Film Financing

When i first got introduced to film financing, i thought it was an easy thing, i just thought they used the left over money they had from previous films to make new ones and carry on that way. But you really don't. There are so many ways to get film financing and it all starts off with your film pitch. Your film pitch must include what, where when, who and why about your film. What is it about? Where will it be filmed? When will it be filmed? Who will watch it/be in it? Why will people go to watch it/would people invest in it?

Once you have made your pitch, there are several placs you can go for funding, such as:

• Government grants
• Tax Schemes &Tax Shelters - Tax shelters are deductions in tax if you include a British cast, for instance and use a British setting, and use mainly British employees in your film. This deduction makes it a lot cheaper to produce your film
• Debt Finance such as: Pre-sales, Television Pre-sales, Negative Pick-up deals,Gap/Supergap financing
• Equity Finance such as: Private, Hedge-fund or Product Placement

All of these methods are suitable, but you would have to look at where you are planning to create the film and with which actors before you begin to look at finance, so you can see where is cheapest.

When finding finance, it is advised to get as many financers as possible, so that if one financer pulls out, you still have others to rely on. Whereas if you have only one financer and they pull out, it's pretty much game over.