Production Budgets

[Rodney]

I'd like to open a discussion on budgeting for projects.

The primary bias I have going into such a subject is that I equate the outlay of a budget with the establishment of the project's priorities.

 

As an example of this, lets say that you are allotted 10 bazoozas in which to apply to a production.

These bazoozas are all that you have at the moment to pay forward toward the final product.

You have considered approaching the producer but he's already complained that you are on a tight budget and you think you might actually be able to pull off preproduction on a 10 bazooza budget.

 

The only guy signed up on your team as of this moment suggests the following areas to apply the budget.

 

- Conceptual Designs

- Modeling

- Rigging

 

Note: Any bazooza remaining will not be applied to changes in these areas but will instead be applied to the Production Budget. Changes/Updates will require an increased investment which requires authorization from the Producer.

 

To which areas would you invest and what amount of funding would you apply to them?

 

Are there any other major considerations?

[robcat2075]

I think you need to know more about the project before you can apportion resources. And concept design is potentially endless. you go until you have something useful.

[Rodney]

concept design is potentially endless. you go until you have something useful.

 

I like the way you put that!

 

I think you need to know more about the project before you can apportion resources.

 

I suppose I am thinking in terms of those things that will be common to all productions and asking questions regarding what porportions might be allocated. I can google it but I'm more interested in opinions as those will give us a good idea of the ground we are operating on.

 

As another 'for instance', I don't think most of us would suggest that preproduction, production and post production will all receive the same/equal budget BUT... I may be wrong in this.

 

I can guess at what might be optimal and hope that everyone would go easy on me for inevitably presuming so much.

 

Given your first statement, which again I like a lot, I would guess a 80% allotment up front of 20% of the over all 'anticipated' budget.

So, in bazooza's the breakdown might be?

 

- Conceptual Designs: 5

- Modeling: 2.5

- Rigging: 2.5

 

Give or take a plunk*.

 

 

*1 plunk=1/20th of a bazooza. Give or take a zuz**

**1 zuz=1/20th of a plunk.

[robcat2075]

I suppose the way to solve the concept design problem is to recruit talented people who come up with great ideas the first time.

[fae_alba]

- Conceptual Designs: 5

- Modeling: 2.5

- Rigging: 2.5

 

Now my first inclination is to go heavier on the modeling and rigging, since the results become the assets of the production. Any mistakes in either results in more time wasted downstream, and lost bazoozas. Of course, if I were to apply this to my forte of software design, the most important aspect of any project is the requirements phase, which defines anything and everything needed to complete the project, and would equate to the Conceptual Design phase here. However, there is another approach of design called RAD, or rapid application design, which is a method of creating an application in stages, with each stage the user sees what is done, then defines the criteria for the next phase. For here that would equate to model, tweek, model some more, until satisfied with the result. I tend to work in this manner.

 

So...with that in mind, I'd distribute my bazoozas in this way:

- Conceptual Designs: 2

- Modeling: 4

- Rigging: 4

[Rodney]

Very interesting.

I like the points you've raised and I will set to pondering them.

 

Now my first inclination is to go heavier on the modeling and rigging, since the results become the assets of the production.

 

This was my first inclination as well but mostly because I personally feel to be considerably weaker in modeling and rigging than in the concept department. It seems reasonable that it would be good to find ways to rid budgets of such personal biases.

 

I'll note that another element relative to your ratio breakdown may be that you may be able to get more Product Hours Per Bazooza (PHPB) in the Concept stage because those folks may be willing to work for considerably fewer bazoozas and longer hours while the smaller pool of technically savvy and more scarcely distributed Riggers and Modelers work just as hard but on fewer assets. Not sure about that but... could happen.

 

Added: What that last paragraph suggests is that although the breakdown is budget is actually 2:4:4, the work generated by the Concept Deptartment can still rise to equate to a similar level of work accomplished in Rigging and Modeling. So through innovation, work ethic, really-mean-boss, etc., in effect they all trend back toward a 1:1:1 ratio. And if they don't trend in the right direction... perceptions of the day overrule... and someone may get fired. Hmmm. Gonna hafta give that one some more thought.

[fae_alba]

Added: What that last paragraph suggests is that although the breakdown is budget is actually 2:4:4, the work generated by the Concept Deptartment can still rise to equate to a similar level of work accomplished in Rigging and Modeling. So through innovation, work ethic, really-mean-boss, etc., in effect they all trend back toward a 1:1:1 ratio. And if they don't trend in the right direction... perceptions of the day overrule... and someone may get fired. Hmmm. Gonna hafta give that one some more thought.

