The sheet is the full budget for DRY WELLS, a fictional feature documentary following two farmworker towns in the San Joaquin Valley after their wells run dry. It uses the same account numbers as the SALT FLATS film budget template, so the structure will be familiar, but the money sits in different places. For the planning side of a documentary budget, including how to budget before you know the story, read how to budget a documentary. This page explains the template line by line.
Where a documentary budget puts its money
| Section | Total | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Above the line (research, producer, director) | $25,230 | 14.0% |
| Production (field crew, gear, locations, transport) | $46,542 | 25.9% |
| Post-production (edit, sound, music, archival, finishing) | $68,358 | 38.0% |
| Other (insurance, legal, travel, festivals) | $25,800 | 14.3% |
| Contingency, 10% of below the line | $14,070 | 7.8% |
| Grand total | $180,000 | 100% |
Compare that with the 12-day scripted feature on the indie film budget, where post is 9.5% and production is 58%. A documentary shoots with three or four people instead of 27, spread over months, and then spends most of its money turning 18 days of material into a story. The editor alone is 18 weeks at $1,500, or $27,000 before fringes.
How the field crew lines are built
The crew is a DP who also operates, a sound recordist, and a field producer who interprets Spanish interviews, with a production assistant and driver on the 8 days with more than one location. The director isn't on a day rate because the director's fee in 1301 is a flat loan-out covering development through picture lock.
All four crew positions are on day rates for a 10-hour day. In California that day is 8 straight hours plus 2 at time and a half under Labor Code 510, or 11 straight-time hours. The lowest rate is the PA at $250, which is $250 / 11 = $22.73 an hour, above the 2026 minimum wage of $16.90. Documentary days are often shorter than scripted days, but when an interview runs late, anything past 10 hours is overtime, and that comes out of contingency on this budget.
The DP owns the camera package, so 2302 rents it from them at $250 a day for 18 days, $4,500. The same arrangement covers the sound package in 2502 at $100 a day for the 16 days the recordist works. Kit rentals and box rentals explains how those are paid and why they're kept off payroll.
Filling in the template for your documentary
- Start with the shoot pattern. Write down how many trips, how many days each, and how many crew travel. DRY WELLS is 6 trips of 3 days with a crew of three staying in hotels.
- Enter research and development in 1100: researcher weeks, records requests, and the $0 subject release line.
- Put producer and director fees in 1200 and 1300, and note whether they're loan-outs.
- Build the field crew in 2000 through 2500 with days per person. Rent owned kit from the crew as separate lines.
- Put hotel and per diem in 5400 travel and living, counted per person per night. Fifty room nights at $100 is $5,000.
- Budget the edit in weeks, then add transcription and translation. Interviews in a second language take longer to log, and the $1,800 in 3104 covers transcribing and translating the Spanish ones.
- List archival by clip and by image, with the license terms in the description. "Festival plus 5-year all media" costs more than festival only, and usually less than buying the wider rights later.
- Add E&O and clearance counsel in the 5000 series, then take 10% of below the line as contingency.
Where documentary budgets go wrong
The edit gets budgeted like a scripted film's, with 10 weeks for a story that hasn't been found yet. If the cut needs 26 weeks instead of 18, that's 8 x $1,500 = $12,000 more plus $2,160 in fringes. The $14,160 total is more than the entire $14,070 contingency.
Archival gets priced for festivals only. When a distributor wants worldwide rights, every clip goes back to the licensor. Pricing the wider term up front, as 3401 does, is usually cheaper than renegotiating six licenses after the film has a buyer.
Clearance gets left until the end. Many E&O carriers ask for a clearance attorney's opinion when a film relies on fair use, and that review is easier while the cut can still change. See clearance and errors and omissions insurance in the glossary.
Travel gets counted per trip instead of per person and per night. Three people for 50 nights is 50 room nights on this budget, and $2,000 in per diem at $40.
How this connects to the schedule and paperwork
A documentary's shooting schedule is looser than a scripted one, but the budget still depends on it. The documentary shooting schedule post shows how to plan trips around events you don't control. Every person on camera needs a release, and the talent release form is the starting point. Grants often fill part of a documentary's budget, and film grants for independent filmmakers lists where to look.
Documentaries in Storiara
Storiara has an unscripted story type for projects without a screenplay. The Budget module's setup wizard takes production type, shoot days, prep and post weeks, and contingency, and you can add line items by hand, edit them, and export the budget to Excel. The budgeting feature page shows the top sheet.