Read other posts in this series

• Funding for Tanz.io
• Stage 1 Tanz.io: Planning
• Stage 2 Tanz.io: Starting
• Stage 3 Tanz.io: Budgeting

If you haven’t already noticed these posts aren’t in any sort of order—not for the lack of trying but hey.

Budgeting! whoop everyone’s favourite subject. I just thought I’d go through my experiences with regards to the money side of this project. How I got some funding, my proposed budget and how I actually spent the money.

I applied for a SIAP last july (2015). Within my application I had to say how much I needed and what I’d spent it on, this is pretty standard for most applications, they want to know your plans, to see if it’s realistic.

My Budget

Exp	Time	Rate	Total
2 Dancers	4 days	£80 p/d	£640
Direction (own fee)	4 days	£80 p/d	£320
Videographer	3 days	£100 p/d	£300
Studio Hire	4 days	£80 p/d	£320
Final Cut Pro	–	–	£229.99
Motion	–	–	£39.99
Graphics + Fonts	–	–	£100
TOTAL			£1949.98

What to include in your budget?

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what things were acceptable when making a budget proposal. I’m not too experienced when it comes to applying for money and I’d heard “Mmm they won’t give you money for that” and “be careful, asking for that much might hamper your chances of getting funding” (I promise people still use the word hamper in that context).

What I did know was what I need to get tanz.io started. I needed space, movers and someone to shoot the stuff, I was confident those things would be accepted but I also knew I need software to edit this stuff, video editing software and animation software, these would be a big part of what I wanted to do and these aren’t cheap. I also wanted a small budget on any artwork or typefaces (fonts) for the project. These things I wasn’t confident I’d get some money for, especially fonts! Most people don’t realise that you’d have to pay for fonts and in some cases you don’t but there’s a big difference in quality between free and paid typefaces (usually) and I knew these are the things I really needed for tanz.io to be the best it could be so. I was tempted to skew and remove certain things in order to give me the best chance of receiving funding in the (perceived) eyes of the arts council but if I didn’t get the software fonts etc I wouldn’t be able to afford them and ultimately I don’t think I’d have completed the project so I stuck them in.

Thankfully they did and I got everything I asked for, which was a massive boost in confidence that my idea wasn’t dog shite which I tend to tell myself after 20mins of thinking this is the best idea ever.

So from now on when I apply for funding I’m just gonna ask for what I need and not try to overthink or trick anyone into giving me funding. For my next project I really think I need a PlayStation.

…I’ll update this post with details about where the money was spent once the SIAP is completed.