Andra Sheffer’s office has walls in two shades of blue and looks west out at College where the blue roof of the police headquarters matches her decor nicely. I was visiting to find out more about the Independent Production Fund and what I could put into my application that would help it stand out from yours. Which raises the question of why I’m now going to tell you everything I found out.

…Or am I? Do you trust me?

Well you should because one of the things Andra -- the Executive Director of the Independent Production Fund -- and I discussed was collaboration and cooperation among the successful applicants. But I’ll get to that in a sec.

First, let’s just go over the basics of the application. The IPF, as you know, is running a web drama pilot program:

The intent of the Fund is to assist independent producers/creators to finance the production of original drama series created initially for the web.

The Independent Production Fund intends to explore the potential for high quality, story-driven drama with new and innovative narrative forms.

Successful properties may subsequently be exploited on other platforms such as television and mobile either in their original format or through the exploitation of derivative rights.

Applications, which are limited to a maximum of six pages, are due on March 31st. I suspect that there will be A LOT of applicants. The plan is to narrow down the field and ask a small number of applicants (12? 14?) to create more detailed production proposals. The IPF “intends to work closely with applicants in the creation of their Production Proposals.”

What can you do to get into that select second round group?

The guidelines say:

The primary criterion for acceptance by the Fund will be the quality of the project.The Board will assess projects based on the creative materials; creative and production team; production strategies; scheduling; budget and financing; distribution and web strategies; marketing and promotion plans; projected traffic; business model and revenue projections; maintenance strategies, third party financing and endorsements, associated interactive activities, recoupment, HD, etc.

But what are they really looking for? Andra says great creative if the first step. Creative that excite jurors and evaluators makes them look deeper.

A track record is going to help. Experienced writers can apply, but you need to show evidence that you know how to produce and better yet, get things onto the web. If you don’t have that experience, teaming up with someone who has complimentary skills will help your chances.

The business plan is going to be key. The IPF is making an investment. They want their money back and they want a profit which they can invest in other people’s projects. They’d like to see you make a profit too.

You might want to talk about marketing as well. How are you going to attract and engage an audience?

Fit all that into six pages!

Obviously, no one really knows exactly how to create a successful web series and make money with it. You might say “Oh, Pure Pwnage did it.” There are definitely lessons to be learned but times have changed a lot since then. There are a handful of other series that work well and make money but no one guaranteed model.

The intent is to create a climate in which all of the successful applicants can pool resources and learn from each other. By collaborating and sharing information and strategies, the teams will improve their chances of creating great web series that audiences love and turn a profit.

As Andra says, she wants all of the series to be as successful as possible.

I’m excited because 6 or 7 web series are going to get some financing and a good chance at testing the waters. Whether they make money or not, we’ll all profit from their experience.

For more inspiration, check out these guidelines for creating award winning web series from the Fine Brothers.

Wo0t. The Independent Production Fund will be financing web series! The press release contains the great news:

The Board of Directors of the Independent Production Fund (IPF) has approved a new pilot program to fund drama series created for any platform. In recognition of the evolving broadcast environment, the IPF will provide equity financing not only to drama series with a television broadcast licence, but also to scripted drama series that are designed and produced for exploitation on the web.

The IPF is inviting proposals for online drama series at its application deadline of March 31, 2010. Regulations for applicants will be minimal in order to encourage maximum innovation and experimentation. Projects must be webcast on Canadian-owned websites as a “first window” to ensure more Canadian content for Canadian portals. Some of these projects may serve as pilots for traditional television drama, while others may develop their own dedicated online communities and audiences.

Film Nova Scotia is contributing to the new fund and up to two projects originating in that province will be funded.

The projects must be new, original, scripted dramas. The producer or creator must be Canada. The production must be on a Canadian-owned URL, portal or webcasting service.

The IPF’s contribution will be a recoupable investment.

There are two steps to the application process. The first, due March 31st, is a Executive Summary of the web drama including a description of the creative. It shouldn’t be longer than 6 pages. It can be submitted electronically.

A limited number of projects will be invited to participate in a second stage due May 10, 2010 which involves a more detailed production proposal.

Final decisions will be made by mid-June.

The Independent Production Fund has been listening to creators and has stepped in to fill a need. They heard us when we said we can’t finance web-only drama and they came up with a fund. They heard us when we said we don’t have the resources to complete complicated and massive applications like those for OMDC and Telefilm grants and they made the application process simple and straight forward. They heard us when we said we need the money now. June is not that far away.

Thank you Andra. Thank you IPF board. This is going to make a real difference.

