AICP section letters, and why they move
Read any AICP bid without guessing, and spot the one thing that silently breaks a comparison between two of them.
An AICP bid is organised into lettered sections. Each letter is a bucket of related cost, the sections total up into subtotals, and the subtotals produce a grand total. Once you can read the letters you can read any AICP bid, including one from a company you have never worked with.
The production sections
The first run of letters covers everything up to and including the shoot, plus the money that attaches to it.
- A Pre-production labour
- B Shoot labour
- C Prep and wrap expenses
- D Location expenses
- E Props, wardrobe and animals
- F Studio costs
- G Art department labour
- H Art department expenses
- I Equipment rental
- J Media
- K Miscellaneous production costs
- L Directors fees and creative fees
- M Talent labour
- N Talent expenses
- O Other
- P Additional production estimates
Two of those repay attention. L is where the director and the creative fee sit, and on many forms it is deliberately outside direct costs, which means a subtotal and any percentage taken on that subtotal both exclude it. O is a genuine catch-all, and a bid with a large O is a bid that has not been broken out yet.
The post sections
After the production subtotal, the letters continue.
- Q Editorial
- R Social versions
- S Audio
- T Finishing
- V Miscellaneous editorial
- W Editorial labour and creative fees
- X VFX, design and animation, interactive
Notice what is missing. The sequence runs T then V. There is no section U. If you are reading a form that has one, you are not reading the form you think you are.
The thing that catches people out
The letters are not a standard. They are a convention, and the convention has changed.
On a 2023 Unified Post form, editorial is Q, and O and P mean Other and Additional production estimates. On an older Film Production Cost Summary, the same summary can address editorial and finishing as O and P. Same letters. Different sections.
This matters the moment you compare two bids, or hand a bid to someone who will map it into a spreadsheet. A line filed under O on one form and Q on another is the same work, and any comparison that trusts the letter rather than the label will quietly put it in two different places.
Three habits that avoid it:
- Read the section label, not only the letter. The label is what the form actually claims.
- Check what the subtotal spans. A form that subtotals "A to K, M to T" is telling you which sections it considers direct costs, and which it does not.
- Check whether L is inside or outside. It changes what every percentage on the form means.
What a lettered section is not
A section is a place to put a cost, not a statement about how that cost was priced. A day rate, a flat fee and a per-version charge can all live under the same letter. The letter answers "what kind of cost is this", and the line under it answers "how was it worked out".
That separation is why two studios can produce very different looking bids that both fill in the same form correctly, and why the form alone will not tell you whether a number is good.
Questions
- Why is there no section U?
- The alphabet skips it. On a Unified Post form the post sections run Q, R, S, T, then V, W, X. There is no U, and a form that shows one is not the form you think it is.
- Does section L count towards the subtotal?
- Often not. Several AICP forms place director and creative fees outside direct costs, so the subtotal and any percentage computed on it exclude L. Check the form in front of you rather than assuming, because it changes what a fee percentage is a percentage of.
- Are the letters the same on every AICP form?
- No, and this is the trap. Editorial sits at Q on a 2023 Unified Post form. An older Film Production Cost Summary can address editorial and finishing as O and P, which on the newer form mean something else entirely.