LAST BUS TO TAFT is a fictional 12-minute short: a retired bus driver makes one last run with a teenager who missed the school bus. It shoots in three 10-hour days in Taft, southwest of Bakersfield, and the sheet above is every dollar it takes, laid out with the same account numbers as a feature budget. The short film budget breakdown covers how to think about spending on a short. This page is about the template and the choices behind these numbers.
Feature account numbers on an $8,000 short mean the film budget template will already be familiar when you move up to a feature, and a grant panel or producer who asks for your budget can read it without a key.
How the $8,000 breaks down
| Section | Total |
|---|---|
| Above the line: cast, auditions, fringes | $1,675 |
| Production: crew, rentals, locations, catering | $4,650 |
| Post: sound mix, music, deliverables | $450 |
| Other: insurance, backup drive, festival fees | $650 |
| Contingency, 10% of $5,750 below the line | $575 |
| Grand total | $8,000 |
The above-the-line section is small because the people who usually cost money there are the filmmakers. The writer-director, producer, and editor each have a $0 line marked as deferred or covered. Writing those lines down matters. If the film gets picked up and the deferrals get paid, there's a record of who was owed what. The glossary entry on deferred pay covers how deferral agreements usually work.
Camera is the biggest production account at $1,305: the DP at 3 days x $250 = $750, their own camera kit at 3 x $100 = $300, $120 for two SSDs, and 18% fringe on the $750 of labor, which is $135.
Paying people legally at this scale
Every paid person on this budget is an employee on a day rate, paid through a payroll company, so the day rate has to clear California's minimum wage with overtime built in. The 2026 minimum is $16.90 an hour. Labor Code 510 requires time and a half after 8 hours in a day, so a 10-hour day is 8 straight hours plus 2 at 1.5x, which is 11 straight-time hours. The minimum for that day is 11 x $16.90 = $185.90.
This budget pays $200 a day to the hair and makeup artist, the sound mixer, and the two leads, and $250 to the DP and the actor playing the bus driver. At $200, the hourly base is $200 / 11 = $18.18. If a day runs past 10 hours, the extra time is overtime, which is one reason contingency matters on a 3-day shoot.
Fringes at 18% cover employer payroll taxes, workers' comp, and the payroll company's fee, as an example rate. On $1,250 of cast pay that's $225, and on the $1,950 of crew pay it's $351. Get a real quote before you lock the numbers.
Filling in your short
- Write the header first: runtime, page count, shoot days, day length, and who is paid, deferred, or covering a job for free.
- List cast by role with their shoot days, then add auditions. A room for one Saturday of auditions is $200 here.
- Decide which crew you pay. This short pays for picture, sound, and hair and makeup, because those three are the hardest to fix in post.
- Price kit rentals from the crew who own the gear. The DP's camera, the lighting kit, and the mixer's sound kit are all rented from their owners at a day rate.
- Add fringes to every paid person.
- Add locations, catering for everyone on set each day, and the picture vehicle. Here the bus comes with its owner driving.
- Put in post even if friends are doing it. A flat $300 sound mix and a $100 library music license are the minimum for a festival screener.
- Add insurance, a backup drive, and festival fees, then take contingency and total it.
What short film budgets usually leave out
Insurance comes up most. The bus yard owner wants a certificate of insurance before the crew arrives, and the budget has $400 for a short-term policy. Put in a real quote.
Catering is next. Eleven people at $15 a day for three days is $495, and the count includes cast and the bus owner as well as crew.
Backup storage is easy to skip. The $100 drive in 5501 is the second copy of the footage that goes home with someone other than the DIT or the DP.
Festival submission fees often get left out too. Each festival charges its own entry fee, and a short that goes out to several of them can run up more than the $150 held here.
Releases don't cost money, but they belong on the paperwork list alongside this budget: a location release form for the house, even when it's family, and the bus yard, and a talent release form for every performer.
Scaling this template up or down
To go smaller, cut the audition room, drop to two paid crew, and use owned gear. The structure doesn't change. To go bigger, add a gaffer and a 1st AD in the 2000 series, and give post a real color grade in 4100. The film budget estimator gives a rough total for a given number of shoot days before you build the detail.
Budgeting a short in Storiara
Storiara's Budget module builds a budget from your script breakdown and schedule, and its setup wizard asks for production type, union tier, shoot days, prep and post weeks, and contingency. Cast paid days come from the Day Out of Days, and you can edit any line and export to Excel. New accounts get a 30-day free trial, which is enough time to budget a short. See the budgeting feature.