The Funding Conundrum

    I'm juggling a lot of work right now, with a full calendar; it's all wonderful work and I'm very grateful to have it, but I'm aware that we're approaching the end of another month and I haven't posted anything to my blog since July. So in yet another change to my intended post, here's a matter which is very much on my mind (and that of a few others I've spoken to) at the moment...

_

   So I've been lucky enough to mentor a few directors at the start of their careers, and I stress to them how exciting that time of their lives is, and why they should cherish it. When you start out, and you want to make your first film, you grab anyone you can, other filmmakers or even just your friends, and make a film for next to nothing using any locations or assets you can gather - perhaps spending a bit of your own money on buying costumes (or making them, in my case) and things like coffee and crisps. It's a safe space to learn, grow and make mistakes without having to worry about impressing investors or spending their money in the right way. You may not even like your first film, you might not show it to anyone, but that's ok. My first films never made it onto YouTube, some are still stuck on DV tapes, but that doesn't mean I didn't cherish the experience of making them.

[Above: 22-year old me trying
 to raise funding for Ashes]

   What comes next? Well, you gather a bit of a budget to make your next film, which is maybe slightly more ambitious in terms of content, or maybe you just want to make something simple but hire more experienced actors or crew to sell the story in the best way possible. Some people save up their own money, some people crowdfund - or rather, they used to, before the market became over-saturated - and you make a film for £2-£5K. Maybe you make another one after that for the same money. Or maybe you make five more.

  Your skills improve, and then if you're lucky, one of your shorts screens at a respectable film festival, something BAFTA-qualifying or on the British Council list of named festivals. You get on peoples' radars. You win places on talent lists. You've 'proven' yourself. At this point, maybe you attract a known actor to appear in your film, helping you to raise a higher amount in crowdfunding, or maybe you're lucky enough to win funding from BFI NETWORK. Everything's exciting, your career feels like it's getting some momentum now, and you can't wait to make the next project...

   And then... what comes next?

   It's at this point that many people look to make their first feature. But it doesn't just happen like that, except for the lucky minority. A debut feature film is not the logical next step after a short film; there is a huge difference between managing a film with a £10-£20K budget, and making a feature film that costs approximately £1million to make. There needs to be something in-between. Otherwise how will any investors trust you with that level of money?

   So instead, you might have an idea for a 'bigger' short, something with a budget of around £40,000, something that really excites you and will create a strong level of engagement with audiences at film festivals. But how do you get that film funded? 

   In this time of financial crisis, it's harder than ever to raise funds through crowdfunding, you can't even guarantee to raise £2,000 these days (unless you have named talent attached, or an existing fan base), and it's very unlikely that anyone is going to invest high amounts of money into short films, because they don't have a return on investment like features usually do.

   At this stage, many filmmakers - with so many stories left untold and un-tellable, their previous short films getting older and less relevant by the day, and their debut features feeling like an unreachable goal - decide that it's time to stop trying.

   It's known as a 'glass ceiling' in our industry. I see it as a bottle-neck, where so many filmmakers have gone as far as they can without further support, and in the mean time more and more new filmmakers are coming along, making their low-budget shorts, and then joining the throng within the neck of that bottle.

   It's also the place where I currently find myself, and I feel like I've been here for a while, wading through water. Or perhaps it's mud.

   Quite a few people have asked me recently 'what are you working on next?'. And I have to tell them the truth - there isn't anything. I'm busy with my client work, which I enjoy and I need right now, but I also don't have any 'small budget' stories left in me that I want to tell. I'm desperate to take the next step, and I've spent days on days applying for funding applications and talent schemes, and reaching out to producers, only to receive rejections and for that time to be wasted. Every time I take a few hours, days or even weeks off to pursue a new funding pot or to write another draft of my feature script, that's time when I potentially lose paid work, and with the bills still going up all the time, it just isn't sustainable for me anymore.

[Above: rehearsing with the incredible Jonny McPherson and Holly Rushbrooke, on the set of Night Owls, exactly 10 years ago next Spring!]

   It's 10 years next year since I directed Night Owls, which was supposed to be the pilot for my feature film Night Owls & Early Birds. Apart from a brief flicker of interest last year, which was so exciting for a time, I am no closer to making that feature film than I was a decade ago. And that stings.

