[HN Gopher] Full $71M breakdown for The Village by M. Night Shya...
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Full $71M breakdown for The Village by M. Night Shyamalan (2003)
[pdf]
Author : cocacola1
Score : 206 points
Date : 2024-02-03 03:13 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wlmager.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (wlmager.com)
| wyldfire wrote:
| Wow - Howard's character is arguably more important to the story
| than Phoenix's. Was he that big of a draw back then to be able to
| demand so much more pay? Well - he had probably been in
| "Gladiator" just prior, so I guess he was a hot commodity. It
| looks like William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, Brendan
| Gleeson all got paid pretty well. The movie made money despite
| not finding favor with critics.
|
| > Ebert named the film the tenth worst film of 2004 and
| subsequently put it on his "Most Hated" list.
|
| I dunno, I enjoyed it. I'm a simple man.
| i80and wrote:
| Ebert's critique isn't wrong IMO, but I think misses the bigger
| picture about what did work well in the film
| devin wrote:
| I recently learned that Ebert gave a positive review to Con
| Air.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| And for what con air was, he was right.
| wozniacki wrote:
| From what I have learned about this whole show business /
| movie business / music business game as played at least in N.
| America and U.K. (?), the whole thing is pretty rigged and
| works on a "handshake" basis for the lack of a more loftier
| term. Hollywood , for the sheer amount of global power it
| wields, is amazing when you think about how its run like a
| company town & how little scrutiny it gets overall.
|
| I highly recommend watching the HBO series, Vinyl (2016)
| about a record executive from the 1970s & the music business
| then. All those radio hits - that were hit and the ones that
| werent - you've always scratched your head about make a lot
| more sense when you understand the inner workings.
|
| [1] Vinyl (2016)
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3186130/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_(TV_series)
| Retric wrote:
| Movie goers buy individual tickets which makes a huge
| difference vs radio. Unpopular movies get booted from
| theaters very quickly where unpopular songs can stick
| around on the radio indefinitely.
|
| And it doesn't matter how connected you are, movie flops
| quickly kill careers.
| verticalscaler wrote:
| Stop this shade throwing at a great work of cinema or the
| bunny gets it. Con Air is a timeless classic and he was
| totally right.
| borbulon wrote:
| Up until Con Air, neither Nicholas Cage nor John Cusack had
| made a bad movie (well, -maybe- one each).
| verticalscaler wrote:
| Up to and _including_. Right?
|
| ..
|
| tth_tth
|
| Right?
| bentobean wrote:
| Criterion Collection material, certainly.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Criterion publishes The Rock and Armageddon, so why not?
| xsmasher wrote:
| He judged high art by the standards of high art, and schlock
| by the standards of schlock.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| A lot of people confuse which one Shayamalan is.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| If a movie isn't entertaining, then it's bad. If a movie is
| at least entertaining, then it's good.
| yuppiepuppie wrote:
| The pay gap in the star cast is huge for Howard. Was she just
| starting her career at this point?
| wmf wrote:
| Yes, it looks like this was her first or second notable role.
| wharvle wrote:
| Yeah, sixth film credit... but the second one for which her
| character _had a name_.
|
| And that other film appears to have had a box office under
| $1.4m, with a collection of basically nobody notable
| attached, including the director.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I laugh at IMDB listings with the heavy (uncredited)
| listings in people's credits. Why not just tell the truth
| with listing the credit as Extra?
| huytersd wrote:
| I'm a simple man too. Ebert is like Punxsutawney Phil to me.
| He's right about 30% of the time.
| rvbissell wrote:
| Same. Maybe I was a naive young adult, but I totally did not
| anticipate the twist in that plot. So in that regard I felt
| like I got my money's worth.
| echelon wrote:
| "Signs" was one of my favorite films of the 2000s, if you
| don't nitpick about the water. Suspenseful, well acted,
| leaves you guessing, eager for more.
|
| Suffice to say, I eagerly anticipated "The Village" from the
| moment the first trailer dropped. The costumes looked cool.
| The colors, the creatures, the mood and the mystery.
|
| I don't think I've ever left a theater quite so disappointed.
| The twist ruined what had been a magical experience for the
| better half of the film. I wanted the magic to endure, but I
| got slapped with a bad episode of "The Outer Limits".
