Free · 4 pages · 37 items · six sections
Here's the list. Go make the thing.
The Indie Producer's Checklist. Thirty seven things that keep your money organized, your paper straight, and your project moving. Free, cause there really is enough for all of us.
I hate gatekeeping. Every producer I ever learned from handed me something, a form, a number, a phone call, and this is me handing it forward. Thirty seven things that organize the money, the paper, and the people, so you get to spend your energy on the actual film (and keep your sanity mostly intact).
I came up as the Line Producer's assistant on studio TV, the kind that costs millions an episode, and my whole job was sitting next to the money 🤑 and writing down exactly where every dollar went.
Now I produce vertical microdramas for a fraction of that, and come to find out, the mistakes are all the same. Same mistakes, smaller decimal point.
So I wrote down every single thing I check before anybody spends a dollar, in the order that keeps the money where you meant for it to go.
The free checklist · 4 pages · 37 items
What's on it
Six sections that keep the money organized
Do them in this order and every dollar knows where it's going. Lock the script, break it down, price it, then run the days off paper (do it once, do it right, keep the difference).
Set the table first
Paper is cheap, so use a lot of it. Lock the script, break it all the way down, name your finish line, and form the entity so every agreement you sign carries your company's name and protects your own.
Build a budget that keeps its promises
A budget is a stack of promises with dates attached, and this section makes sure you keep every one. Real line items, real fringes, post priced before you shoot, and ten percent contingency, cause that's just arithmetic.
Hire the money savers first
Your First AD and your Line Producer come before the camera package, every single time. They are the difference between a twelve hour day and an eighteen hour day, and twelve hour days are how budgets survive.
Every face, every place, on paper
Signed releases before the first take, the right union tier before you cast, chain of title from day one, and every location agreement in writing. Paper is what lets you sell the thing later.
Run the day like it's money
Cause it is. Shoot the hard scene while people are fresh, protect turnaround, plan the company moves, keep a cover set, and back up before anybody's truck leaves the lot.
Finished means delivered
Music you cleared, mix and color budgeted as two bills, captions and QC built to the platform spec, E&O handled, and the paperwork kept. This is the section that gets the file out the door and into the world.
"Hire your First AD and your Line Producer before your DP. Before the camera package. Folks argue with me on this every single time, and then week three comes and my phone rings."
Item 03 · the one that saves the most money, handed to you for free
Who's handing you this
JoAnna McPhail
I write it, I produce it, and then I have the nerve to show up and act in it too. These days it's giving triple threat, or at least triple the paperwork. I play Amara in Holy Trip, my proof of concept, a vertical series I already shot and published on next to nothing (the concept works, for real), and I'm out here raising the money to finish it right. I also did a run in the JUCCEE creator cohort, cause you take the rooms that sharpen you.
Before all this I sat next to the money on studio TV that cost millions an episode. My whole job was watching where it went and writing it down. So now I write my newsletter, From the Desk of J.A.D.E., where I tell you what things actually cost (real numbers, my own productions, not somebody else's rumor).
And I did the whole thing as a boy mom. I grew a full person and still made time to chase this. I guess it's a double feature.
Before you ask
Fair questions
Is it actually free?
Actually free. One email with the PDF, and one heads up about the full Indie Producer's Survival Kit when you're ready for the rest. That's the whole exchange, and it's a good one.
I'm a director and somebody just handed me the budget.
Then you're the producer now, and this list was built for exactly this moment (surprise, and also congratulations). Start at section 01 and give the entity item your full attention.
We already started shooting.
Perfect timing. Go straight to 05 and 06 and run today's set off them, then circle back to 02 and get honest with the number. Better now than in March, and way better than in post.
I have almost no money. Is this still for me?
Especially for you. A small number still deserves a real plan, and organized money goes further than more money, every time.
What does this actually do for the film?
It keeps you standing long enough to make it good. Craft is its own fight and you want all your energy for it, so this list handles the money and the paper and hands you the room to do the creative part.
This is how you get to the good part
Run a clean budget and a calm set and you arrive at the creative fight with money in the account and a crew that still likes you. That is the whole job of this list.
And when you've got a real budget, small but real, The Producer Kit is this same system built all the way out: the agreements, the releases, the call sheet, the hiring and vendor trackers. Coming soon to the shop.