Clocking Film Hours

Have you ever wondered what kind of time commitment goes into making a movie?  Or where most of the man hours go?  How much time is actually spent filming?  What kind of behind-the-scene tasks do people never think about?

I use to record how much time I dumped into each movie I made.  The STS Debut Film, for example, took me 6-8 hours over the course of two days to make.  As productions got more involved I stopped keeping track of the time.  I found it was more self-indulgent than useful.

However, when I was commissioned to shoot a commercial for CleanerB, I had to estimate how much time I would be putting into the project in order to give the client a quote.  That's when I realized that I had no idea how much work I plugged into any given film anymore.  I always worried about my deadline and spending as much time as I need to finish it.  As it turned out, I underestimated how much time it would take... by a lot.

The next movie we put into production was Banak the Brave.  I clocked all of my hours from conception to internet release.

Below are two pie charts.  The first is just the hours I personally put into the main project.  The second is a breakdown of all the time put into every facet of the project by everyone. 

Just to be clear, I only counted the times in which my time was dedicated specifically to the project, wherein I could have been doing something else with my time.  So, for example, I usually did not count the time my computer spent rendering the movie footage or uploading it to YouTube.  Those things I usually let run overnight.  In the meantime, I was playing video games or sleeping.

Prior to production, I would have assumed the following breakdown of time for Banak:  8 hours to write, 9 hours over two days to film, 16 hours for the first cut, another 16 to reach the final product, and an extra 8 hours for good measure for miscellaneous tasks.  Grand Total = 57 hours.

At the end of the day I put in 136 hours!  The entire team (including me) clocked 295.  Here's the breakdown:

If my team was hired to shoot this movie rather than to do it for fun, here's what I think a reasonable, low-end dollar amount would be:  I put 100$ of my money into the movie.  That being said, let's say I paid everyone (including myself) 10$/hour. 

295 Man Hours x 10$/hour pay + 100$ production cost = $3050