|
| Shyamalan remains a fantastic filmmaker for his hits, but
| this one hurt me. I don't wait for films anymore.
| grecy wrote:
| I felt exactly the same about signs, and really loved the
| village.
|
| I don't really like the world we've built, and I fantasize
| about leaving it behind. That's a major reason I lived in
| the Yukon for years (many people living more like the
| village than outside it)
|
| These people (the village founders) had an idea and went
| for it. I really like that.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Signs is the worst movie I've ever seen. The plot makes no
| sense and it's not like it has good character development
| or dialogue so that leaves nothing.
| smazga wrote:
| I'm a fan of the "aliens are demons" and "the water is
| holy" (you know, because he's a priest) interpretation.
|
| It's a stretch, but makes the water fit into the story
| better (in my opinion).
| vidarh wrote:
| It was ruined for me because we arrived just as it was about
| to start, were pointed to the wrong screen, and ended up
| walking in to a viewing in progress just in time to see
| enough to make the twist obvious...
|
| As much as I've enjoyed many of Shyamalan's movies, the big
| problem with them is how much hinges on the twist. To this
| day I feel very little interest in rewatching them because of
| that.
| plasma_beam wrote:
| Your critique is totally spot on. I can't stomach
| Shyamalan's current movies. Oddly though despite the cheap
| plot twist and how much it got made fun of in the media at
| the time, I love The Sixth Sense. I still watch it to this
| day. The scene where Cole sees the dead biker and tells his
| mom they're standing outside the car window? Goosebumps
| every time.
| vidarh wrote:
| I think you're right that The Sixth Sense is worth
| rewatching more so than his later ones.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I swear I know this twist from a short story in an English
| textbook I read in school. Seemingly set in the mid-19th
| century, a pair of young teens, maybe a group of three,
| were in the process of exploring outside their village (I
| think with the intention of leaving for good) -- knowing
| it's not allowed by village authorities -- when they walked
| onto a modern paved road and saw the headlights from a
| vehicle and didn't know what they were looking at.
|
| I never watched the movie but from all the conversations
| I've heard about it, it sounds like that's the twist. This
| 19th-century village is just a probably slightly cult-y
| hideaway for some people in modern times. Is that right?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's always been the twist.
| vidarh wrote:
| Variations on the this has been done many times, so I
| wouldn't be surprised. E.g the broader "protagonist lives
| in a bubble" theme includes The Truman Show, or Brian
| Aldiss' novel "Nonstop".
|
| As someone else pointed out part of the problem w/how
| Shyamalan handles it is that too much hinges on the twist
| in some of his movies.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > the big problem with them is how much hinges on the twist
|
| I feel similar but different to JJ Abrams' Cloverfield
| universe. Cloverfield Lane and Cloverfield Paradox are just
| 2 movies where he attaches a random scene at the end to tie
| them into the Cloverfield universe. Those scenes have
| nothing to do with the movie, and if left off would not
| negatively affect the movie itself.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| It isn't only the twist, though, it's the timing of the
| twist. Plenty of movies with that kind of twist are re-
| watchable, but you have to put that twist about ... two-
| thirds, three-fifths of the way through. The rest of the
| film is devoted to the protagonist exploring the
| consequences of realizing that one of their big axioms was
| wrong. Shyamalan's timing puts the twist at the end, the
| characters don't really get to react, etc.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I used a lot that movie as an analogy during covid, when we
| were told that all borders were closed and it was impossible
| to travel, but the few friends who actually showed up at
| airports were surprised to see the whole thing functioning
| normally and be a rather nice experience (no lines). That was
| 2020 of course. 2021 was a different story.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| For me it's the kind of movie where if you know there is a
| twist you can immediately guess what it is.
|
| But I've read and watched a lot of thrillers so they tend to
| become obvious after a while.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Actors get paid for their ability to draw an audience, which
| largely depends on the success of their previous work. Howard
| was a nobody, but probaly got paid a lot better for her next
| movie, since this movie was a success.
| karma_fountain wrote:
| This was Bryce Dallas Howard's first film so it was her big
| break, before that she had only done theater. Hopefully she got
| a percentage of the profit and some extra money for promoting
| the film.
|
| Edit: Also worth noting that her father is Ron Howard so she
| probably didn't need the money.
