Sound Check

A while back I wondered exactly how long it would take to do the dialog, music, and effects mix, with Foley and "sound design" cut effects, for a feature-length motion picture -- you know, the kind of movies we make.
I estimated 144 hours. That is 144 "man-hours" at a computer with a Foley stage of some sort available and doing the sound effects, ADR, dialog edit, and final mix as you go along. The other caveat is that the effects are not done "100%". No, instead you do just the effects you need, not wanting to Foley the entire movie and cut effects for the entire movie. Just add the stuff you're going to use.
How much is 144? I mean, how much does that cost with overhead, computers, electricity, sound effects, your time? Is that about $50/hour? So 144 is what, I don't know, about $7,000?
Now the fact is that I do virtually all this work myself on most of our movies. So that's work that does not incur a cash cost to us. But it does, you know, take up a month of my time. And then there's the music. On shows I'm composing for, that's some additional time.

So these are my thoughts of which I am thinking. Still. Thinking.