animate! tv funding : Call for submissions
New ideas
animate! questions received notions of animation practice. We believe that animation is not, and indeed never has been, exclusively driven by frame-by-frame process but by wider notions of synthesis. We are, for example, excited by image re-presentation through spatial or timeline manipulation. And we support innovative content and 'agenda' as well as new forms and processes.
Send us a plan to scratch the world with unexpected tools. Or a playful proposition to surprise and stretch an audience. Above all, we are looking for projects fired by an irresistibly original idea that will challenge the boundaries of animation.
Celluloid, tape and digital technologies are all acceptable, in pure or hybrid form.
Before you start on your submission, please check out the animate! commissions made to date.
Eligibility
We want proposals from artists who have worked in film, video & digital media, established animators and emergent talent.
Collaborations with other artists, photographers, illustrators, writers, composers and sound designers are encouraged.
Submission is open to residents of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Students in full-time education during the life of the production or graduating this summer are not eligible. We welcome proposals from all sections of the community.
animate! tv does not fund development, co-production with other broadcasters or distribution, and does not commission work made specifically for children, cartoon-character based stories, series, pilots, feature films, educational films, community art projects, multiscreen, web or gallery work.
Defining your proposal
Your main opportunity to explain the work you want to make is in a formal treatment. This is a creative exercise in itself. The selection panel will expect you to describe why and how you want to make the film – your task is to convince them that they should support it.
The treatment should be no longer than one side of a single A4 sheet. Try to crystallise within the first three sentences your main idea and the themes you are exploring. Remember that brevity and clarity are virtues and imply a thoughtful focused project!
Your treatment should cover:
- • the subject/idea – what it is and what it is about
- • structure/form – the sequence of events, the shape, rhythm, pace, feel
- • visuals – look, style, treatments
- • sound – music, dialogue, voice-over, effects, atmosphere
- • technique(s) – how the work will be realised and the processes involved
- • audience – how the work will relate to and communicate with its audience
We also ask you to send us a storyboard and script, if appropriate, a production schedule, an estimated budget total, a showreel of relevant previous work and a completed Proposal Form.
Plus visual material appropriate to this project – your submission is likely to be handicapped if it does not include visual reference.
Selection
We will acknowledge your submission by email. All proposals will be treated in confidence.
Your submission will be assessed for:
- • creativity and originality of the proposal
- • artistic and technical quality of the examples of previous work submitted
- • likelihood that the project can be realised within your estimated schedule and budget
- • suitability for a television audience
Shortlisting will be by the animate! tv advisory panel. Applicants who are shortlisted will be contacted and required to supply a detailed production budget before they can be considered further.
The advisory panel will include independent specialists with a strong background in experimental film practice. animate!'s decisions are final. We are sorry that we cannot enter into any communication about unsuccessful proposals.
The 2006 slate of commissions will be announced at the end of May 2006.