 

Welcome to the wild and wooly world of project management! Rodney you are right that, in a RAD environment those three tasks could work to a 1:1:1 ratio. And yes, when budgeting you have to consider that the more technical the job skills, the harder it gets to find someone to satisfy those skills, the more expensive they become. From a management side, you have to be able to get more for less (true in all industries), and being able to build a "team spirit" where everyone feels vested in the project will encourage team members to work harder, smarter, faster, and in time perhaps reduce the cost of the project. Also, all the budgeting in the world won't be of any good if the manager is not up to the task of actually managing.

 

My point, is that the exercise of budgeting is really in my mind a best guess. In my world of estimating how much time it would take to code an app is usually the amount of time I think it'll take times 1.65 percent. Building a pad in the guess-timate gives room for that worst case scenario.

[Rodney]

Since I percieve that wisdom is flowing I will assume that I am learning.

 

Again, you raise some nice points.

 

My point, is that the exercise of budgeting is really in my mind a best guess.

 

I believe it is that very art of best guessing that this topic attempts to approach.

 

In my world of estimating how much time it would take to code an app is usually the amount of time I think it'll take times 1.65 percent. Building a pad in the guess-timate gives room for that worst case scenario.

 

Interesting you should say that.

In the military I often bemoaned the practice of 'doing more with less'... especially where it came to manpower I learned to really hate that stuff.

With respect to manpower it seemed to me that a perfect budgeting of manpower would re-equate 1 to 1.5 (I'm interested in that additional .15 padding that you've added in because while I can guess, I don't know particularly where that figure comes from. Perhaps you are rounding down? If you'd have said 1.66 percent I would have instantly exclaimed, "AHA! I got it." (If this is really confusing think in terms of thirds where the set becomes (0, .33. .66 and 1)

 

Thanks fo giving me more food for thought.

[fae_alba]

Since I percieve that wisdom is flowing I will assume that I am learning.

 

Rodney, you know better than to "assume"!

 

Interesting you should say that.

In the military I often bemoaned the practice of 'doing more with less'... especially where it came to manpower I learned to really hate that stuff.

With respect to manpower it seemed to me that a perfect budgeting of manpower would re-equate 1 to 1.5 (I'm interested in that additional .15 padding that you've added in because while I can guess, I don't know particularly where that figure comes from. Perhaps you are rounding down? If you'd have said 1.66 percent I would have instantly exclaimed, "AHA! I got it." (If this is really confusing think in terms of thirds where the set becomes (0, .33. .66 and 1)

 

my estimating "bump" if purely an arbitrary "consulatant-ese" number based on years of hard experience! You can use whatever number you want, the point is to budget and plan for the need for the extra time and money.

[Rodney]

Rodney, you know better than to "assume"!

 

But that is rather the point. I DON'T know better!

So I stick my head out a little and see what I can see... and while I will be forever apologetic to those who might follow after me... at least others may learn from the experience.

 

my estimating "bump" if purely an arbitrary "consulatant-ese" number based on years of hard experience! You can use whatever number you want, the point is to budget and plan for the need for the extra time and money.

 

I see no issue there.

My primary issue with using arbitrary numbers though is that they are in fact arbitrary and as such they are prone to iterative inflation.

As an example consider the store where things are sold at an average 50-60% discount rate... and yet they still make a really good profit at that rate. 'Buy one get one free', 'five for the price of one', smaller and smaller content in larger packages, etc., we've gone past the point of being ridiculous. One must take care not to mind game the system at the expense of the system itself or they risk losing everything.

 

Perhaps it's just my perception but honest weights and measures seem to be a particular rarity these days.

Transparency is given lip service and means "Everyone else is transparent but me."

Dishonesty makes a mockery of it all and forces new and stricter laws into place to ensure fairness is maintained.

 

Because there is such deeply resounding conflict at the core of it all it can't help but produce stories of woe and of waste.

And then when one looks at the content/product itself... yikes... "For that... How much did we pay?"

 

This is something of a broad stroke but I hope others can relate.

If it is critical to stick to a budget and yet no one has a good grasp on how to create and maintain that budget that presents a risk that isn't going to be worth a long term investment. Perhaps this directly relates to why we don't see a lot of long term investment these days? Are budgets totally passe?

