How a film is made, from idea to audience
Most people see a film at the very end of a long road. Before that, someone bought the rights to a story, raised money from half a dozen sources, hired a crew, shot for weeks, edited for months and delivered a pile of files and paperwork to the companies that sell it.
This guide walks through that road stage by stage, in plain language. Every industry term is explained the first time it appears. It follows an independent feature film. Not every production is a feature film explains what changes for series, unscripted, animation, live and commercials. At the end you will also find how a TV commission and a commercial work.
The stages at a glance
Who is involved
The producer, the creative team, the financiers and the companies that sell the film. Each wants something different from it.
Development
From an idea to a script that people want to pay for, with a director and cast attached.
Financing
Putting together the money from investors, funds, broadcasters, distributors and tax incentives.
Post-production
Editing, visual effects, colour, sound and music turn the footage into a finished film.
Release and after
Festivals, sales, cinemas and streaming, and then the long road of money flowing back to the investors.
Not every production is a feature film
This guide follows an independent feature film. Three separate questions decide how far another production differs from that road.
The three questions are independent of each other. An animated series can be scripted, made by an independent company and commissioned by a streamer, all at once.
1. What is being made?
Scripted productions tell a story written in advance and performed by actors, such as feature films, drama series and comedy. The screenwriter and script editor matter early, and most of the money goes to cast, crew and shooting days. The stages on this page apply almost one to one.
Unscripted productions are built around real people instead of actors, such as documentaries, factual series, reality, game shows and entertainment. Unscripted does not mean unwritten. There are formats, running orders, presenter scripts and story outlines, but the people on screen do not perform written dialogue. Development often starts from a format, a description of how the show works, sometimes with a taster tape. Instead of actors the team casts contributors. In observational formats and documentaries much of the story is shaped in the edit by story producers and editors, which makes post-production a large part of the schedule and budget. A studio game show or live entertainment show works the other way round, with most of the effort in the studio days. A series producer runs the series, and researchers find stories and contributors.
Commercials and branded content promote a brand and follow their own route, described in how a commercial is made.
2. How is it made?
Live action is filmed with a camera, on location or in a studio. Animation is drawn or built frame by frame. In 2D and 3D animation there is no shoot, and the production stage is the long work of designing, animating and rendering. Stop-motion is the exception, because puppets and sets are photographed frame by frame on a stage. Many productions are hybrid, mixing the two.
A production can also be single-camera, shot scene by scene like a film, or multi-camera, with several cameras cut live in a studio gallery. And it can be recorded for later or broadcast live. Live news, sport and shows are made by broadcasters in-house, but also by independent production companies and facilities companies that provide studios and outside broadcast units, often with a studio director in the gallery.
3. Who pays for it and who orders it?
An independent film, or indie film, is financed by its producer from several sources, such as investors, film funds, broadcasters, distributors and tax incentives. That is the route this guide follows, and most European films take it. A studio film is typically financed by a large studio or streamer that also handles distribution. In practice financing, ownership, distribution and creative control are separate agreements, and a film can mix both models. "Indie" says nothing about the style of a film. It is about how it is financed and who owns it.
A commission is ordered and mostly paid for by a broadcaster or streamer, see how a TV commission works. A commercial is ordered by a brand through its advertising agency.
What changes compared to the feature film
Development is shorter and cheaper for a commission or a commercial, because the buyer is known from the start. A commissioned series or a commercial has more approvals by the buyer along the way. Unscripted schedules depend more on real events and contributors, and observational formats need more edit time. Live production is planned to the minute, with almost no post. The budget logic stays the same everywhere. What has been spent, what is committed and what is still to come.
Who is involved
A film has many owners of a small piece. Knowing who they are explains most of what happens later.
To keep it concrete, picture a fictional feature film, a coastal drama we will call Low Tide, with a budget of a few million euros. These are the parties around it.
- The producer and the production company. The producer starts the project, owns the rights, raises the money and answers for the result. The production company is the business that signs the contracts and employs the crew.
- The writer and the director. The screenwriter writes the script. The director decides how it looks and sounds on screen.
- Equity investors. Private people or companies who put in money in exchange for a share of the profits.
- Film funds. Public bodies, national or regional, that support films with grants or loans because they want culture or jobs in their area.
- Broadcasters and streamers. TV channels and streaming services that pay up front for the right to show the film later.
- Distributors and sales agents. A distributor brings the film to audiences in one country. A sales agent sells it to distributors in many countries. Both often commit money before the film exists, through pre-sales and minimum guarantees (explained under Financing).
- Banks. Lend money against signed contracts, so the producer can spend money that will only arrive later.
- Incentive authorities. Government offices that give back part of what a production spends in their country, as a tax credit or cash rebate.
