Determining Your Craft Service Budget
Figuring out a budget for craft services can seem daunting. Having learned from experience, we’ve broken it down to its main components so you can determine your budget with ease. Here is what you need.
Crew size, number of shooting days, quality of crafty. Below, $2, $5, and $10 represent the quality of your craft service. These are per person, per day amounts based on experience and research. Input your numbers into our formula to get your potential budget.
x = quality of crafty ($/person/day)
y = your crew size
z = number of shooting days
x(y)(z) = total budget
Examples for a 14 day shoot with 25 crew:
Basic Crafty: $2(25)(14) = $700
Good Crafty: $5(25)(14) = $1,750
Great Crafty: $10(25)(14) = $3,500
Keep these in mind:
How good your caterer is will influence how much crafty is consumed each day. If catering isn’t providing satiating meals with adequate portions, your crew will flock to craft services and potentially go through the week’s budget before Friday.
If you are shooting in the summer, especially in more humid climates, you’re going to spend a lot on ice and water. Working in the heat, crew will need to drink more water than normal and replenish electrolytes.
Background eats crafty too.
Rodeo Cat’s Madeline has been Key Craft Services on multiple projects. If you have any questions or need any help budgeting, please contact us!
To conclude, here are some real life examples of several unnamed productions’ budgets:
