How to secure funding
Now, you could have a satisfying life working in the industry; animating and designing other people's projects and ideas. But like all creative people, animators aspire to create their own projects and productions; but hit a road block upon the realisation of needing the buget and funding for production costs. Thankfully, there are government programmes that help with giving filmmakers the chance to direct their own projects and give them the funds to do so. Now, this was what we looked at during this week's session to look at a organisation that would help in giving us funding for a short film and then set up our own concept pitch we would make to them to give us an idea on how this would work; if we would end up in a situation like this in the future.
BFI
British Film Institue
The BFI (British Film Institute) is a organisation where they help independent film maker's film get produced and distributed by giving them budget funds from the money they gained from the British Lottery. On their website, they have four funding options for independent artists to use; funding for film products, funding for industry experience, funding for expanding distributors and funding for international connections. And while within those funding options, there are many different sections for individuals; we would be focusing on the short film development fund, as it's the shortest product and therefore, easier to pitch since it's what we have been doing at college and university for the past five years thanks to our assignments.
In this fund pitch, the BFI has said that in order to be approved for funding; a film maker would need to provide for the product:
- The basic story, synopsis and themes
- The inspiration for the project
- The intended target audience
- Ideal cast list (if voice acting is needed)
- A production deadline
- Potential financial partners that would help in promoting the film
- The anticipated request budget for BFI to give to you
- The overall production budget
- Any budget and technical issues that could be seen in the future and how the BFI funding could help prevent it.
They also require that the application pitch you would send to the BFI should include information on the three most important roles within the project's production; that being the director, producer and writer. Now, a Director or Producer could share the writer role but the director can't also be the producer. These three or two people would also need to give their portfolio of their previous work so the BFI can not only get an idea of how their final product would turn out, but also to show that you have some experience within the industry and make getting your project distributed to a larger audience much easier. The director, producer and writer could also work in other elements of the production since it is independent, such as being one of the animators, concept artists or even one of the actors if they have the skills to do so.
My Concept pitch short
Even tho at the moment, the applications for project funding are closed on the BFI website currently due to the obvious covid19 pandemic; our tutor still tasked us to create a concept pitch for an animated short idea I would ask the BFI to give me funding for; this to prepare us for the possible future if we want to create our own animated product outside of a studio's commands.
For me, as the director, storyboard artist and character designer would apply with a short based on my possible idea for a future cartoon "Master of the House", a concept I created from my concept development project in year two that I did not expand on in the project itself. The show is about the Stossel family who inherit the grandmother's cat (Calamity) after she died; only to discover that the grandmother was a secret witch and the cat now has her powers within a gemstone on his collar. And while this feline plans to come up with a plan to take over the world with magic, and unintentionally befriending the children (Celestia and Terrence); meanwhile, the parents (Eric and Delilah) try desperately to try and get rid of the cat, only to be dismissed by the town. This obviously based on a inside joke between cat owners where cats end up taking over their owner's households (mainly based on my own family experiences with the pet) and inspired by two shows I watched a lot when I was growing up, "My Parents are Aliens" and "My goldfish is evil". The intended show would be targeted towards families; being a simple episodic show focused on comedy where it breaks the fourth wall (similar to "King Arthur's Disasters" that I also grew up with) since I want to return to that form of simplistic TV. The short I would make using the BFI funding would be five minutes based on the scene where the family meet the cat and discover his magical properties, I would have someone else write the script which I would create the storyboard and someone else with better social skills produce the short since my autism makes me struggle with it.
For the funding I would need within this project, naturally it would be ToonBoom and Storyboard Pro indie licenses for the animators to use and create the short; as well as getting any voice actors for the short. I don't have a clear cut set of actors for my family, but I have two clear choices in my mind for the cat character; either Phil Cornwell (most well known for his voice acting as the band member Murdoc Niccals from Gorillaz) or Keith Sliverstien (who I mentioned last week being known as Hisoka Morrow from Hunter X Hunter) as those actors aren't complete star names to take over the budget, but do have great voice acting experience where they can change their voices from either sinister to more friendly which is the type of voice I want for the cat who acts sinister when alone but puts on a "cute and friendly" voice when around the family. I do know I want younger actors and actresses to be the voices of the children characters.
In the end, this short would take a estimated production time of two and a half months and therefore would need to have estimated budget of £367.