Movie Business

[RCBH928]

So:
If a movie costs $50 million in budget
marketing equal budget costs
it means it really was $100 million , because that is extra $50 million from marketing?

I don't think that is right because that probably means most movies lose money, low percentile of movies score double their budget or more.

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Why do they rush shooting the scenes in 6 weeks, while it takes like 2-3 years to finish the movie, there is probably more time to shoot.

How can the actors get in the mood to give different roles under so much pressure I do not know, imagine you have the role of an insane man, and the director shoots 20-25 takes in 10 hours time and each time you have to act nuts, that is just too much to pull it right, yet it seems perfect a lot of the time.

[elvis]

I heard it was because of the special effects, but I think I saw a lot more special effects in X-men.

Special effects (SFX) = explosions, specialised set construction/destruction/demolition, etc.

Visual Effects (VFX) = lots and lots of computers crunching 3D.

I work on and off for the latter (VFX technical architect / sysadmin). I can tell you from personal experience, VFX artists, modellers, riggers, animators and technical directors all get screwed over when it comes to pay. I highly doubt they are the bulk of costs, particularly these days with western countries having to compete with the "low-quality-bulk" of 3D from India, China, Korea and Vietnam.

[Limewater]

So:
If a movie costs $50 million in budget
marketing equal budget costs
it means it really was $100 million , because that is extra $50 million from marketing?

I don't think that is right because that probably means most movies lose money, low percentile of movies score double their budget or more.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure most movies do lose money.

Also, you have to remember that when they report a film's earnings in a theater, they are usually reporting the box office gross. Not all of that money is seen by the people who made the film. That money has to also cover the cost of making and shipping prints of the film to theaters, and a small take for the theaters themselves.

The relationship between the distributors and the theaters is weird, too, at least in the US. Generally, the setup is that something like 90% of the gross for the first week or two goes back to the distributor, and then as time passes the theaters showing the films get a larger and larger cut. So, a film like "Jurassic Park," which stayed in theaters forever ends up being a good revenue generator for theaters. But that's pretty rare.

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Why do they rush shooting the scenes in 6 weeks, while it takes like 2-3 years to finish the movie, there is probably more time to shoot.

I'm sure someone else on the board can tell you more about this, but I'm pretty sure that actually shooting the film is by far the most expensive part of production when measured on a per-day basis. Shooting also ties up limited resources that must be shared between productions.

After shooting the film, there are also a lot of jobs that simply take a long time to complete. But, these tasks are carried out by far fewer people, so they are a lot cheaper than actually shooting.

[fastbilly1]

Lets use a simple example for shoot days:
Your typical 30 minute sitcom style tv show is shot in roughly 10 days. In the last season of Friends Jeniffer Anniston was making one million dollars an episode, so equivalently $100,000 a day. If you extend days where you need her on the set and have to pay her, well thats at roughly $100,000 a day. And no that is not the best example, she was probably not on the set every day, but she was on call. And the break down is not that simple, it is something in the contract - just take it as an example.

And the actors get paid that much since they can be those characters at the drop of a hat. That is the only reason people who are that big of jerks can get work.

[RCBH928]

thanx for everyone's input , its very informing ...

as for actors getting paid, I thought it is a contract like :$1 million for this movie. so he is there until the movie is done. Its extremely unfair to be paid by shooting days, specially given he is being paid so much already its not like he is trying to put food on the table.

second point, if most movies lose money , why are they so popular(to produce) there area hundreds of movies done each year. Are people happy losing their money?

third point, for visual effects, why do they get screwed on pay? Cant they take them to court or something? Can you actually screw some one on payment in the USA where there are laws that gives you hundreds of thousands for burning yourself with someone's else coffee?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v. ... estaurants

[Ack]

First off, it's like games. They're not all successful, but the ones that are usually make up for the ones that aren't, like in video games. In video games, generally only one out of four games is successful, but it makes up for the others.

As for those lawsuits, it wouldn't work. First, those guys get paid a going rate. And second, when was the last time you went to see a film because a specific effects person worked on it? Big name actors draw people to the film...effects crews, not so much, unless you're talking the most famous of effects folks. I'd see a Harryhausen film any time.

And as for that lawsuit...the coffee gave her third degree burns. It melted her pantyhose to her skin. Sure, it might have been stupid to set it in her lap, but at the same time, if she'd tried drinking it it might have killed her.

[fastbilly1]

Special Effects only get screwed in comparission to the others, they actually make quite a bit - especially if they are good. Good friends of my family run a company called Fullscale effects. Paul's first movie was the Godfather and for a long time was known as the worlds best pyrotechnician. However his father realized that just doing explosions and things like that wouldnt keep them in business so they spread out into prop making aswell (a change that many of their competitors also did). Suing the industry would only make them make movies without special effects for a few years until a new batch could be trained up. Then they would keep them in house and undercut everyone.

As for the actors, it all comes down to their contract. Typically they are contracted for x amount for x number of weeks. So the producers and directors juggle all the shooting schedules so they can have those highprofile people on set for as much as possible. Mainly since every day they are on set, they have to pay for travel, food, lodging, security, and sometimes entertainment, for the actors. And when you are filming in a place like New York city, renting out a floor of the Waldorf is not cheap.

And I was incorrect earlier, the union states 30 minutes for lunch once the last union member gets through the line. So it comes out to something like 40 minutes.

The movie industry does not work like a typical industry. You cannot apply the rules that make an office to it. It is the only industry I know of that politics, connections, and skill are all weighed evenly. Maybe politics is not the best word to use, but I do know that many high profile directors will not work with William Shatner...

[RCBH928]

so how do the special effects guys get paid, if they screw them on payment?
thats not fair!

[fastbilly1]

Most things in life are not fair. The lionshare of the work done in the world is done by people who make less in their lifetime than some people make in a year.