Pros and Cons of different finance methods

 

Source of finance	Definition	Pros	Cons
Bank Loan	A certain amount of money borrowed from the bank	You can get it straight away	You have to pay it back, with interest   You have to be accepted for a loan
Crowdfunding	Money raised from a large number of contributors through a campaign, usually via the internet	Fast way to raise finance	You have to build up interest in the project beforehand
Grant/Funding (BFI etc.)	Money provided by a party, most often the government	You don’t have to pay it back	Time consuming with research and actually waiting to get the grant
Private Investment	Money invested by companies/financial investors rather than the government	It’s not a loan	Most investors expect something back or a benefit
Self-funding	Providing the funding yourself	You don’t owe anyone anything back	Can be limiting and can put you under strain
Local Authority/ Public Investment	Money specifically provided by the government and can be through council tax	You’re being backed by a community	You have to be more careful when creating your project e.g. you can’t film illegally as you now represent a community

For my own project, it’s very unlikely that a bank loan, private investment, local authority/public investment or grant will be an eligible way to receive funding. This is because I don’t believe I will fit into the specific criteria required for a bank loan as well as the fact that my project is on a much smaller scale compared to other qualified candidates. The funding method I think will be most useful will be self-funding and crowd-funding as you don’t have to owe anybody anything back and crowd funding especially is a quicker, more efficient way to raise money. Crowd-funding will also allow interest and support in the project to be built up before production begins. Also, self-funding, I think, will be a more secure way of keeping a budget on a realistic scale.

I have completed this pre-production activity as a way to consider the financial options I have for my  short film/ extract and to determine which option would be most sensible to go through with. By researching these options individually (with definitions, pros and cons) and then applying them to a table format, it makes the 'weighing of options' a lot easier as it's easier to read and make comparisons. This will help me organise a budget for the production element of the project and will make the ideas of finance more easier to manage.