| cm2187 wrote:
| On the other hand he also put Usual Suspects on that list (he
| argues the plot is too complicated). Can't disagree more.
| getlawgdon wrote:
| I enjoyed it also. Memorable and unique.
| woobar wrote:
| It was also one of the first movies for Jesse Eisenberg, but I
| cannot find his character (Jamison) in the list. I wonder if it
| was renamed during shooting. There is a small part for Joseph
| ($8K total), but there is no character with this name in the
| final cast.
| wmf wrote:
| Interesting to see that Shyamalan was paid $300K to write, $200K
| to direct, and $3M to produce the movie.
| danpalmer wrote:
| And 7.2m for the story rights, the first line item.
| wmf wrote:
| Whoops, somehow I misread that as $7,200. Don't tell the
| "idea guys" about this!
| joshspankit wrote:
| Am I reading this right that M. Night got over 10M (and
| possibly the most out of anyone) because of the 7.5M story
| rights/writing on top of the 3M for directing?
| wmf wrote:
| The auteur theory at work.
| mrkstu wrote:
| I'm assuming it was as Director that he made most of his back
| end money.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I wonder if those fees are based on a "fixed fees" schedule
| (these ones above, not the script one)
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| [Spoiler Alert]
|
| I was at a "special invite." I remember this movie well because
| many of India's Bollywood whos-who were there. When the film
| ended, I came out and kept thinking, I wish the movie ended
| before the revelation, stayed on the cliffhanger, and didn't
| expose that the Village was "staged."
|
| The ending made me feel like, "Duh! Was it all for nothing?"
| siva7 wrote:
| Thanks for spoiling the end.
| ajcp wrote:
| The movie has been out for 21 years now. It's not a spoiler,
| you're just being reminded how much you've been passed by.
| unwind wrote:
| Sometimes new people are added to the world and it can take
| a while to catch up, though.
| mnsc wrote:
| That is true so I hope you you never mention anything
| about "blowing up the death star" or you might spoil that
| as well.
| mkl wrote:
| That one's not really a spoiler. The heroes set out to do
| that to win, and it's obviously the type of movie where
| the heroes win. What's less certain is how exactly
| they'll get there.
| jrflowers wrote:
| > it's obviously the type of movie where the heroes win
|
| How would I know that if I haven't seen it
| avidiax wrote:
| Watch enough movies and you'll know that certain things
| don't test well with audiences.
|
| Is a young girl in peril? Don't worry, nothing will
| happen to her, the audiences won't like it.
|
| Have we been focused on one guy for the first 20 minutes?
| He definitely won't die, at least until the end. And he
| will achieve something great regardless; it won't all be
| for nothing.
|
| Did they show a gun in some scene? That's important for
| later; some guy called Chekhov wants it back.
|
| Once you see the boundaries in modern storytelling, it
| definitely makes things rather predictable.
|
| If you want to see a film that breaks some of the rules,
| watch Brimstone.
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1895315/
| jrflowers wrote:
| Thanks! A friend recommended Gaspard Noe's Irreversible
| and I will keep those lessons in mind
| ekianjo wrote:
| irreversible may give you PTSD just a friendly warning
| dabber wrote:
| Spoiler alert!
| Joeboy wrote:
| Apologies if this is too much of a spoiler, but you might
| be a bit surprised by how the film's immediate sequel
| plays out.
|
| Edit: And considering when it was made and who made it, a
| happy ending was by no means guaranteed. Compare and
| contrast with the endings of Silent Running or American
| Graffiti.
| mkl wrote:
| That's partly why the [spoiler] of The Empire Strikes
| Back is effective, but that movie also has a different
| tone right from the start (even before that, with the
| title), and doesn't really tell a complete story but sets
| up the next sequel to provide resolution and the
| inevitable heroic victory.
|
| Silent Running is a dystopian setting, so the ending is
| unsurprising, and American Graffiti is a of genre that
| often has bad outcomes for some characters as cautionary
| tales.
| nytesky wrote:
| Really think Luke's paternal heritage would have been a
| better example :)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Those people probably shouldn't click on a discussion
| thread about a movie they haven't seen.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| The harder you try to think up rational justifications
| for being inconsiderate, the more you prove how there are
| none.
| stavros wrote:
| Sometimes you just want to talk about stories, though. We
| can't embargo them forever.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| If I visit the Wikipedia page of a film I haven't seen,
| it's my own fault if I get spoiled. Same difference here.
