Summary of "Legacy Movie Magic Budgeting - Complete Video Training"

Summary of “Legacy Movie Magic Budgeting - Complete Video Training”

This video training by Matthew provides a comprehensive introduction and walkthrough of using Movie Magic Budgeting software, focusing on budgeting for film and television production. It covers key budgeting concepts, navigation within the software, setting up fringes and globals, entering budget data, and printing/exporting budgets.

Main Ideas and Concepts

  1. Introduction to Budgeting & Key Terms

    • Allowance/Allow: A placeholder budget amount for an expense whose exact cost is unknown.
    • Chart of Accounts: The numbering system studios use to organize cost accounts; varies by studio.
    • Cost Account / Detail Level: The base level of the budget where actual costs, rates, and time are entered.
    • FICA: A federal payroll tax shared by employer and employee; example of a fringe.
    • Fringes: Payroll taxes and benefits, either statutory/legal or union/guild related, often with salary cutoffs.
    • Globals: User-defined variables or shortcuts (like Excel formulas) used to represent values or calculations used repeatedly across the budget.

  2. Starting a New Budget

    • Use pre-built templates tailored to various studios or projects.
    • Academic templates are good starter templates.
    • The “_new budget” template is a blank slate for building a chart of accounts from scratch (rarely used).

  3. Program Setup

    • Budget Info: Enter project-specific metadata like title, revision number, remarks (which print on the last page).
    • Budget Preferences: Customize display options such as font size and column widths.
    • Units Setup: Define units (e.g., days, flats, yards) and their equivalencies (e.g., 1 day = 12 hours). Units can be added or modified but are limited to single letters.

  4. Navigation Methods (6 Ways)

    • Nav All: Use arrow keys on the nav ball to move between top sheet, accounts, and detail levels.
    • T, A, D Keys: T for top sheet, A for account level, D for detail level.
    • T + D shortcut: From top sheet, pressing D shows all accounts in a category.
    • Go Box: Enter account number to jump directly to that account.
    • Double-clicking gray numbers: Double-click category/account numbers to drill down or back up.
    • Keyboard arrows with Ctrl/Command: Control + arrow keys mimic nav ball functions.

  5. Fringes Setup

    • Fringes are mostly percentage-based but can be flat rate per unit.
    • Use the Paymaster (industry reference PDF) to find accurate fringe rates and cutoffs.
    • Enter fringes with description, rate, and salary cutoff (for percentage fringes).
    • Flat rate fringes apply per unit (e.g., $8 per hour up to 70 hours).
    • Fringe IDs can replace acronyms for cleaner display.
    • Fringe ranges group multiple lines for one person so cutoffs apply correctly (important when splitting a person’s work across multiple lines).

  6. Globals Setup

    • Globals are variables representing values used repeatedly (e.g., prep days, shoot days, rates).
    • Example: “PD” = 20 days, “SD” = 40 days, “WD” = 15 days.
    • Globals can be combined to create calculated globals (e.g., total work days = PD + SD + WD).
    • Globals can also store monetary values (e.g., gaffer’s hourly rate).
    • Decimal precision can be set to avoid rounding errors.
    • Option to show globals as letters or their calculated values in the budget.

  7. Budget Data Entry Examples

    • Adding simple line items (e.g., lumber: 1 flat at $500).
    • Adding personnel with multiple rates for prep, shoot, and post using globals.
    • Using globals in calculations (e.g., car rental for total work days minus some days).
    • Applying fringes only to relevant lines (e.g., not to car rental).
    • Creating fringe ranges to ensure proper cutoff application across multiple lines for one person.
    • Copying and pasting line items for additional personnel.
    • Adding subtotals per person or category for clarity.
    • Handling overtime calculations by mixing units (e.g., 14 hours per day for 5 days, with overtime rate globals).

  8. Adding Notes

    • Notes can be added to any budget cell.
    • Notes can be set to print or remain internal.
    • Notes appear as sticky-note icons on cells for easy reference.

  9. Odometer Tool

    • Tracks total money added or removed in the current session.
    • Useful for monitoring budget adjustments and hitting cost targets.
    • Can be reset anytime.

  10. Printing Budgets

    - Customize headers and footers (e.g., add budget title, current date, page numbers).
- Select which reports to print (top sheet, accounts, notes, fringe summaries, globals, units, budget info).
- Choose print options: print all accounts, suppress empty accounts, or suppress zero total accounts.
- Preview before printing/exporting to PDF.

Detailed Methodologies / Instructions

Speakers / Sources Featured

This training video provides a solid foundation for beginners and intermediate users of Movie Magic Budgeting, emphasizing practical workflows, industry-standard practices, and software navigation to efficiently build and manage production budgets.

Category ?

Educational

Share this summary

Summarize another video

Video