The social British realist film London to Brighton was produced by Ken Marshall and Paul Andrew Williams who made the company Steel Mill in 2005. In 2000, however, Paul Andrew Williams started to make short films and began with ‘So loose.’ The second one he made was called ‘Sugar’ which was picked up by Atoms Films. This allowed him to get into Fox Searchlights director lab during the time he made ‘It’s okay to drink whiskey.’ This then led to him working on a film called ‘The Cottage’ for the next two years before he gave up and made ‘London to Brighton in 2005’
Williams had a budget of around £80,000 which meant that they were guerrilla filming. This is a form of independent film making characterised by a low budget. It was funded by private equity and completion money from the UK Film council new cinema fund. This fund and guerrilla marketing is out there to allow new producers to make high quality films on a low budget compared to competitors. Also, the fact that it took them 19 days to complete the film shows that they can be done to a good standard in a small amount of time.
Shifty (made in 2008) is a British urban crime thriller, written and directed by Eran Creevy. The film is set on the outskirts of London and was produced my Rory Aitkens Ben Pugh. They together had a production company called Between the Eyes which is know known as 42. Shifty was funded using the microwave scheme. This scheme was the first low budget feature program and has been responsible for discovering and developing some of the UK’s most exciting talent. They get a set budget if they use this method. For the funding of shifty, they were given exactly £100,000.
The Cottage was Paul Andrew Williams' original idea as he set up 'Steel Mill Pictures' with Ken Marshall, in 1995. When realising he didn't have the funds to produce the film, he gave up on the idea and made 'London to Brighton instead. This film became a massive success, as it was published in the film festival, then Steel Mill Pictures gained a lot of attention and equity through this, and a lot more than expected. Steel Mill Pictures then managed to raised a lot of money, £2.5 million in fact, to produce 'The Cottage'.