mis step. This will ensure you don’t have ANY overages. An overage is not a friend to a minimalist budget.

3. Hire Production Assistants who will work as Production Assistants but are really ready to be Associate Producers. They’re smart, seasoned and will go the extra mile. And since you’re abusing them on this project, make sure the next time you have an Associate Producer spot open you hire them. Karma. I’m just saying.

4. If you can work an Avid or a Final Cut system string out the initial rough cut and then bring in the pro for the finish

5. Farm out only those things you can’t do yourself, i.e. animation, musical score, etc.

6. No fancy lunches, and by the way, you’ll be doing your own manicures for the run of the production.

Keeping costs down, really isn’t that difficult. If you run tight control, stick to the budget and the schedule, you’ll turn an I and I tour into a tour de force production.