| Log_out_ wrote:
| After 1 Generation it's cultural bedrock, nobody yells
| spoilers when a king Kong climb is refererenced.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I never saw it.
| speed_spread wrote:
| You're being sarcastic but you shouldn't. The plot twist is
| all there is to the movie, so that reveal saved you 2 hours
| of your life.
| febed wrote:
| Spoilers! Please
| mkl wrote:
| I don't know if that would have helped. I figured out the twist
| long before its revelation, and I think the movie would have
| made even less sense without some kind of explanation of the
| characters' strange behaviour. I came out of it thinking "I
| guess some names can get _anything_ funded ", since it seemed
| like an obviously bad story, but with more hindsight "obviously
| bad story" is not a problem for a film project if it makes
| money (just a problem for the audience), and in 2004
| Shyamalan's name on a movie was guaranteed to make money, so
| the investors had no need to care about story.
| dialanonymous wrote:
| I remember guessing the twist almost immediately because the
| whole plot was a blatant rip-off of a book I had just read in
| school.
|
| This is the book:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Out_of_Time_(novel)
| tomcam wrote:
| Weird thing is that Piers Anthony wrote a children's science
| fiction book called "Race against time" with a similar theme.
| huytersd wrote:
| No, I loved the ending and then thinking back through the whole
| movie and remember how I just assumed it was in the seventeenth
| century or whatever. The "it was all for nothing" in an
| isolated compound in the modern world made the movie for me.
| qubex wrote:
| Same. I absolutely loved how the reveal retroactively revised
| the whole story.
| tom_ wrote:
| I liked it too. There's a bit near the start where one of
| the characters makes some comment with slightly awkward-
| sounding wording; I forget what, precisely, but it was
| exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a modern
| English speaker fluffing an attempt to stay in character as
| a Victorian or whatever. They even sounded a bit like they
| were half-realising this as they were saying it.
|
| I put it down to a mistake that they didn't have time to
| fix. But then, given the ending, I realised it must have
| been deliberate.
| djmips wrote:
| Putting [spoilers alert] at the end is pointless
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I'm so sorry to those pissed off about the spoilers. I was
| under the impression that for movies, it is like "about a
| week-ish" before hinting on spolers, and about "couple of
| days" for TV episodes!
|
| Let me make it up to you. If you haven't seen it, there is a
| TV series based off George RR Martin's work, Game of
| Thrones[1].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones
|
| Edit: Huh! I can't add even a subtle hint of a joke, even on
| the weekends? :-(
| dang wrote:
| We've moved it to the beginning now. Thanks!
| prakhar897 wrote:
| Payments to producers of the film looks like this:
|
| MNight - 7.2M$ + 0.3M$ + 3M$
|
| Sam Mercer - 850k$
|
| Scott Rudin - 3M$
|
| Aren't producers the one investing in the movie. Why are they
| getting paid then, How does this work?
|
| Edit: Other expenses like travel etc are also covered by the
| company which adds another 1M$ approx [ex: 41.23]
| wmf wrote:
| AFAIK the executive producers gather funding and the producers
| actually make the movie.
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Executive producers are investors.
|
| Line producers are managers
|
| Producers are ceos or presidents.
| cbsmith wrote:
| In reality, these lines are a lot blurrier. Executive
| producers _usually_ are investors, but they 're not
| necessarily the primary investors. Definitionally, they're
| responsible for the financing of the film. Producers on the
| other hand, are, in theory responsible for managing
| expenditure of the investment (making the film), very much
| like a CEO/President as you describe.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would have thought producer is akin to a board of
| directors, and director is akin to CEO.
| cbsmith wrote:
| The director is the person who actually crafts the movie.
| They don't necessarily have anything to do with managing
| the money. Sometimes you have producer-directors, but
| it's like a restaurant that is owned by the chef.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| The director is responsible for what ends up on the
| screen, but not for ensuring the crew gets food.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Not necessarily are producers involved in any budgeting. My
| First Wife and I were producers on a film that was made
| from a stage script of her. Our role as producers gave us
| vetoes on screenplay changes and gave us a hand in the
| production, plus royalties, but we had no hand in securing
| the budget or spending it.
| cbsmith wrote:
| Yeah, hence the "in theory". In practice, titles and
| roles are often weird on film sets. Don't even get me
| started on "associate producers"...
| mkl wrote:
| Producers aren't usually investors. Executive producers have
| more to do with investing, but not all executive producers
| invest (some recruit investors, or do other unrelated things).
