All Or Nothing Funding
It’s a simple idea. If you try to raise £5000, but you only manage £100, those who did invest won’t lose out, and you won’t be left trying to make a film on a fraction of the budget. Of course, it’s a double-edged sword – if you raise £4999, you still get nothing. At least if it all goes wrong, you don’t have to shell out.

Better Than Nothing Funding
This is the alternative. You keep everything you raise, but you pay a financial penalty for not reaching your target, and you still have to fulfill your obligations to funders.

The Cost Of Crowdfunding
There’s usually a payment handling fee of 3-5%. Additionally, there’s a funding fee which varies from site to site.

Is it legal?
I’ve wrestled unsuccessfully with this one, and inquiries to the Financial Standards Authority have met with silence. I suspect there’s a big folder at the FSA where all crowdfunding questions are kept until they’ve worked out an answer! What I do know is this: in the UK, accepting funding from more than five(or so) investors requires your company to be registered and approved by the FSA. However, there are exemptions, such as an Appointed Representative handling things. It may be that crowdfunding websites have this status, but I don’t know. There’s also the possibility of a loophole, as such funding could be seen as payment for goods or services (see “investment” below). The jury’s out on this one.

Timescale
It’s fairly universal in terms of timescale – The project can be active for between 1 and 90 days, although the recommended period is around 50-60.

Ownership
All these sites assert that they are merely facilitators, and don’t take any of your intellectual property.

Incentives
In order to get people to fund your film, you need to give them a sweetener. This should vary depending on the amount of funding given, from something as small as an mp3, digital stills, to something as big as even a part in the film!

Advertising
The sites are unanimous in their emphasis on advertising. Crowdfunding only works if people find out about your project, and as such, you need to make it eyecatching and easy to find. They recommend videos, photos, soundbites, making full use of social media links, and so on. It’s a full time job, too. You need to keep the momentum going for the full length of the project – if interest wanes, so will funding.

kickstarter.com
This is perhaps the most well known creative crowdfunding site. It uses All-or-nothing, and if you’re successful there’s a 5% fee. Unfortunately, they use Amazon Payments, and as a result you need US residency to be able to create a new project, so unless you have an American partner or bank account, kickstarter isn’t practical.

indiegogo.com
This has the benefit of being international, although there are extra fees involved – a $25 flat fee for international credit card transactions. Furthermore, as a better-than-nothing site, there’s a 4% fee if you reach your target, or a 9% fee if you don’t.

rockethub.com
Rockethub is a better-than-nothing sourcer, with  a 4%/8% fee and a fixed handling fee of 4%. There’s also a “launchpad” section, in which creatives can enter submissions for specific opportunities (like a small-scale mofilms.com).

pozible.co.uk
Pozible is an Australian all-or-nothing crowdfunder with a specific UK portal. It charges a 7.5% fee (5% if you’ve previously been successful).

crowdfunder.co.uk
Crowdfunder is a UK All-or-nothing crowdfunder, part of business investors Crowdcube. It charges 5%.

Conclusions
There you have it. It might be illegal, you might have to make your film for a tenner, or not at all, and it’s a long slog. On the other hand, it’s definitely easier than getting Harvey Weinstein’s ear…

When it comes to film-making (and everything else for that matter), I’m a firm believer in the “Seven Ps,” or “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.” I may ignore the Ps from time to time, but I usually end up regretting it. It’s common sense, really. If you make a cake, it’s going to be more of a struggle if you haven’t cleared the kitchen worktops, still need to wash the mixing bowl, forgot to turn the oven on, and so forth. A film shoot that’s adequately prepared runs far more smoothly than trying to throw elements together haphazardly.

This is where the attention to detail comes in. The little things are crucial. You need that little screw. The memory cards should be pre-cleared. That signature needs to be on the bottom of the location release form. Any one of these can hold up the shoot, perhaps indefinitely, and not all of them can be fixed with gaffer tape. I’ve been on shoots where all of these examples have been issues. Luckily, the prior planning can certainly help – you brought your gaffer tape, you can tie up the location’s owner and threaten him until he signs that form.

Here are some things to worry about:

• No power. This stops any shoot dead. Cameras, sound recording devices, lights. All need the juice, whether it’s mains or battery power. If you’re in a location, make sure you have access to power, and make sure all the batteries are charged beforehand (disposable batteries can help, but it’s a terribly wasteful route).
• No permission. While many shoots can get along without acquiring permissions, it’s by no means preferable. If you’re filming anyone, anything or anywhere without the right permissions, it can be a tremendous headache later on, or even at the time. Furthermore, make sure it’s in writing. I’ve been on several shoots where we obtained permission, only to find that we weren’t allowed to film when we arrived. In fact, after telling us that life isn’t fair, he only relented when he asked us in future to liaise with the very person who’d given us the permission in the first place.
• No food. I’ve said it before, and it’s still as true. Without catering for your cast and crew, you’ll make many powerful enemies of your project.
• The bits and bobs. If it’s a light, does it have the right stand and cables? If it’s a tripod, does it have the plate? Do you have the props? The right gels? A 4-gang? These things are easily forgotten or misplaced. On my last shoot, we were missing a knuckle for a C-stand and the tripod plate. Luckily both of these were fixable with gaffer tape, but I wouldn’t recommend holding up a 2 grand Kino with some.

