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Cost per minute of film?


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When we talk to posts clients about the costs of shooting on film vs. digital, we usually tell them film costs $1000 per ten minutes ($700 per 1000' roll for negative, and about $250 for developing). That works out to $6000 per hour. (Lenses and camera rental are comparable, at least from the majors like Panavision, Clairmont, and Camera House.)

An average one-hour TV series shoots 3-4 hours of film per day, which is about $100K per week. Given that most one-hour episodics cost about $3m+ per show, you wouldn't think $100K was that big a deal (.3% of the budget). But virtually all of the 1-hour shows I know of are switching to digital for the 2009-2010 season.

Note that switching to digital does entail additional expenses. However, it's one of those trends that I see as inescapable, like the proliferation of Wal-Marts.

--Marc W.

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another reason TV shows are switching to 'Digital' is the lack of a SAG contract that covers film only. AFTRA has all the non film shows covered.

Yeah, we saw that happen on a lot of pilots. But I think the contracts didn't specify that they had to stick with AFTRA in the event the shows went to series, and there are many SAG shows shooting digitally, including dozens of big-budget features (like Benjamin Button and the upcoming Land of the Lost).

In a way, this is sort of the picture equivalent to what happened in the early 1990s, when everything switched from analog Nagras to DAT and (eventually) to non-linear recorders. I bet more than 80% of all TV programming will be digital this year, and it'll be 95% next year. And it's all about money, not about picture quality or style.

--Marc W.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree with Brian that the argument is kind of specious. If a $50,000,000 film has 100 shooting days, then that works out to $500,000 a day (and that doesn't include pre- or post-production costs). Call it $300,000 a day, which is $30,000,000 for the physical film and $20M for above the line.

$300K a day is $25,000 an hour assuming a 12-hour day, which is "only" $416 a minute. I think that's not unimaginable for a feature film like this. (Obviously, the numbers shift radically if it's a shorter shooting schedule.)

If an average 1st-year drama is $2,000,000 an episode, that works out to less than $300K a day. Maybe $20K an hour, or $333 a minute.

I do have vivid memories of a producer concerned about a director who liked to let the cameras roll constantly on a 4-camera sitcom. The guy would lean over to the director and whisper, "$8 per second, $8 per second," which is what it cost to roll that much film, given costs of raw stock, processing, and dailies. (And that's without the cast and crew.)

'Course, it don't mean beans if it's a hit.

--Marc W.

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