- Co-producers. A co-producer is a partner company, often in another country, that brings in money, crew or access to local funds.
- The completion guarantor. A completion guarantor is an insurer of sorts who promises the financiers that the film will be finished and delivered.
- Talent agents. They represent actors, writers and directors and negotiate their fees and conditions.
- The audience. In the end everyone above is betting on whether people will watch.
Development
The stage where an idea becomes a project someone wants to pay for. It often takes several years.
It starts with an idea. That can be an original story, but often it is a book, an article or a true event. If the story belongs to someone else, the producer first needs the rights. Usually the producer buys an option, a fee that reserves the rights for a set period. If the film gets made, the full price is paid. If not, the option runs out and the owner can sell it again.
Next comes a treatment, a short prose version of the story, and then the screenplay. A script goes through many drafts, with notes from the producer and often a script editor. For Low Tide that could mean four or five versions before anyone outside the company reads it.
All this costs money, so development has a budget of its own, for writers, rights, research and travel. Development money comes from the production company itself, from film funds with development schemes, or from a broadcaster or distributor who wants first look at the project. Towards the end of development the producer also makes a first estimate of the production budget, because financiers want to know what the film will cost before they commit. That estimate is refined during financing and pre-production.
The last step is packaging. The producer attaches a director and one or two well-known actors, because financiers invest in a package, not just a script. A good script with the right names attached is what opens the doors to the next stage.
Development is led by the producer, often together with a development producer or a head of development at a larger company.
Financing
Very few films are paid for by one party. The producer builds a jigsaw of sources, each with its own conditions.
The producer writes a finance plan, a list of every source of money and how much each brings in. Together they must cover the full budget. For Low Tide the plan might look like this.
- Equity. Money from investors who get a share of the profits in return.
- Pre-sales. A distributor in one country pays for the right to release the film there, before it is made.
- Minimum guarantee (MG). A guaranteed amount from a distributor or sales agent for the rights. It is often paid in instalments, for example a part on signing and the rest on accepted delivery of the film. They keep the film's income until they have earned it back. A signed MG is a promise, not cash in the bank, which is why producers often borrow against it.
- Gap financing. A loan against territories that have not been sold yet, at a higher risk and a higher price.
- Soft money. Grants and loans from film funds that do not need to be paid back in full, or only from profits.
- Tax incentives and cash rebates. Many countries give back a percentage of what is spent locally. You can compare them in our incentive comparison and read each scheme in the incentive guide.
A film shot in two countries can become an official co-production under a treaty between those countries, so it qualifies for funds and incentives in both. Money that arrives late, such as a pre-sale paid on delivery, can be borrowed against from a bank, with the signed contract as security.
Financiers then usually ask for a completion bond, a guarantee from a completion guarantor that the film will be finished on budget, or that they get their money back.
Every financier agrees in what order they are repaid, the recoupment order. In plain words, it is the queue for the money once the film earns something.
For TV the route is often simpler. A broadcaster or streamer can commission the project and pay most of the cost, see how a TV commission works.
Financing is led by the producer and the executive producer, with a production lawyer drafting the contracts.
Pre-production
The money is in place. Now every day of the shoot gets planned, because changing things later costs far more.
The line producer turns the estimate from development into a detailed budget and a shooting schedule. Once the financiers approve them, the budget is locked, meaning it becomes the fixed plan the production is measured against. If you want to see what such a budget contains, look at our film budget template or build one in the Budget Builder.
Then the team grows fast.
- Hiring. Heads of department such as the director of photography and the production designer are hired, and they bring their own teams.
- Casting. The casting director fills the remaining roles.
- Locations. The location manager finds and books places to shoot. A recce is the visit where director and heads of department see a location together and decide how to use it.
- Prep. Sets are built, costumes are made, equipment is tested.
- Insurance. The production insures the cast, the equipment and the shoot itself.
The first assistant director breaks the script down scene by scene and turns it into a day-by-day plan. The production manager runs the production office, where contracts, bookings and purchase orders come together.
Pre-production is led by the line producer, working closely with the director and the producer.
Production
The shoot, also called principal photography. The crew is at its largest and every day costs a lot of money.
A film is shot in shoot days, not in story order. Low Tide might shoot all its harbour scenes in one week and all its interiors in another, because moving a whole crew is expensive.
Every evening the second assistant director sends out the call sheet, the plan for the next day. It says who needs to be where and when, which scenes are shot and what is needed for them.
The footage of each day is checked by the director and producers as dailies, also called rushes. They want to know early if a scene needs to be shot again.
The production office writes a daily progress report, a record of what was shot, how long it took and anything that went wrong. Each week the production accountant makes a cost report. It puts the costs booked so far (actuals), the orders and contracts not yet booked (open commitments) and the estimate of what is still to come next to the budget. Together they give the EFC, what the film is now expected to cost in the end. Our article on the production cost report explains how it works.