[robcat2075]

When I started at Nortel our media team was very big on "estimates". If we met our estimate of how long something would take that was good for a metric of some sort. However, you couldn't just give a sky-high estimate either, that was bad for the metric.

 

I guess our manager was trying to get us to think in business-like terms.

 

But in the first five years I worked there the estimates were meaningless for me. Every project I had was a completely different thing from any prior ones so there was really no way to make predictions. How do you estimate something that you haven't done before? And there's no one around who's done it either?

 

Regarding a movie... somehow independent movies are made on budgets but they don't reveal much about how they do it or what goes where.

 

On the rare occasions an ACTUAL line-item film budget has been leaked it's like a Hollywood scandal.

[largento]

At my old job, we had this argument often. Scheduling creative is virtually impossible, because the definition of "complete" is subjective and different for everyone. It's not like a math problem where you can have an exact answer.

 

Stan Freburg has a great song on his History of the United States album. Betsy Ross has just finished making the first flag and Washington comes on and starts asking the ridiculous questions clients ask and then suggesting insane things. The song is called "Everybody Wants to Be an Art Director."

 

You can guess, but if it's too high, the client will be scared off and if it's too low, then you've got an angry client. And don't ask me why, but the cheap client always wants more changes than the client who is paying big bucks.

 

Creatives are then put through the ringer having to work nights and weekends to meet those schedules.

[fae_alba]

Let me re-phrase my last statement but the budgeting estimate issue. It's not really a simple padding of the estimate just to squeeze another buck from the client. It's a estimate born from experience, that no matter how well you estimate, something will invariably come along to blow that number out of the water. A lot of it is the "everyone wants to be an art director" as Largento points out. I could be fairly comfortable with the knowledge that I can complete project "x" in 2 hours, but I also know that when a happily deliver the product, the stakeholder is going to say "that's not what I wanted". So I build that in. Now, also understand that in my world, we bill hourly, for hours worked, not on a fixed price contract (those are considered evil to my consultant ilk) like is being posed here, so perhaps it might not be entirely appropriate a model to use. But the premise is is that a budget needs to take into account somewhat of the unknown. Otherwise you will always come in with a project that is late and over budget.

 

so let's draw this out further:

 

Let's say, as above that we have the concept guy, the modeler and the rigger. They cost us as follows (let's presume that this includes benefits, perks, payroll etc.)

concept guy: 10 plunks/hr

modeler: 15 plunks/hr

rigger: 17 plunks/hr

 

we are going to design, model, and rig one character, and we feel that the concept guy will need 2 hrs, the modeler is going to need 10 hrs, and the rigger needs 5 hrs (all arbitrary of course)

 

that gives us a cost of:

concept guy: 2 hrs @ 10 plunks/hr = 1 bazooza

modeler: 10 hrs @ 15 plunks/hr = 7.5 bazoozas

rigger: 5 hrs @ 17 plunks/hr = 3.75 bazoozas

total cost = 12.25 bazoozas.

 

Now as a business, we have determined that we need to make 1.5 times the employees rate per hr worked for each employee in order to keep the lights on. This means that we would quote a cost to the client of

concept guy: 2 hrs @ 10 plunks/hr = 20plunks * 1.5 = 30 plunks = 1.5 bazoozas

modeler: 10 hrs @ 15 plunks/hr = 150 plunks * 1.5 = 11.25 bazoozas

rigger: 5 hrs @ 17 plunks/hr = 85 plunks * 1.5 = 4.25 bazoozas

total bid = 17 bazoozas

 

You could view the 1.5 margin as my guestimate bump, since it represents the uplift required to keep things going. A different way to look at it, but I think it means the same thing.

[Gerry]

All very interesting. I'll be taking a project management course in the fall, maybe I can contribute to this discussion then!

[Rodney]

All very interesting. I'll be taking a project management course in the fall, maybe I can contribute to this discussion then!

 

Please do!

[Rodney]

Gerry mentioned that he'll be taking a course on Project Management and this brings me smack dab right back to the core thoughts on budgeting.

 

The number of bazoozas available for any given project may be an extreme variable but there is one variable that we can factor more readily; Time. The dreaded deadline doom.

 

One of the primary considerations in any budget should be the allotted time.

 

There is a truism (at least I've found it to be true) that, "A task will expand to fill the allotted time".

