Content 360 Challenge Call for Pitches – Deadline Monday 15th February, 2010

The Content 360 Challenge at MIPTV is looking for pitches for Coca Cola branded content that will appeal to teenagers. Ideas can be for mobile apps, games, web series or TV shows, and finalists will pitch to Coca Cola execs at MIPTV, Cannes on 13-14th April 2010. Entry is free and the deadline for entries is 15th February, 2010.

There are also five further categories:

* “Engaging with children through the use of Connected TV” (Korea Communications Commission)
* “Next Generation Online Video Experience” (National Film Board of Canada)
* “Creating short video combining user-generated and EU online archives content” (European Commission)
* “Next Generation Audience Engagement”
* “New Advertising formats” (TF1)

For more information visit: Content360
(Photo by P/\UL CC BY-SA 2.0)

Panic Attack!

BBC News reports that Fede Alvarez, a Uruguayan film producer, struck YouTube gold when he uploaded short sci-fi film he made for $300. Four days later he was inundated with offers from Hollywood and has been offered a $30million dollar deal to produce a feature-length sci-fi film set in Argentina and Uruguay. Read the full [...]

Good Pitch Tribeca Call for Entries – Deadline Monday 8th February, 2010

Tribeca Film Institute is hosting the Good Pitch , a one-day pitching event for social-justice documentaries. The event will be held in New York during the Tribeca Film Festival on April 27th. Eight filmmakers (of any nationality) will be selected to pitch their projects to a panel of broadcasters, foundations, social entrepreneurs and non government organizations with the aim of soliciting support to help their films achieve greater impact and recognition.

Documentaries previously supported through Good Pitch include End of the Line and Peace in One Day. Companies who have taken part in past Good Pitches include Whole Foods, Puma Vision, Ben and Jerry’s Foundation and Asda Walmart Foundation.

Films at any stage of production are considered, but rough cut is probably the optimum time to apply. You will need a strong trailer to show to the panel. Completed films are eligible prior to festival premiere or distribution.

Deadline: 18:00 GMT, 8th February, 2010

To find out more and to apply click through.
(Photo (C) TV Mole)

Current Goes Long-Form

Current TV are well known for commissioning short films (or ‘pods’) but they’re now starting (in the UK) to commissioning and acquiring 30′, 60′ and feature length documentaries from new and emerging documentary producers. Keep up to date with what they’re looking for by emailing  Charlotte for a commissioning brief. Budgets:  £5k for a half-hour [...]

Call for Applications: Crossover Science Lab

Crossover is an international programme that brings together people from different creative disciplines – games, theatre, new media, TV and film – to collaborate, generate and hot house new content for digital media.

This year, a Crossover Science residential lab will be held on 22-27 November 2009, to “explore the potential of digital media to make compelling experiences focused on the stories, discoveries, challenges and moral dilemmas emerging from science and scientific research in the 21st century”.

Applications close 3rd November, 2009. Click through for more information.
(Photo by FrankBoyd CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Documentary Campus Masterschool – Call for Entries 2010. Deadline: 2nd October 2009

Documentary Campus Masterschool 2010 is a ten-month long masterclass in which you can get one-to-one and group training sessions (four over the ten months) to help you develop your documentary idea so you can secure international interest and funding. The school allows all kinds of nonfiction genres, from docuseries to one-offs and cross-media projects. Past [...]

BrandDirector

Brandirector makes looking for programme sponsorship, ad funding or product placement partners much easier. It’s a ‘dating agency’ style site that aims to match independent producers with brands, such as BMW, Sony and Extreme, that are looking to team up with content creators. HarperCollins is the latest to sign up, and will put 120 of [...]

Westdoc Twitter

If you weren’t able to make it to Santa Monica to attend the Westdoc conference, you can keep up with what’s going on in real time – who’s commissioning what, and how to pitch -  via twitter. Just follow the #westdoc thread.

4Docs Relaunched

4Docs has been relaunched as the home of short documentary in the UK. There are screenings, funding opportunities and a filmmaker wiki (from 9th September 2009) that will give advice on funding, producing and screening your short. There will also be regular short film competitions. Visit the newly revamped 4Docs website for more info.

A Summer Rain – An Experiment in Crowd-Funding

Ela Thier is a NYC-based independent filmmaker who has been writing screenplays for 20 years (to the detriment of her school grades when she first started out because she insisted in submitting screenplays instead of essays). But Ela is still struggling to get any of her 20+ screenplays sold or made. She’s decided to take action by sending an open letter to all her friends and acquaintances explaining her frustration. Ela faces the same frustrations that many TV producers face – years of backbreaking development work and little to show for it but rejection. Her letter should act as a reminder, that if you really believe in a project, and you can’t get anyone else to take an interest start looking for other, more creative, ways to get it off the ground. UPDATE: * People have been so inspired by this letter, that it ended up at NPR and they contacted Ela to do a story about it.

* An journalist contacted Ela from Israel to run a story about this letter in Israeli newspapers

* Just yesterday, a woman she has never met wrote to tell her that she was so moved by this letter that she forwarded this letter to her contact at the White House.
(Photo (C) Ela Thier)