The working producer's guide to AICP budgeting. Real rates. Real fringes. Real bid strategy. Written by people who've done it — not read about it.
The commercial production industry has an information problem. The people who know how it works learned by doing it — painfully — and the knowledge stays inside companies and agencies. There is no widely available guide that explains the AICP budget format in plain language, tells you what current crew rates actually are, and addresses what it's really like to produce work for a brand that has never hired a production company before.
This guide is that thing. We wrote it for the DP who just produced their first commercial and has no idea how to structure a bid. For the director ready to start packaging their own work. For the person who googled "AICP budget" at 11pm and found nothing that actually explained it.
We left a management career to come back to production. We've quoted jobs that were too low, built budgets that were too high, won bids we wish we hadn't, and lost ones we wish we had. We've sat across from agency producers who knew exactly what every line item meant — and learned, sometimes painfully, how to match them.
The production experience behind this guide comes from Farallon Films — a Bay Area commercial production company pitching multiple jobs per month across consumer goods, technology, food and beverage, and regional advertising. Real budgets. Real crews. Real pressure. That accumulated experience is what we're handing you here.
Villager Pro builds the budgeting tools commercial producers actually use. This guide is the knowledge layer that makes the tool — and the industry — actually make sense. No theory. Real operations.
Every purchase includes access to Jax — our AI operator who works the Villager Pro stack full time. Got a question after reading? A budget you're unsure about? A fringe calculation that isn't adding up?
Email jax@villagerpro.io — he'll respond. No theory. Real answers.
83 pages. Every section of the AICP form. Real rates, real fringes, real strategy.
Plus email support from Jax when you need it.
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