Film budgets · Bratman Films
Mumbai, India / Worldwide
What a film costs.
How production budgets in India are built, what moves them, and the bands we brief against.
The honest version
No two briefs share a shape, so no rate card survives contact with one.
A production budget is not a price list. It is a line-item build against your brief, and every line is one you can audit.
What follows is the structure of that build: what moves the number, the bands we brief against, and what a real estimate looks like. The bands below are the same ones our brief form asks you to pick from.
The drivers
What moves a budget.
Every one of these is a line you will see in the estimate.
- Shoot days
- Locations & permits
- Cast & on-screen talent
- Crew size & HODs
- Camera, grip & lighting
- Art & wardrobe
- Post scope: edit, grade, sound, online
- Films, versions & languages
The bands
Where briefs land.
Intake bands, not quotes. What each band changes is scope: days, locations, talent and post.
- Under ₹5L
- ₹5-10L
- ₹10-20L
- ₹20-40L
- ₹40L+
- Not sure yet
A band is a starting shape, not a ceiling. A leaner band usually means fewer shoot days, simpler locations and a tighter post scope; a wider band buys more days, more locations, known faces and more versions of the film. The brief decides which.
Inside a shoot day
One day is a stack of line items, not a number.
Crew, camera and lighting, location fees and permits, art and wardrobe, transport and catering: each priced against the brief, each visible in the budget.
For international productions, the same structure applies: recce, permits, crew, equipment and post as audit-able line items. How we run that end to end is on the production services page.
Campaigns
More films, spread costs.
Shared prep, casting and post spread across a set of films, which is why campaigns price differently per film than a one-off.
ICICI Bank Personal Loans shipped as three films, Scapia's Winter Release as three, and the UrbanClap commercials ran as a series.
Budgets
The questions budgets raise first.
- How much does an ad film cost in India?
- There is no honest flat rate; budgets are built line item by line item against the brief. The bands we brief against run from under ₹5L to ₹40L and above, and what moves the number is days, locations, talent, crew, post scope and version count.
- What does a shoot day in Mumbai cost?
- A shoot day is a stack of line items: crew, camera and lighting, location fees and permits, art and wardrobe, transport and catering. The honest answer is what each line costs against your brief, which is why we quote in line items rather than day rates.
- What moves a production budget most?
- Shoot days, locations and permits, cast and on-screen talent, crew size, camera and lighting, post scope, and the number of films, versions and languages the release needs.
- Is a multi-film campaign more efficient than a single film?
- Usually, yes. Shared prep, casting and post spread across films: ICICI Bank Personal Loans shipped as three films, Scapia's Winter Release as three, and the UrbanClap commercials ran as a series.
- How is a line-production budget structured for a foreign shoot in India?
- As audit-able line items: recce, permits, crew, equipment, locations and post. Our production services page covers how we run it end to end.
- How do we get a real number?
- Send the brief. A producer comes back with a plan and a line-item budget that holds, scoped against one of the bands on this page.