Look after the little things, and the big things won’t fall apart.

Of course, there is a screenplay adaptation underway already, and better still, I have the author’s express permission to muck about with the story as much as I like!

In my previous blog entry, back in November, I vowed to complete a 50,000 word novella in one month. The first week went well, and I was almost ahead of schedule, until the inevitable happened. It always happens in November, and always when I’m trying to write – I ended up with two weeks’ work. Usually, when this happens, I find myself at the beginning of December with less than 10,000 words. Not this time. This time I set my jaw, and had completed the whole thing by the early hours of November 29th. 50,027 words! Looking back, scripts included, I think it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I feel a huge sense of achievement. Of course, it’s all very well throwing thousands of words into a document, but quite another to have them make any sense. I wasn’t expecting much; it was, after all, my first successful attempt at writing such a large piece of work (compared to short stories and screenplays, anyway – full novels tend to be at least 80,000 words). I passed it on to a few people for feedback, and to my surprise and delight, they thought it was pretty good! I corrected all the errors and typos I could find (and that my proofreaders pointed out), and finally, it’s here. In a few days, it will be available from Amazon, but in the meantime, it can be found at this link: Expurgated

I might take a copy with me to Cannes this year, and try to get it adapted…

As far as I’m concerned, it has nothing to do with the two-way nature of the talking, it’s about the “with.” You stir a cup of tea “with” a spoon, and you give money “to” charity. If you talk “with” someone, they’re the instrument by which you talk, whereas talking “to” someone makes them the recipient of your words.

This brings me to the usage of “talk” as opposed to “speak.” These two are commonly considered to be interchangeable, although I posit that there are significant differences.

When you “talk,” you say words to someone. When you “speak,” you just say words (Cambridge Dictionary Definition). Therefore, if someone “talks,” you can infer that there is someone to whom they are talking. If there is no-one else with John, we’d say that he is “talking to himself.” Conversely, “speaking” is a verb that expects an adverb: “Do you speak French?”, “Let me speak frankly.” It also negates the recipient in the speech – if you speak to someone, they’d better listen!

I’d argue that there’s no real need to “speak with” someone at all, although I’d consider it more acceptable than “talking with” them.

Cannes is the place for free gifts. I’ve already collected a huge amount of merchandising and magazines so far, from BFI badges to half a dozen DVDs from an independent US production company I’ve been a fan of for years. I now have so much junk, in fact, that my new blue (and also free) Cannes satchel is straining under the weight. I shudder to think how heavy my luggage will be by the end of the festival!

I’m sure everyone knows about the film-making triangle (it’s in the Guerilla Film Maker’s Handbook, after all) which dictates that of the three qualities “Good”, “Fast”, and “Cheap”, you can only ever have two.  A case in point is a short I made a couple of years ago called “Milky Thursday”. I needed some CGI work doing for it, but I was on a deadline, and having no funds, I couldn’t entice a CGI artist to work on it for me. As a result, I had to do it all myself (in a hurry), and it looks terrible. One thing I’d like to say about this triangle, however, is that it indirectly leads to one of the most controversial topics in low-budget film-making today – that of paying your crew.  Going back to Milky Thursday again, The budget was about £300, because that’s what I spent on fuel, costumes, props and consumables (fuel was the biggest cost). However, that doesn’t count the donations I received in terms of time and expertise from the cast and crew. If I had been able to pay them the going rate, I would have been looking at upwards of £1000. Obviously this would have been the ideal situation, but for practical reasons it couldn’t happen – film making was always a province of the rich elite, and to pay your crew the going rate it still is.

Obviously, this places me in the position of not paying cast or crew for shorts, which lies at odds with several campaigns, but that’s not to say I disagree with them. There are several examples of films that have been made cheaply where it’s clear that the producers have exploited their crews in order to use  more expensive equipment, or avoided paying expenses, or kept any profits for themselves, and this cannot be condoned. However, when it’s a collective who have made the film, the rules are and should be different. If a film maker can generate a community spirit for the film – if the cast and crew want to be involved in the film for its own sake – then this should be perfectly acceptable. Obviously, it’s beholden upon the producers to make sure that any wealth is shared fairly amongst its collaborators.

I fall into this second category, as pretty much all of my films have been made for buttons and string. Once you have people excited about your project, it’s not difficult to get the best from them without waving a chequebook under their nose. There are, however, some important guidelines:

1. Expenses. If you can offer expenses, do so, even if it’s only a token payment. Some may refuse any money (if they’re passionate about the project, for example), but this is the exception rather than the rule.
2. Food. An army marches on its stomach, a film crew doubly so. There’s nothing worse than working on a project without any catering – you get tired and hungry, and you don’t want to be there the next day. What’s amazing is that this is the easiest and cheapest perk to provide, and the most often overlooked.
3. DVD.  If you’ve offered someone a DVD at the end, provide it. There are several people I won’t work for again, as they can’t even extend this courtesy. You know who you are…
4. Professionalism. This is key. Your cast and crew may be working for free, but this does not mean that they’re amateurs. Treat them and the project with the respect they deserve.

Follow these, and you won’t go far wrong.