Telefilm, Bell Broadcast and New Media funds begin harmonizing application procedures

Canada’s two main sources of new media money are moving in the same direction once more, with a new common funding application template for projects in the production and product development stages. Charles Zamaria, financial director of the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, and Marilyn (Mare) Burgess, head of research and planning and senior policy advisor at the Telefilm Canada New Media Fund, say the streamlining will mean less hassles for producers, especially those applying to both funds simultaneously. "It’s been a long time coming but we finally have steps that are heading in the right direction," says Zamaria. "It’s ridiculous that producers would be running around trying to complete different forms and templates and stuff like that." Burgess echoes the sentiment: "Our intention behind this to align ourselves wherever possible with other funders so that the burden on the applicant is a reasonable burden, and we’re not duplicating their costs for nothing." Mike McGuigan, chief financial officer and director of new media at Toronto’s Breakthrough Films & Television, says he’s applied to both funds recently. Breakthrough’s new media division produces online games based on TV shows including Blueprint Entertainment’s Kenny vs. Spenny and Breakthrough’s own Atomic Betty. While McGuigan has yet to use the new template, he says such harmonization will undoubtedly prove beneficial. "It’s really hard to maintain two separate budgets for the same project – you have to cost-report against a separate budget – so anything that can be done to streamline that and make them more harmonious is good," McGuigan says. The two have shared elements of their respective funding application templates before; Telefilm, however, uses separate templates for projects in the marketing research and prototyping stage on one hand and those in the more advanced product development and marketing phase on the other, while the Bell Fund rolls marketing costs into its production funding template. "This was really in response to what producers were telling us, which is that…they incur marketing expenses in the product development stage," explains Burgess. "There’s advance publicity, there’s pre-launch costs, and they may not need to go to the marketing ." Telefilm found itself in hot water with the new media community earlier this year when it made changes to the funding template less than a month before an application deadline (CNM, April 29/05). The agency removed several classes of administrative expense from the template, which had been used by both Telefilm and the Bell Fund for three years prior. Telefilm unilaterally announced the changes to its template in April, cutting the allowable amounts for certain administrative overhead categories. At the time, Telefilm new media section head Earl Hong Tai defended the decision by noting the agency was moving to an online application service, and bringing the Telefilm Canada New Media Fund’s template in line with those of other Telefilm programs such as the Canada Feature Film Fund and the Canadian Television Fund (CTF). "The irony was that they weren’t doing it for any of their other industries, they were just trying to do it for new media," Zamaria says. "So there was a kind of disconnect within Telefilm itself that didn’t recognize you can’t change new media without changing all the other industries." "Telefilm is a marvelous cultural funding agency, and it’s always taken the lead in television, in film and in other media," Zamaria says. When Telefilm and the Department of Canadian Heritage signed a memorandum of understanding in 2001 giving Telefilm a mandate to fund new media projects, Zamaria says the agency came to the table with the mindset that it would be setting the agenda as it does in film and television production. " new media the Bell Fund has been the leader since day one, and we’re funding up to 75% of projects," he says. "Telefilm isn’t accustomed to working in that kind of relationship." "New media is like no other cultural industry in terms of a template," Zamaria adds. "In television and film, there traditional…budget categories, you know at a moment’s glance how much development and prep time you need, how much production time…and how much post time. In new media, it’s so diverse that you can never quantify or qualify exactly what the processes are going to be, so coming up with a categorization tool – a budget template – is a real challenging task." In addition to moving back into step with Bell Fund, Burgess says Telefilm has taken other measures to make the funding application process easier on new media producers. The agency now has a preliminary step in the process: before submitting a full proposal, prospective producers can submit an expression of interest letter to be evaluated by Telefilm staffers. If the expression of interest is found lacking, producers will be notified in a timely fashion – Telefilm’s client service charter sets 10 weeks as a reasonable timeframe – thus saving them the additional unnecessary expense of submitting a full proposal. "We’ve reduced that initial cost to companies whose product is not looking as competitive as some other products at the current stage," Burgess notes, adding that a rejected expression of interest letter doesn’t necessarily mean the concept is a fundamentally bad one, but perhaps needs further development. For his part, Zamaria credits new blood at Telefilm – namely Burgess and Agnes Zak, manager of the Telefilm Canada New Media Fund unit in Toronto – with spurring the heightened cooperation between the two agencies and putting the focus back on service. "Mare has been the driving force of this, and Agnes has been the workhorse behind the scenes," he says. As well, Zamaria gives a nod to new executive director Wayne Clarkson, who was appointed to the top job at Telefilm earlier this year. "He’s been such a breath of fresh air at Telefilm, and has really made a remarkable difference just in his six-to-seven-month tenure there," Zamaria says of Clarkson. More harmonization may be in store, particularly where the two funding agencies’ schedules for deadlines and subsequent funding announcements are concerned. "The Bell Fund has consistently done three deadlines for the last several years; Telefilm it seems at periods will be doing two, and we’re trying to make at least those two coincide with two of ours to ensure there is commonality," Zamaria says. "It used to be a horror story for many producers, where they would receive confirmation of our funding and have to wait about six months prior to go through the Telefilm procedure." Burgess is somewhat more guarded about future collaborations, noting that Telefilm offers more funding programs and thus has a more diverse client base than the Bell Fund, which only accepts convergent projects where one applicant has a television broadcast licence. "Yes, we finance convergent web products, we’ve financed products that are not necessarily associated with the development of a TV show. So, we have to balance all of these things, but certainly we’re interested in harmonization if it makes sense and is possible." While publicly funded agencies have a tendency to jealously guard their areas of influence, Zamaria says that isn’t the case here: both Telefilm and Bell Fund simply want to best serve the industry. "It doesn’t mean we cannot keep our independence in terms of mandates, it just means that things are simpler for the industry and much more mainstreamed for us."

Telefilm, Bell Broadcast and New Media funds begin harmonizing application procedures

News | 11/25/2005 5:00 am EST

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