The Age of Stupid is a documentary film about the oil industry and climate change. It was directed by Franny Armstrong and produced by Lizzie Gillett. I haven't seen the film, but I've watched the making of (embedded below) and perused the web site and I suspect it's a very good film.

The business model behind it is brilliant; totally amazing. Much of the financing was raised through crowd sourcing which has reulted in Gillett and Armstrong owning all the rights to their film. They have used a distribution agent for some territories but they have made a lot of deals on their own, managing to organize a global premiere of over 500 screenings in 40 countries with live transmissions via satellite from New York.

Gillett and Armstrong have created web-based software that allows anyone to book, license and organize a screening.

Anyone in the world is now able to buy a licence to screen The Age of Stupid whenever and wherever they like. Our cunning software will calculate the license according to who you are, where you plan to screen, how many people you're screening to and where you are in the world. You can even keep the profits for yourselves or for your climate campaign.

In the Power to the Pixel 2009 video (below, the filmmakers talk with great excitement and charm about how they raised the money for the film and how they are profiting from it. They give numbers. But according to them, the biggest advantage of retaining all the rights has not been the profits (although they seem quite delighted with those), but the total editorial freedom they enjoyed.

The video is long (23 minutes) but totally worth viewing because it offers a glimpse to one possible future of entertainment, one that is artist controlled -- and in which the artists actually make a profit from their work.

Based on the making of video below, it looks like The Age of Stupid is a terrific film.

The Making of The Age of Stupid from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

• Sustainable
• Potentially profitable
• It’s a growing industry, not a dying one
• Jobs
• Culture meets business
• Potential to reach a global audience

In early 2008, I launched my first webdrama. It was small experimental and massively fun.

I have devoted many months since to figuring out a business model for creating web drama, a thorny problem especially for someone who has spent her life on the creative side of things. I would have preferred to spend the last couple of years experimenting with the medium, creating drama on the web, building an audience, but it’s hard to find even the small amounts of money I need for creating web drama.

There are various funding agencies who hand out money to producers of TV or film and even to help create cross platform components for old media productions. But finding money to kickstart stand alone digital is much harder.

I fear Canada is getting left behind. Other countries are turning out cool stuff hand over fist. We who were poised to lead the revolution just a year or two ago are just standing around watching the massive explosion of original digital entertainment getting made outside our country.

Every day I hear about new projects that are ready to go but for the financing. We’re not talking a lot of dough here. The average development budget for a TV series would produce a full cycle of a cutting edge digital drama with the potential to reach a global audience.

That global audience is one of the reasons the funding agencies should jump in here. In TV, our reach has been limited. With digital production, our potential audience is massive.

When I ran boymeetsgrrl, the first drama I created under the Story2.OH banner, within days, I had active participants from Indonesia, England, China, Israel, Australia. In a single week, my story spread far and wide. I didn’t have a distributor, a broadcaster, a funding agency, anyone helping with promotion or even very much content, but I was able to reach thousands of people on four continents. Imagine what I could do if I had some money and the resources it would buy me.

I was in the audience at NextMedia in the fall of 2007 when an executive of one of the ISPs argued against giving artists subsidies comparing it to getting them hooked on crack. I think an influx of government money will have exactly the opposite effect. We’re hooked on crack now. Television isn’t a sustainable industry, the Canadian audience isn’t large enough. On the other hand, a digital entertainment industry could be very profitable. It will help to turn art into business and make artists self-sustaining. If we can get into this marketplace while it’s still young, we can build a successful self-financing industry.

Without an early injection of cash though, we’ll have to continue working in the old media which will continue to cling to the funding life support systems.

With digital we have a real chance of building an industry driven by market forces. If we can reach 100 thousand… a million… 30 million of the 2 billion people currently connected to the web, we can make money, hire workers, pay taxes and entertain the world.

We just need a little seed money to get started.

The price of entry is still low, but it’s rising daily. Now is the time for government investment in digital at three levels: development, production and promotion.

We don’t want the digital boat to sail without Canadians on board.

Kelly Lynne Ashton is Director of Policy at the Writers Guild of Canada and one of the country's most wired industry executives. An entertainment lawyer turned writer advocate, KLA is an expert on new media financing. She has the added super power of being able to understand all those crazy policy documents that the government puts out. Pretty amazing skill set. Which is why I turned to Kelly Lynne to clear up some of my confusion about the the new Canada Media Fund. and what it means to digital creators.

Q

Kelly Lynne, creators have been quite unsettled about the Canada Media Fund and what it means to the funding landscape. As I understand it, funding for television projects and new media projects have been dumped into a single fund. What does that mean for digital content creators? Will there be any money for stand-alone digital products?

