One project holding the script, the schedule and the budget.
Movie Magic sells Scheduling and Budgeting as two separate products. In ABRAM they are views of the same project, open in a browser, and the whole unit can be in it at once.
Nobody waitsfor the file.
In ABRAM the producer, the coordinator and the accountant are all in the same project, with the schedule and the budget in one workspace. The people booked onto it carry the days they are held and whether they are staff or freelance.
One project, several hands
Changing a shoot day does not mean emailing a new copy of anything, because there is only one copy.
Held days are visible
Every person on the production shows the window they are booked for, so a moved day surfaces the person it clashes with.
Strips today,call sheets tonight.
Every day of the schedule has its own sheet with its own date and general call. Publishing a day puts it in front of the unit as a PDF or a send, and changing the day republishes it.
Call sheetsBuilt from the board
The scenes on the sheet are the strips on the schedule, so nobody retypes a day that has already been planned.
Drafted before it is sent
A day sits as a draft while it is worked on, and the unit sees nothing until somebody publishes it.
Turnaround is measured
ABRAM checks the gap between wrap and the next call and flags a short rest window before the day goes out.
The breakdownscreen itself.
The scene table on the left carries pages, sets, sequence, unit and day. The rail on the right holds the open scene: cast numbers, and elements under Props, Set dressing and Wardrobe. Those tags are what the strips and the budget lines are built from.
ABRAM and Movie Magic,side by side.
Movie Magic's budgeting depth is the reason it has been the desktop standard for decades. ABRAM's ground is the browser, the shared project and everything downstream of the schedule.
Swipe to read across →
| Capability | ABRAM | Movie Magic |
|---|---|---|
| Stripboard and day-out-of-days | Stripboard, day-out-of-days and a run of show, all in the browser | The long-established desktop scheduling standard |
| Line-item budgeting | Departments, line items, rates and quantities, with budget versions (one marked primary), a Cost and Client price toggle, and variance against actuals | Deep union film budgeting on the desktop |
| Several people in the same project | The producer, the coordinator and the accountant work in one project at the same time | Shared cloud schedules in Scheduling, edited by several people at once since March 2026 |
| Schedule and budget on one dataset | The schedule, the call sheets and the budget read from the same project | Scheduling and Budgeting are sold as separate products |
| Crew payouts and client billing | Milestone crew payouts through Stripe and client invoicing on the project | Not offered |
| Client approval portal | Token-based portals where a client approves a quote and pays without an account | Not offered |
| AI production assistant | ABRAM reads a brief, drafts the work packages and the schedule, and acts on approval | Not offered |
A budget that has to satisfy a studio auditor and a budget that has to keep a commercial on track are different jobs, and it is worth being honest about which one you are doing.
Stay on the desktop tools if:
- You are budgeting a union feature to a chart of accounts the financier already dictates.
- The people you deliver to expect the file format they have always received.
- One production accountant owns the budget and nobody else needs it open.
Move to ABRAM if:
- The producer, the coordinator and the accountant all need the project open at the same time.
- The schedule and the budget drift apart every time a day moves.
- Call sheets are being retyped out of the schedule by hand.
- Freelance crew get paid against approved milestones and the client pays by card.
Moving one production across.
Rebuild a single schedule first and run it beside what you have. It is the only way to find out whether the shared project is worth the move.
- 01
Rebuild one schedule
Bring a screenplay in, let the breakdown tag the scenes, and lay the strips out into days. The whole team can open it while you work.
- 02
Bring the budget across
Import a Movie Magic Budgeting export or a CSV into the project's budget. It sits against the same project, so the day count the schedule holds is the day count the budget charges.
- 03
Publish the days and pay the crew
Call sheets publish from the schedule, and approved milestones release crew payouts through Stripe.
Frequently asked questions
Put the schedule and the budget in one project.
The production suite→Movie Magic is a trademark of Entertainment Partners. ABRAM is not affiliated with or endorsed by Entertainment Partners. The name appears here to identify the category of product a reader may be comparing, and the Movie Magic details on this page reflect publicly available information as read in August and October 2026.
ABRAM Compared to Movie Magic Scheduling and Budgeting
ABRAM is the Creative Intelligence platform. It's where filmmakers, agencies and creators plan and run their productions.
Movie Magic Scheduling and Movie Magic Budgeting are sold separately, and since March 2026 several people can work in the same Movie Magic Scheduling schedule at once. Movie Magic Budgeting is the long-established standard for deep union film budgeting. ABRAM is a browser platform where the script, the schedule and the budget are one project several people can hold open, and it has a free plan.
[ABRAM] [isAlternativeTo] [Movie Magic Budgeting]
[ABRAM] [isAlternativeTo] [Movie Magic Scheduling]
[ABRAM] [providesCategory] [Film Production Budgeting Software]
[ABRAM] [offersFreePlan] [True]
Real-time collaboration in the browser
Movie Magic sells Scheduling and Budgeting as separate products. In ABRAM the schedule and the budget are one workspace, and the whole production team works in the same project at the same time from any device.
Connected schedule and budget
Movie Magic sells Scheduling and Budgeting separately, and elements transfer from the Scheduling board into Budgeting. In ABRAM the schedule, call sheets, and budget share one project, so variance tracks against actuals and estimates calibrate over time.
Importing a Movie Magic budget
The ABRAM budget imports a CSV or a Movie Magic Budgeting export made with an ABRAM export template. Budgets keep versions, one of them marked primary, and a toggle shows every line as Cost or as Client price.