Funding a short film in the UK

The public money

BFI NETWORK is the front door for new filmmakers: short film funding of a few thousand to about £15,000, run through a hub in each nation and English region, with an executive who reads applications and gives notes. It funds the film, not the filmmaker's living, and it wants a producer attached. The regional hubs also run talent programmes, labs and a lot of the useful introductions.

The four national agencies (BFI for England through NETWORK, Screen Scotland, Ffilm Cymru Wales, Northern Ireland Screen) each fund shorts by people in their nation, and some of the regional screen agencies (Screen Yorkshire, Film London, Liverpool, Cornwall) have their own small schemes. Being from the place is the eligibility; check the film office page here for who covers where you are.

Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales and Arts Council of Northern Ireland fund film as art, through their open project funds, when the film is part of an artist's practice rather than a calling card. Slower, more paperwork, worth it for the right film.

What the reader is reading for

Every short film fund reads for the same four things, in this order: a distinctive voice they have not seen before; a story that needs to be a film, not a monologue that could be a play; a team that can plainly deliver it, which is where the producer and a realistic budget come in; and a reason it should be this fund, this year. The script is read first and hardest.

A budget that adds up matters more than a small one. A fund would rather see £12,000 with a real crew paid at a real rate than £3,000 with 'everyone volunteers' and no contingency. Include the paperwork and the insurance; leaving them out reads as inexperience.

Apply to the fund's brief, not to the idea of funding. The people who give the money can tell within a paragraph whether the application was written for them or for everyone.

The other six ways

Almost no short is fully grant-funded. The rest comes from the same six places every time.

• Talent schemes and competitions with a production award attached: the entry is free, the prize is a film. ScreenSkills, the broadcasters' new-talent schemes and the equipment makers' competitions.
• Crowdfunding, which is a marketing campaign that raises money as a side effect. It works when you already have an audience or a subject with one; it costs weeks of work and about ten per cent in fees; and it is a public record of whether anyone wanted the film.
• In-kind: kit hire houses, post houses, studios and caterers give things to shorts they like, especially to people they have worked with. Ask early, in writing, with a one-page deck, and give a proper credit and a copy of the film. The kit hire page here says which houses have a rate for shorts.
• The deferred crew: people paid a nominal rate now against a real one if the film makes money. Write it down in a deal memo (there is one in the paperwork here), because a deferral that is not written down is an argument later.
• A producer with a slate, who puts your short into a package they can raise on. Rarer, and the way most people's second short gets made.
• Your own money, spent last, after the rest is in place, and never more than you can lose.

The traps

• Paying to pitch. No real fund charges a fee to apply.
• A 'grant' that is a loan, a competition whose prize is a percentage of your rights, or a scheme that keeps the film.
• Spending the grant before the paperwork: most funds pay in stages, against a signed agreement, deliverables and a cost report. Budget the cash flow, not just the total.
• Forgetting that a grant is taxable income to whoever receives it. A producer with a company handles this; a sole trader with a bank account does too, differently. Ask an accountant once.