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_producer,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_producer
| iamdbtoo wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the studio is putting up the money for the
| movie. This seems to be the production budget and does not
| include whatever his profit participation was.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Producer and executive producer are completely differet roles
| despite similar sounding names.
|
| Executive producer is a credit for someone who have helped
| secure funding. Sometimes high-profile actors may have an
| executive producer credit.
|
| Producer is like project manager for the movie.
| stigz wrote:
| This is neat. I take it these these accounting breakdowns for
| films are hard to come by? Would love to see more for some of my
| favorite films.
| cfr2023 wrote:
| You and me both!
| Joeboy wrote:
| This is the one people always cite when talking about big
| budget film breakdowns. I presume because it's the only one
| that's out there.
|
| Edit: Apparently there's a leaked budget for The Interview out
| there. https://www.scribd.com/document/352522776/The-Interview-
| Budg...
| gniv wrote:
| A surprising tidbit: Key make-up and hair each made 72.5k, but
| there was a make-up and hair _designer_ , who made 105k.
| ojosilva wrote:
| Photocopier rental $20k!
| ashwinne wrote:
| I'd assume it is an office copier that can produce lots of
| copies of scripts, receipts, invoices, signs for the sets
| etc. they might need all through the day. And by renting, if
| it breaks down they get an immediate replacement from the
| rental company (at zero cost) I guess. So don't need to worry
| about repair downtime.
| pavlov wrote:
| Is it surprising? It's the same for costumes, sets, visual
| effects, and many other creative aspects of the production:
| there's a lead designer / supervisor who is in charge of the
| overall look and concept, and then individual artists who
| implement the look.
| gniv wrote:
| Yes, I don't know why I was surprised about make-up in
| particular. I guess it shows my biases.
| pavlov wrote:
| Make-up and hair seem quite critical to the atmosphere and
| look of a movie like The Village which is set in an
| ambiguous time and place. I think this was probably an
| interesting project for the make-up designer, and IMO
| he/she deserved the $105k fee.
| throwup238 wrote:
| It's also the movie industry so this might be their only
| major gig for the year, making up the bulk of their
| annual salary.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Right. Working in Hollywood is gig work. Some years you
| get lucky, other years you don't. Pay reflects that.
| mkl wrote:
| The original title "The Woods" is down in the footer. Apparently
| it was changed during production to avoid a clash with another
| film:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)#Produc...
| entropy47 wrote:
| The original title is, in fact, the very first thing in the
| document. Twice!
| fractallyte wrote:
| It was this film (The Woods, 2006):
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380066/
|
| ...which was actually a rather cool movie! Anything with Bruce
| Campbell and Patricia Clarkson piques my interest.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| 10% of the budget was for story rights? the story was the worst
| part of that movie.
| mkl wrote:
| 10% of the budget was to be able to say "M. Night Shyamalan
| wrote this", which guaranteed a healthy profit in 2004 no
| matter what the story was.
| blackoil wrote:
| Yeah, it follows The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs and
| The Village itself made >250 million on this 72 million
| budget.
| huytersd wrote:
| Completely disagree. I didn't really see the twist coming so I
| enjoyed the story.
| pawelmurias wrote:
| It's a money making project. I assume it would be easy to have
| the mainstream movies have "better" stories but they are money
| making not artistic endeavours.
| circularfoyers wrote:
| Is there any context to this document? Was this just leaked or
| previously leaked, where was it originally posted, etc?
| joshspankit wrote:
| Doesn't help much, but one clue is WordPress shows the pdf was
| uploaded "/2012/10/"
| mcapodici wrote:
| Based on that I conjecture that it was going to be included
| in this post:
|
| https://wlmager.com/why-i-havent-used-crowdfunding-to-pay-
| fo...
|
| For all blog posts, use this link:
|
| https://wlmager.com/?s=a
| joshspankit wrote:
| Found it!
