Below the Line

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Back to that school play: after the script is written, the director is set, and the starring roles are cast, somebody still has to build the sets, sew the costumes, run the lights, and keep everyone fed during rehearsals. None of those people are famous or "above the line," but the play cannot happen without them.

Below the line is the name for that second team's costs in a movie budget: everything that is not the writers, the director, the producers, or the lead actors, who together make up Above the Line. It covers the camera crew, the lighting and sound crew, hair and makeup, set builders, the trucks and equipment that get rented, the catering truck feeding everyone, and dozens of other jobs that keep a film set running every single day.

Why it usually grows with the shoot

Above-the-line costs are mostly fixed once the deals are signed. A star's fee does not change much whether the shoot runs a little long or not. Below-the-line costs work differently: they are closely tied to time. Every extra day of filming means another day of paying the crew, renting the cameras and trucks, and feeding everyone on set, so below-the-line costs tend to grow the longer a shoot drags on.

That is one reason producers watch the shooting schedule so closely. Falling behind schedule does not just delay the movie, it directly adds to the below-the-line Costs.

Fun facts

• Even though the term describes ordinary budget accounting, some below-the-line jobs, like cinematography, editing, and sound, are important enough to have their own major awards, including at the Oscars.
• A single big budget movie can have a below-the-line crew of many hundreds of people, even though each of them individually earns far less than the above-the-line stars.
• Producers sometimes shorten a shooting schedule specifically to control below-the-line costs, since fewer days on set directly means less money spent on crew and equipment.