A Shift in the Wind

There’s been a small shift in the wind for Ontario’s screen-based producers. Funding is now available for approved activities that bring film, television and digital media project closer to market ready status. Successful applicants will receive a rebate for approved marketing and development activities initiated after March 31, 2009 and up to and including March 31, 2010.

Yesterday, Aileen Carroll, Ontario Minister of Culture announced the creation of the Intellectual Property Development Fund, worth $10 million. This funding stream is in welcome contrast to most other programs that focus almost entirely on production.

The Development Fund has a ceiling of $150K per corporate group.

Eligible activities consist of a wide range of marketing activities.

The following list is snipped from the website of the Ontario Media Development Corporation:

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• optioning or acquisition of story rights
• concept, story and character creation (including initial design work for characters, settings and set-ups, and preliminary layouts and storyboards for a demo or pilot and packaging purposes).
• creation of design, game design documents and technical specification documentation
• Research for script and story purposes, treatments and outlines
• script writing (from outline to polish) including story editing and script work-shopping
• creation of prototypes/electronic proof-of-concept/demos/animatics/pilots/coding/ testing
• creation of proposals for submission to financiers (budgets, schedules, script breakdown, financing plans, etc.)
• creation of business and marketing plans to secure further development or production financing
• creation of Series Bibles, pitch packages and marketing materials
• market research including: focus groups, audience research, prototype testing and assessment.
• Packaging including research and travel related directly to location scouting, producing a demo or pilot, preliminary casting, and attending at markets for the purpose of pitching to prospective financiers and co-production partners.

"snip"

Information sessions will be held in January and February. Go to www.omdc.on.ca for dates and times and for more information about the Development Fund.