|
| http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/hollywood-
| n... (Feb 27, 2006)
|
| And they do have budget documents for other films
| mavhc wrote:
| Don't see a related post on the blog pages
| https://wlmager.com/author/wlmager/page/3/
| AceyMan wrote:
| I remember these sheets (or the same type artifact) in a
| newstand magazine fifteen years ago or so; I read it in Wired,
| Esquire or some similar publication, iirc.
| gniv wrote:
| I expected the high fees for actors/director/writer, but the
| composer fee was surprising (page 69). And the movie was
| nominated for Oscars for original score (and nothing else)!
| Interesting decision to hire that composer, presumably made by
| MNS.
| ycdxvjp wrote:
| VFX is 250K for 5 shots. Total VFX budget is 500K. And total post
| production is 10 Mil. Or ~14% of the whole budget. These days I
| bet it's probably double or triple that.
| adastra22 wrote:
| SPOILER well The Village benefits from the fact that the
| monsters were in fact just the other characters in rubber
| masks. Practical effects would have been entirely accurate
| anyway, no VFX required. I expect that money was mostly spent
| on color correction and removing phone lines and such.
| dcanelhas wrote:
| VFX was Matte shots and wire removal, according to the doc.
| matt-attack wrote:
| And color correction is listed as its own line item (see
| "DI").
| overvale wrote:
| Shows how much things have changed. These days it would likely
| be ~14% of the entire budget, not just post. And there would be
| 1,000 VFX shots.
| nathan-wailes wrote:
| Does anyone know where I can find more film budgets broken down
| in detail like this?
| qubex wrote:
| This film gets bashed often but I remember seeing it in the
| cinema when it was released and I absolutely adored it, and still
| do. I've 'inflicted' it on several friends and acquaintances --
| and keep in mind I'm no M. Night Shyamalan fan having never seen
| Unbrekable and having walked out of the cinema midway through The
| Last Airbender that I hold to be one of the worst films ever.
| Anyway back to The Village: its scenery and ambiance were
| absolutely perfect. The twist was pure genius.
| eterm wrote:
| The film didn't work for me, because I didn't realise the
| "twist" was supposed to be a twist. I had assumed it from the
| start and was expecting the reverse to be the twist.
| i80and wrote:
| As somebody who did like the movie despite itself, I like the
| version you expected more
| wharvle wrote:
| Same. "Oh, it's just... the obvious thing."
| geek_at wrote:
| It's one of my favorite movies. I love movies or books that get
| me thinking "what the hell is going on" until in the end
| there's a twist where it now all makes sense.
|
| Another movie like this is "Big Fish"
| matt-attack wrote:
| The slo mo shot still gives me chills.
| fullshark wrote:
| I remember liking it a lot, I didn't see the twist coming even
| though the guy was known at the time for having a twist in his
| films. I liked how it wasn't just about a "gotcha" but revealed
| character motivations and how people try to retreat from the
| world due to trauma, and the lengths parents go to protect
| their children. I bet it would hit harder if I watched it now
| that I have children.
| astrostl wrote:
| IDC about the twist. It's a standout to me on VIBE. Of what
| I've seen from MNS, it's my favorite.
| zbendefy wrote:
| It's interesting that according to wikipedia its budget was $60M.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)#Produc...
|
| This breakdown is about $71M, and it doesn't even account for
| reshoots in 2004 ~april. Which one is the more accurate? Are all
| publicly reported budgets this different?
|
| Or is there something in this report that is not counted there?
| Joeboy wrote:
| I think the public "budget" number is best considered as part
| of the film's publicity. It might reflect reality, it might
| not. Some films exaggerate their production budgets to make
| them seem like good value to buyers, some understate them for
| "plucky outsider" cred.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Shyamalan got good out of it. Usually it's ~5% of the budget for
| director, but he did write it as well and then some. Hefty fee.
| Looking through the budget I guess only surprise would be music
| composer at 4x Deakins' fee; That's interesting. Always weird to
| see Hollywood sheets like that, they're so inflated in some ways.
| For example, 50k for someone to run a generator on-set for three
| months and then also 30k for same generator rental. Or, matte
| shots/plates 50k apiece, 50k wrap party allowance, DI at 350k
| (jesus, yet whole of foley was 112k), titles at 160k, 2 AVID
| machines rental at 270k (even then one could've bought several
| times over several full systems for that), 20k for MIDI file
| transfer :P And all that's in 2003 money.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Those costs remind me of the cost for dealing with emergency
| water damage.
