The Fun Of Film Financing

Hey guys!

Today I'm going to talk about an aspect of the funnest part of Indie Film - Finances.

As student film-makers you really have three immediate easy options on how to finance your productions:

1. Get a rich friend/family member to throw money at you.
2. Do work to fund your productions/Use your production company as a business.
3. Choose productions that you can make for nothing/almost nothing.

There is a fourth option of external funding, but I'll cover that in a later post as it easily qualifies as its own topic.

The first suggestion I presented is a bit of a weak one, most directors won't have people who are willing to throw money at a production where they won't make that money back, if you do have someone close to you that has the money to pour into your production then count yourself lucky, and make them aware of what you're doing and how you're spending the money.

The next option is the option I initially went for with my web-series, I was lucky enough to already have a job, and I picked up as many shifts as I could get to gather for my web-series, I have even gone as far as to get another job so that I could have one job that personally funds my life expenses (Such as my car which is a rather essential item when film-making), and another job that I use to fund my productions, it's a system that does work, but it takes a lot of passion to work a job knowing that the only reward you'll get out of it is your film getting made.

The second option in point two is what I've recently been doing, fortunately I've had the contacts to get paid work through my production company (Grumpy Hobo Films) and though I do have crew members to pay from these all money that I would have from my cut I put back into the company (As does the other co-owner of GHF) this means we have extra money for expenses such as productions, and we enjoy making film so we're willing to put in the time and effort for no personal reward, but that the company is better off, and we can do more with our passion which is making film! 

The third option is to make productions that require little/no budget, it requires a lot of begging, borrowing and favors, but it is possible, and it really comes down to knowing the limit of your resources, and being clever enough to make intriguing stories within confines, but doing so in a way that the stories don't suffer for them. Look at everything as an opportunity to make a film rather than a burden on your production and you'll have a much better time. 

Thanks for reading!

-Geraint