Things go over. A day runs long and the crew is paid overtime, or a location falls through. For that the budget holds a contingency, a reserve of a few percent that is only released with approval. Read more in how much contingency a production needs.
On set, the director leads the creative work and the first assistant director runs the day. The line producer keeps the shoot on schedule and on budget.
Post-production
The footage becomes a film. This stage often takes longer than the shoot.
The editor has usually started during the shoot, assembling scenes as the footage comes in. After the shoot, editor and director shape the film over many weeks. When nobody will change the cut any more, the film reaches picture lock. From then on the length and order of every shot are fixed, so the finishing can be done on a stable version. Much of the specialist work starts earlier, though. VFX is planned before the shoot, and music and sound often begin during the edit.
- VFX. Visual effects, from removing a modern sign in the background to creating a storm at sea, supervised by a VFX supervisor.
- Grade. The colourist sets the colour and mood of every shot so the film looks like one whole.
- Sound. The sound designer builds the sound world, dialogue is cleaned up and the re-recording mixer balances everything in the final mix.
- Music. A composer writes the score, and a music supervisor finds and licenses existing songs.
- Titles. Opening titles and end credits are designed and checked against every contract, because many people have a right to a credit in a certain place.
Post-production is led by the post-production supervisor, who keeps schedule and costs on track, with the director and producer approving each step.
Delivery
A finished film is not yet a sellable film. It has to be delivered, and that is a project of its own.
Every distributor and sales agent has a delivery schedule, also called delivery requirements. It is a long list of what they need to receive before they pay what they owe. Some of it is technical.
- Masters. The final version of the film in the formats they ask for, for cinema, television and streaming.
- Deliverables. Separate sound tracks so the film can be dubbed, subtitles, trailers, stills from the unit stills photographer and marketing material.
Much of it is legal. The chain of title is the set of documents that proves the producer owns all the rights, from the option on the book to every music licence. E&O insurance (errors and omissions) covers claims that the film used something without permission, such as a name, a logo or a song.
Film funds and incentive authorities usually also want a cost statement, an overview of what was really spent, often checked by an independent auditor. Only after that do they pay out their final instalment.
For Low Tide, a part of the financing only arrives after delivery is accepted. That is why producers treat delivery as seriously as the shoot.
Delivery is led by the producer and the post-production supervisor, with the production accountant preparing the cost statement.
Release
The film meets its audience, one country and one platform at a time.
Many independent films start at a festival. A good festival slot gives a film attention, reviews and buyers. You can browse the big ones in our festival comparison.
Alongside festivals run sales markets, trade fairs where sales agents meet distributors from all over the world and sell the rights country by country. A sales agent may sell Low Tide to a distributor in France, another in Germany and a streaming service for a group of smaller countries.
Each distributor then releases the film in its territory. They pay for marketing and P&A (prints and advertising), the cost of copies, trailers, posters and advertising. They also decide on the release date and the number of cinemas.
A film usually moves through release windows, periods in which it is only available in one place.
- Cinema. The first window, for films that get a theatrical release.
- TVOD. Transactional video on demand, where you rent or buy a single film online.
- SVOD. Subscription video on demand, a streaming service that offers the film as part of its catalogue.
- TV. Pay TV first, free television later.
The order and length of these windows differ per country and per deal, and they have become shorter over the years.
The release is led by the distributors in each country. The producer and the unit publicist support it with materials and the cast's press work.
After release
Once the film earns money, it flows back through a queue. Who stands where in that queue was agreed years earlier.
Income from cinemas, platforms and TV deals does not go straight to the producer. Distributors first keep their fee and their costs. What is left travels up to the sales agent, who also keeps a fee and earns back any minimum guarantee.
Larger productions use a collection account, an independent company that receives all income and pays it out according to the agreements. That way no single party holds the money.
The order of payment is called the recoupment waterfall. Picture water filling a row of buckets, one after another. The first bucket might be the bank loan and the gap financing. Then the equity investors get their money back, sometimes with a premium. Only when all those buckets are full does the rest count as profit, which is split between investors, producer and anyone else with a share.
Some people get paid regardless of profit. Residuals are extra payments to cast and crew when the film is shown again, for example on TV, under union or collective agreements in some countries. Royalties go to rights holders such as the author of the book or the composer of the music.
Profit participation is a share of the profits promised in a contract, often to the director or a lead actor. Because so much is paid out first, many films never reach that point.
This stage is followed up by the producer, with the production accountant or a business affairs manager checking the statements that come in.
How a TV commission works
Most television is not financed like a film. A broadcaster or streamer orders it and pays most of the bill.
An independent production company has an idea for a series. It pitches it to a commissioning editor, the person at a broadcaster or streamer who decides which programmes get made for a certain genre or slot.