   Today, the BFI and FILM4 announced the 9 films they've chosen to greenlight through their Future Takes scheme, a rare fund that was designed to support higher-budget shorts. The films sound great, and I look forward to seeing them; it's also worth noting that BFI and FILM4 chose to fund 9 shorts, rather than 7 as originally intended, which is really admirable. But they had 400 applications, all of which they claim were of a high standard; that's 391 bold and visually striking films we could've seen, 391 directors and producers who could've taken the next leap in their careers... and goodness knows how many filmmakers mourning the rejection and questioning what to do next. All of these filmmakers were already 'qualified' to apply, they had to be, with strong, proven track records, including numerous producers on the prestigious BFI Insight Programme, but it wasn't enough on this occasion.

   As Jessi Gutch so perfectly summarised on Twitter at the time, this rejection was particularly difficult for many because "the ambition [of the projects] means it's hard to see another route to production." In the past, when myself and many other filmmakers had their work turned down by things like Creative England's iShorts Scheme or even BFI NETWORK funding, we'd scale down the project, save up any money we can, maybe run a small crowdfunding campaign, pay the crew less, pay ourselves nothing, and still get the film made somehow. That's actually how I came to make Songbird. But it's just not possible with higher-budget shorts, that need a certain level of investment to even exist at all.

   I don't mean to criticise the Future Takes fund in any way at all. I'm so grateful that it even exists, where no other similar-sized fund is available. The head of BFI NETWORK, Alice Cabañas, said in the new Future Takes press release: "We’re all acutely aware that securing funding for indie debut features is tougher than ever, and many short filmmakers are getting stuck." The issue is that, if there is only one fund available of this size, and so many filmmakers are in need of it, the competition is going to be so aggressively fierce that success is near-impossible.

   I will just add that you don't always need a high-budget short to stand out at film festivals. A great example of a really simple short, executed flawlessly, was Keith Allot's film Lifelike, which is now available on Omeleto. The film had a great festival run, and I always share it as an example of how to do a one-person-one-location film right. But I also believe that, in a sea of thousands of low-budget shorts, if your production is visually memorable, perhaps with enough finance to hire named talent, it definitely helps people notice your film. And a lot of festivals do love a bold screenshot or a still of a famous person that they can put on the front of their programme...

   Although all of the above sounds a bit doom and gloom, and it is a genuine reflection of how myself and others see the film industry at this stage in our careers, I haven't completely given up. Things are harder than when I first picked up a camcorder and put blazers on my teenage mates so they'd 'pass' as adults, but I have a few years of fight left in me.

   The option now is to change track - and that's something I've been discussing with a few other filmmakers recently. I adore the BFI, I am so grateful for everything they've done for myself and my peers, particularly through BFI NETWORK, and I will continue to support them as an organisation as much as I can. But there cannot be one gatekeeper for funding. Since the decline of funding organisations like Creative England iShorts/iFeatures and the long-dead IdeasTap, and with brilliant funding bodies such as FILM4 and BBC Film slightly less approachable without an agent or established producer attached to your project, there is currently too much pressure and expectation being put on the BFI. Many people are just waiting for their next funding windows to open, and completely losing hope when they eventually get a 'no'.

   The UK is not the best place for the arts right now. I won't get political in an already-ranty blog post, but I can't see that changing any time soon. So it's time for us to think outside of the box again, in the same way we did as fledgling filmmakers who took risks and tried new things; it's time for us to go out into the world. I know a few filmmakers who are setting their sights abroad, learning how to make global productions or tweak their script to adapt it to the needs of a different country, and I'm going to look to do the same. I've already had some wonderful meetings with Icelandic producers, and I'm keen to find out more about the film production scene in other countries. The UK population has been raised to believe that we are the only country that exists or matters on this huge planet, full of people and opportunities, and it's time for us to open our minds.

   When the only alternatives are to sit in development limbo forever, or to rely on a single funding body which is already doing everything it can to support our industry in a time of austerity... what do you have to lose?

Sophie

P.s. I'm in the process of creating a new personal/directing website, as a separate resource to the Triskelle Pictures company website, and I'll likely be hosting my blog on there in the future. I'll let you all know what happens, and I'll also keep this blog online as a sort of archive - if I can ever find time to tidy up my page tags properly!