 

As an example of this, consider:

If we are given a week to do a project we will likely get it done in that timeframe.

But if we are given two weeks to do that same project we will get the job done in that timeframe.

This is why some people seem to be instant experts that just get it, while others constantly struggle and compelling reasons to work over time.

 

This is important in understanding why bosses tend to give deadlines that seem impractical.

We (or more appropriately in this case mostly They) instinctively know that tasks expand to fill allotted time.

Why should they budget two weeks when they know they can get it in one day?

(The answer to this question is likely: to increase quantity and/or quality)

 

When looking to reduce your own budget, consider the budgeting of your time wisely. Remember that "time is bazoozas" and do not allot 'too much time'.

 

Allotment of time is usually set by the customer/purchaser/buyer and since it's their dime, let them dictate the budget through their own established timeline.

A simple question to to ask is, "When do you need this?" or on a workorder form, "Required Completion Date" will gather that important data.

Required Delivery Date is one of the most important pieces of information you can come by.

 

...and with that I yield the floor to those more knowledgeable than I.

[robcat2075]

There is a truism (at least I've found it to be true) that, "A task will expand to fill the allotted time".

 

 

I'll add "The number of tasks will expand to exceed the available time"

[Rodney]

I'll add "The number of tasks will expand to exceed the available time"

 

That may be the actual truism.

That doesn't help us reign in the chaos though... or does it?

 

How does one place a control on the number of tasks that will expand to exceed the available time?

[robcat2075]

How does one place a control on the number of tasks that will expand to exceed the available time?

 

Whenever someone would bring me a task that they thought would be great for "animation" I would typically try to suggest some non-CG way to accomplish the goal and deport the task to someone else.

 

I found that if i did not constantly try to push stuff over the fence into someone else's yard I would end up with too many things on my plate that should never have been brought to me.

 

"Wouldn't it be easier to have our photographer shoot that phone instead of me making a 3D model? I'm sure you haven't sent that prototype phone back to the lab IN CANADA before you were sure you didn't need it anymore."

[zandoriastudios]

I think I spend 50% on conceptual, 25%modeling and texturing, 25% rigging, weighting, pose set up...

My units of measure= time. And time = bazoozas

[fae_alba]

This is important in understanding why bosses tend to give deadlines that seem impractical.

 

Sometimes they are impractical. As the brains of the outfit, it is up to you to guide the powers that be during the bidding process to ensure that a realistic timeframe is set. Allowing your employer to take a contract that states 1 week to finish when you know that in the past it will really take 3, is unfair to you and your boss.

 

Allotment of time is usually set by the customer/purchaser/buyer and since it's their dime, let them dictate the budget through their own established timeline.

A simple question to to ask is, "When do you need this?" or on a workorder form, "Required Completion Date" will gather that important data.

Required Delivery Date is one of the most important pieces of information you can come by.

 

This is usually a bargaining point. Normally in my world, if an RFP comes in with a stated deadline, and I/we/the consultant knows that in order to meet that deadline more staffing will be required, the bid will state something like, in order to meet the stated budget it will take x times longer, in order to meet the time frame it will take x times more FTE's (full time employees) costing y times more bazoozas.

 

The project manager doesn't have a say in the amount of time, or the budget he/she has available to them. They come onto the scene after the contract has been inked. It's their job to get the project done, within the time frame, and (preferably!) under budget. In the film making world, the PM is the Director, the boss (or money man) is the producer, the client would be a studio.

[Rodney]

I think I spend 50% on conceptual, 25%modeling and texturing, 25% rigging, weighting, pose set up...

My units of measure= time. And time = bazoozas

 

Don't betray any trade secrets but... you've got me curious.

Of that 50% spent on conceptual how much of that is in A:M? I know you are big on drawing.

 

Also, is there a specific line between conceptual and modeling? Or do you move back and forth a lot between concept and modeling.

(I guess what I'm wondering here is how locked down your concepts are before you move into modeling)

[Rodney]

You hit a lot of nice points there but I'll just comment on one and let others weigh in:

 

The project manager doesn't have a say in the amount of time, or the budget he/she has available to them.

 

I can't help but think this is a good idea.

I would think they should be laser focused on getting the job done exactly as specified.

[zandoriastudios]

I don't start in A:M until the concept has become a rotoscope. So 50% of my preproduction is sketches