The dark arts of feature film funding have always been a complete mystery to me and I don’t think I am alone in that regard. It may possibly be down to a peculiarly British sensibility of rank embarrassment at ‘selling yourself.’ Or it might be down to the C Grade I had in my Maths GCSE.

Unless your as hideously talented as Nick Cave, who wrote The Proposition in 4 weeks, your script will be the result of months of painstaking, finger bleeding, relationship ending, sanity stretching re-writes. After all this time cultivating what you to believe the next Oscar™ winning screenplay, you find yourself faced with daunting prospect of having to explain the myriad intricacies of your subtle masterpiece to a grey, middle aged balding man, who’s flaring capillaries betray his total lack of interest.

Disheartened and downbeat, you find yourself on filmmaking network forums, asking for the advice and guidance of fellow suffering . After a friendly cyber ‘arm around the shoulder’, your rejuvenated, refreshed, ready to take on the world. You re-assess the screenplay, have a tinker with structure, make sure your listening to Mr Field and insure that your plot points in Acts I & III are suitably interesting and set out once again. This time your sure.

Another meeting. You stand outside a large concrete building and wonder if this is where it all begins. You ascend the stairs and wait patiently to be called through. But in front of you is another grey man. You double check to make sure its not the same person as before, checking for the bursting capillaries. But this man has no bursting capillaries. What he does have is the same hangdog, listless expression as the man before. No matter, your script is watertight. Who wouldn’t want to option Pearl Harbour 2: Revenge Of The Manatee.

This may seem a little glib, but if Sex Lives Of The Potato Men manages to get funding, what rhyme or reason is there to UK Film Funding???
www.moviemogulfund.com