1. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD SCREENPLAY
Does it follow the three act structure and that everything in it is possible to shoot within your budget (each scene should be broken for costs) Teach yourself Screenwriting by Raymond Frensham (Teach yourself books £7.99) is a good British introduction to the three act structure.

2. IS YOUR FILM BUDGETED AT WHAT YOU KNOW YOU CAN RAISE OR WHAT YOU HOPE TO RAISE.
It should be the first. Because if it ain't you're going to have a film that never gets made. Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda.

3. BUY BOOKS ON PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT AND DO WHAT THEY SAY.
For the price of a night on the piss you can get buy books that will teach you how to get organised, organised, organised. This is the most important thing in any sort of film making. Have you done storyboards to cut your shoot ratio right down. The more organised you are and the tighter your schedule the less money it is going to cost. Think and talk about everything a hundred times, talk is cheap, everything else costs. (P.S. Don't work more that fourteen hour days)

Less assume that you've done all your costings, got the best deals by telling everybody that you're students, even if your not. How much money are you going to need for a shot on film but editing to video production (Suitable for the Direct to Video Market but leaving the option open for a film cut)

Let's say roughly that your shooting 33 cans of film (33 x 11mins will give you about 6 hours of film and a shoot ratio of about 4 to 1, i.e. for every four minutes you shoot a minute will have to end up on screen, and this includes all your coverage, bad takes etc.)

33 cans of film will cost about £2,500

Developing to neg (no answer print) £2,500

Telecine (Try cut a deal at a television station) £1,000

Final Beta Edit from an Edit decision List (generated by Premiere) £ 500

So you talking about £6,500

All other monies you spend on food,costumes,special effects or lights is up to you. I would say though get hold of a fuck off computer capable of all post production tasks (and pre as well)

How are you going to raise this money.

1. Credit Cards (Sad but true)
(For an alternative view on this subject by Filmthreat's Chris Gore Click here)

2. Try you local council for grants, you'd be suprised what's available

3. Get a cheap car loan and then spend the bucks on a film

4. Is there a local Credit Union. Join it and then borrow.

5. Beg, wheedle and whine for money

6. Defer everthing possible.

Before you borrow all this money you will probably have to be working to build up a credit history and some sort of employment afterwards to deal with minimum interest payments of about £150 a month