How To Budget a $2 Million Indie Film — Where The Money Actually Goes | Off The Lot Podcast

You have $2 million to make an indie feature. How should you actually spend it? In this episode of Off The Lot, we break down a real-world $2M indie film budget from top to bottom — from writers, directors and recognizable cast to crew, locations, equipment, post-production, music, tax-credit financing, contingency and all the hidden costs filmmakers routinely underestimate. Using the Telefilm Canada standard budget structure as our framework — and lessons learned making Remnant — we get into what it really costs to produce a professional independent feature. We cover: How much of your budget should go above the line What recognizable actors can actually cost Why production labour eats up more money than equipment How much to budget for camera, grip, electric, locations and transportation Why a $2M movie depends on deals, relationships and favors Budgeting overtime before production starts Tax-credit strategies that can stretch your production dollars Why you should expect roughly 25% of your budget to go into post What music licensing can actually cost The hidden costs of legal, financing, insurance and tax credits Why contingency is not optional A $2 million budget sounds like a lot of money — until you start making the movie. Subscribe to Off The Lot for practical conversations about financing, producing and making independent films outside the studio system. #IndieFilm #Filmmaking #FilmBudget #IndependentFilm #FilmProduction Listen To The Episode On Your Podcast Player https://www.offthelotpodcast.com/listen Follow Ken's Indie Horror Feature Remnant here: https://www.remnantmovie.com Follow Ken Kabatoff's newsletter The Film Founder here: https://kenkabatoff.substack.com/about Follow Anthony Epp's newsletter The Greenlight Report here: https://greenlightreport.substack.com... Follow Ken & Anthony on Instagram here:   / ken_kabatoff     / epptri