|
| They would be extraordinarily cheaper if they were working
| nonstop, but the asks are so intermittent they have to charge
| enough to maintain availability of the service. This becomes
| especially true and high cost-of-living areas.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Generators on film sets aren't the type of thing you power your
| house with in an outage; they are a truck sized, high power
| piece of specialist equipment. Running one of those generators
| safely with zero downtime is absolutely a job. People think of
| movie sets as dangerous places due to stunts, fire and
| explosions. I was always weary of the electricity.
| simple10 wrote:
| I worked on a few films back in college. It's a huge deal if
| the generator goes down. It completely stops production,
| especially when shooting at night with giant lights. It's not
| possible to run most productions off of the normal power grid
| due to the voltage and amp requirements of the lights. At
| least that was the case before LEDs. I'm not sure what the
| large studio production lights are using these days.
| hilsdev wrote:
| And then you're stuck paying for every cast and crew for
| the time they are not working. If you end up having to
| shoot another day, you'll have to pay that too, which may
| not be budgeted for. This can easily put the value of a few
| lost minutes of power into the tens or hundreds of
| thousands of dollars.
|
| It's very similar to the discussion of self hosted vs cloud
| providers. Business people are willing to pay more for a
| predictable cost, rather than save a significant chunk of
| change but run the risk of having an unpredicted event that
| ends up with a large extra cost (such as replacing a whole
| rack tower
| Keyframe wrote:
| I was on a number of film sets, you are right, but it's also
| not a job that warrants that much of a compensation and it
| usually is included in rental fee. Rarely will rental company
| of a genny give out generator itself without a guy or two.
| petee wrote:
| Not only that, but rain and wet environments, it takes a
| skilled person to keep everyone safe, and also be able to
| wrench on a large diesel engine...while starting at 3 am,
| wrapping 14hrs later.
|
| And in some large film unions, you need to pass a test just
| to get into the department, let alone run a generator.
| jdietrich wrote:
| _> 2 AVID machines rental at 270k (even then one could've
| bought several times over several full systems for that)_
|
| You aren't paying for the machine, you're paying for a
| guarantee that there will be a working machine when and where
| you need it.
| Keyframe wrote:
| The did pay additionally for AVID technicians
| hilsdev wrote:
| The technicians are good at configuring and fixing issues
| but they don't have the ability to call up Avid and demand
| a new machine get overnight courier carried to replace one
| Kaedon wrote:
| DI probably also involves at that time the cost of scanning it
| into film. I worked in the industry a little after this and
| some of the DI theatres rent out for 1K+ per hour, plus there's
| conform artist time, incorporating new cuts, etc. I could see
| it.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I wonder why no one has tried setting up a village like in the
| movie? With all the ills of society it seems worth a try.
| wingspar wrote:
| If they did, we wouldn't know...
| krsrhe wrote:
| Lots of people have. From Amish to communes to cults.
| gbacon wrote:
| Are you from the Towns?
| getlawgdon wrote:
| We're currently in it.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Because then how would you comment on HN all day?
| m3kw9 wrote:
| That heck of a list of 71mil of economic activities. I keep
| seeing these "fringes" fees, what are these?
| tauchunfall wrote:
| looks like "fringes" are what we call in German TV and ad
| productions "markup".
|
| >Fringes can track the value of benefits or fees that are
| required above and beyond the raw cost of labor or materials.
| Fringe benefits could include employment taxes, fees for
| pension & welfare programs, or daily charges for a given
| resource. They might also include allowances for holiday or
| sick leave funds. >Fringes can also be used to track things
| like sales tax on materials. >Many employment benefits have a
| limit or cap for how much total compensation an employee can
| make before the Fringe benefit is cut off in a given project.
|
| via: https://mmb-docs.ep.com/Setup/fringes.html
| woobar wrote:
| Mostly taxes on wages paid as a part of making this movies.
|
| FICA - employer part of payroll taxes
|
| FICA/Medi - employer part of Medicare insurance
|
| FUI/SUI - federal/state unemployment insurance
| mihaic wrote:
| Pretty fascinating to see how the actor pays don't match what I
| was expecting, nor how expensive the actual film stock and its
| processing was (380k).
|
| Do anyone know if there's more of these breakdowns publicly
| available?
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