If the commissioning editor is interested, there is often a development deal first. The broadcaster pays for scripts or a pilot episode, and keeps the right to decide whether to continue.
If the answer is yes, the broadcaster gives a commission. It pays a licence fee, the price for the right to show the series for a period and in certain territories. That fee does not always cover the whole budget. The gap is called the deficit, and the production company fills it with deficit financing, for example from a distributor, a co-producer or a tax incentive.
In return the production company often keeps some rights, such as selling the series abroad or making a format version for other countries. Those rights are what turns a production company into a business with value of its own. How much it keeps depends on the deal and on the country.
During the production a production executive from the broadcaster follows budget and progress. At the end the series is delivered to the broadcaster's technical specifications and passes compliance, a check by a compliance manager that it meets broadcasting rules and the channel's own standards.
On the production side, a TV project is led by the executive producer and, on drama, a showrunner or series producer.
How a commercial is made
A commercial runs on the same crafts as a film, but the money comes from a brand and the process is built around approvals.
It starts with a brief. A brand manager at a company tells its advertising agency what the campaign should achieve. At the agency, a creative director and a team including a copywriter and an art director come up with the creative idea, usually a script or a storyboard.
Once the client approves the idea, the agency producer approaches a few production companies and their directors. Each director writes a treatment, a visual document of how they would make it.
The production companies then send a bid, a quote for the job. In commercials this is usually a fixed price, so if the shoot costs more than the bid, that is the production company's problem. The agency and the client choose one, and the job is awarded.
In pre-production everything is agreed with the client at the PPM (pre-production meeting), from cast and locations to the look of each shot. Then comes the shoot, often in one or a few days.
In post, the offline edit is the creative edit, from the first cut up to the version the client approves. The online edit then conforms that version at full quality and finishes the picture, with grading and graphics. The client approves at several points along the way. The final versions are delivered to the media, the TV channels, cinemas and online platforms where the ad will run.
Throughout, usage rights matter. Actors and music are paid for a set use, such as a period, a set of countries and a set of media. That use is agreed early, in the bid, at casting and when the music is chosen, because it can change the cost a lot. A buyout is a payment that covers that use in one go.
At the production company, a commercial is led by the commercials producer, with the head of production watching costs across all jobs.
Questions about how films are made
How long does it take to make a film?
It varies a lot. Development is often the longest part and can take several years. Financing can overlap with that. Pre-production, the shoot and post-production together often take around a year for an independent feature, and release follows after that. A commercial can go from brief to broadcast in a matter of weeks.
How are films financed?
Usually from several sources at once. A typical independent film combines equity from investors, pre-sales to distributors, a minimum guarantee from a sales agent, support from film funds and a tax incentive or cash rebate. A bank can lend against contracts that only pay out later. See the financing section for each source.
What is the difference between pre-production and production?
Pre-production is the planning. The budget is locked, the crew is hired, locations are booked and every shooting day is scheduled. Production is the shoot itself, when the cameras roll. The better the planning, the fewer expensive surprises during the shoot.
What is a completion bond?
A guarantee for the financiers that the film will be finished and delivered. It is issued by a completion guarantor, who watches the production closely. If the film runs into serious trouble, the guarantor can step in with extra money or, in the worst case, take over the production.
What is recoupment?
Earning back the money that was put into the film. Each financier agrees beforehand in what order they are repaid from the film's income. That order is called the recoupment order or waterfall, and only after everyone in it has been repaid does the film make a profit.
What is a minimum guarantee?
A guaranteed amount a distributor or sales agent agrees to pay for the rights to a film, often in instalments such as a part on signing and the rest on accepted delivery. The producer can borrow against the signed contract to finance the film. The distributor or sales agent then keeps the film's income until they have earned that amount back plus their fees.
What is an indie film?
A film financed by its producer from several sources, such as investors, film funds, broadcasters, distributors and tax incentives, rather than by one large studio or streamer. "Indie" is about how a film is financed and who owns it, not about its style. See kinds of production.
What is the difference between scripted and unscripted?
Scripted productions tell a story written in advance and performed by actors, like feature films and drama series. Unscripted productions are built around real people who do not perform written dialogue, like documentaries, reality and game shows. They still use formats, running orders and presenter scripts. In documentaries and observational series much of the story is shaped in the edit.
Is a TV series made the same way as a film?
The crafts are the same, the money is different. A TV series is usually commissioned by a broadcaster or streamer that pays a licence fee for most of the cost. The production company then covers the rest with deficit financing. See how a TV commission works.
One place for the money at every stage
From the development budget to the final cost statement at delivery, Tubes keeps the budget, the schedule, the purchase orders and the actual costs in one place, so producers always know where the money stands.