ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years, 1 month ago - Azeem Khan

Getting equipment, lenses and camera and lighting, transport etc may be easier if you have a limited company, in my limited experience of making shorts.
Why not hook up with another limited production company? Theres over a 1000 in the UK alone
All the best

10 years, 1 month ago - Marlom Tander

The benefit is that the company becomes the legal person and limits your personal liability provided you have acted responsibly. In the event of profit potential making it sensible under tax rules, useful there too.

But so long as you are insured (and no one plays silly buggers) you don't need one for liability, and it's a short, so profit won't be an issue.

10 years, 1 month ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

By the way, to expand on the above, the cost overhead of creating a limited company is significant - whilst you theoretically can do your own year end tax return, unlike the personal return (which you'll have to complete anyway as a director), the corporation tax return is complex and a big deal if you get it wrong. Accountants will charge in the region of a grand (+VAT) to do that for you, each year. For a one-off short, financially it doesn't make sense

10 years, 1 month ago - William Allum

If it is self funded, I would guess the budget would be low, or no budget. In which case starting a company would be pointless, and take a lot of time. You only really need to start a company if funding is involved (or you are making a return), and it would need to be significant enough that the cost of setting up a company would not make much of a dent. If you are only dealing with a few thousand, then that would be most of your budget gone for no reason.

10 years, 1 month ago - John Lubran

This is one of those "how long is a piece of string" questions; so many variable scenarios to consider. For low budget independent shorts funded privately (self, family, friends etc.) It's probably not an issue, just long as everyone with an interest in the project has a clear and mutual understanding. It's when the money side of things is greater than the forgoing scenario, where there are realistic expectations of beneficial outcomes and/or potentially significant liabilities and risks that forming a Limited Company is absolutely the right thing to do. Vat registration means keeping a very simple record of inputs and outputs (I keep a Dickensian style double entry quarterly ledger that I much prefer to a computer app and which both firms of accountants we use for our different enterprises also prefer) which means that the annual accounts are made easier and cheaper and we save that massive 20% tax that others have to pay on just about everything.

Once registered for VAT one has to charge that extra 20% on everything that VAT registered entity invoices for. There are however more than nine ways to skin a cat. If one is baffled by this it might suggest a bit of a learning curve required before one should undertake anything significant.

For a small company there are plenty of accountants who will provide that annual certified return for as little as £400. If ones turnover and activities are significant enough to warrant more costly accounting services then one can probably afford the fees.

9 years, 11 months ago - David Graham Scott

Just make the damn thing, my friend! I did my first serious films on my own and just the name of a bogus company at the end ie Reel Death Films. Just make up a flash name for a company to make it look better if you like. Basically nobody will give a monkey's toss if it's your first film.

10 years, 1 month ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

None, in your position. Jut make it as yourself :-)

10 years, 1 month ago - Azeem Khan

Getting equipment, lenses and camera and lighting, transport etc may be easier if you have a limited company, in my limited experience of making shorts.
Why not hook up with another limited production company? Theres over a 1000 in the UK alone
All the best

10 years, 1 month ago - Stuart Wright

I've made four self funded films and not found the need of benefit to form a production company