Cost Breakdown - 'Identity'

Hello lovely Patrons!

I like to be as financially transparent with you as I can, so going forward I'm going to try to provide cost breakdowns for each video once they're all paid for so you can see where your money is going! There are a few things to bear in mind:

Firstly, you'll notice that I can give percentages of the total budget but not amounts. The reason for this is that I'm sometimes contractually obligated to not disclose how much something cost; like in this case I can't say how much the music licensing cost me because I signed a standard NDA as part of the deal. Also, even when I don't sign that kind of deal some of the folks I work with prefer not to have their rates listed publicly. Because of the power of maths, if I gave you an exact value for any slice of the pie you'd be able to figure out all the other values, so percentages is what I've gone for.

Secondly, videos tend to vary hugely in how much they cost and what they require. This one had big expenses for animation and music licensing but I don't expect all future videos will, so each month the pie chart will probably look quite different.

Thirdly, sometimes I buy stuff for a video that I then keep and use in my personal life, like the dress I wore in Identity. Does that technically count as part of the show's budget if I'm now using it for non-show purposes? If I buy some makeup that I use both on the show and in my life, does that come under business expenses? I'm not sure what the right answer there is; in this chart I haven't included those costs, so the 'Costume' slice appears smaller than it arguably really was.

Fourthly, the chart doesn't include things like editing equipment and software, which I bought a while ago at large one-off expenses but which obviously go into making the video.

Fifthly, this chart can't say how much I actually get paid for my work! If there's any budget leftover after the episode then I live off that for the next month, and if there's any spare I put it towards the next one; it tends to fluctuate a lot and the money is always kindof earmarked to go into the show, so I don't really know how I could express that in a chart?

Anyway, those limitations aside, the chart might be mildly interesting at least! You can see some of how the sausage is made I guess! This post is public so anyone can come and read it.

Abi XXx