A

There will be an allocation for standalone. The $14.5 million that was the Telefilm CNMF will be combined with the current CTF digital pilot project money ($10 million) and possibly even more money to build a healthy fund for standalone digital. The exact allocation is one of the issues to be worked out after the new board is put in place in June but the idea is that digital is the growth area so there needs to be an increasingly larger pool of money allocated to it. Eligibility and guidelines will be worked out by next December. On top of that money though, tv projects will now have to have ancillary digital components (websites, mobile etc.) in order to qualify for funding. Again, we don’t have the details yet but the Broadcaster Performance Envelopes will fund both tv and digital components of projects. That means potentially less money for tv but more for digital.

Q

Is there other good news for digital content creators in the CMF?

A

I think the big picture good news is that Heritage sees digital as the growth area. They understand that audiences want to access their television online and that they want original digital entertainment. Heritage is trying to set up a fund that is flexible enough to support the digital environment as it grows. In the short term the good news is that tv producers will need to partner with or hire digital content creators in order to access their television funding. This should open up a lot more job opportunities.

Q

This is the secret bonus question and you will win 10 000 points if you can answer it. Has a funding model emerged for the development and production of digital content? If so, what is it? If not, where are the gaps.

A

You’re kidding me right? The only clear business model right now is for those who control access to the content. By that I mean Internet Service Providers (i.e. Rogers, Shaw, Bell etc.) and platform/device producers (ie Apple, RIM). This is why groups are asking the CRTC to impose a levy on the ISPs – they’re earning revenues from controlling access to content so should contribute to its creation. As for the actual content creators or distributors nothing has been proven yet. Advertising is small but growing. Subscription works in limited cases such as kids or massive multiplayer games. Licensing content such as games to portals is generating some revenues. What seems to me to be the big gap is advertisers understanding the value of the kind of very specific demographics interactive content can generate and identify and then paying for it. They’ll get there eventually.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

From your lips, KLA... So there it is, CMF is good news for digital creators, but we still have a ways to go before we can actually put together a full budget.

This news from Telefilm:

INDUSTRY ADVISORY - Changes to Canada New Media Fund Guidelines for 2009-2010

March 20, 2009 – Telefilm Canada is pleased that the Canada New Media Fund (CNMF) has been renewed for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. As this is a transition year, there are new application deadlines and an early completion date for client projects, events and initiatives in order to close the fund within the fiscal period. To help facilitate CNMF applications, Telefilm has alleviated its documentation requirements as well as the application process.

The deadline for Product Assistance applications for the development, production and marketing of Canadian interactive digital cultural content products intended for the general public is May 4, 2009.

Changes to CNMF Product Assistance Guidelines will include:

* Omission of the Expression of Interest (EOI) stage;

* Reduced documentation requirements for filing a complete application;

* Clear demonstration of a confirmed financial structure; and,

* Project completion by January 29, 2010 (including project delivery and final cost delivery).

The deadline for Sectoral Assistance applications that support industry-led events or initiatives benefiting the industry is June 19, 2009. There will be similar guidelines for Sectoral Assistance applications as in previous years, but with alleviated documentation requirements.

Telefilm recognizes the challenges that these constraints place on our clients and fund guidelines are being adjusted accordingly. Guidelines and application forms will be available by April 15, 2009 here.

Clients are encouraged to consult their regional CNMF contacts prior to submitting applications.

If you're thinking of producing a web series -- and who isn't these days? -- you've got a lot of work ahead of you.

I find it useful to slot the producer's tasks into five major areas:

1. Production

Everything from pitch to post. Come up with an idea, write it, cast it, shoot it, edit it, add music, titles and effects and output the sucker in a web friendly format. Do it all again for the rest of the episodes in the series. This alone will kill you but it's only one of five. Did I mention make it good?

2. Financing

Oops. You can't actually get through the first task if you haven't figured out where the money is going to come from to pay for it. You'll need a budget that includes the costs associated with production and whatever you're spending on promotion and distribution. Conventional wisdom puts average web series' costs around $10,000 an episode, obviously you can do it for a lot more and probably a lot less -- but that's going to cost you in quality and probably viewership as well. Multiply by the number of episodes you want to do and you're in the ball park for how much you need to raise. There aren't a lot of places to look for the money so you're going to have to be creative.

3. Distribution

You got your money, shot the show, now it's time to get it onto the web. Where are you going to put it? Are you building a site of your own? Making it exclusively available on a single site like Blip for example? Or distributing it far and wide to every video sharing site around? Whatever you choose, you'll need to know how to upload it. Then you'll have to tag it and make sure you are showing the screenshots you want. Oh yeah, you'll need some metrics on who is viewing it -- if you're planning to make it all the way to Task 5 Monetizing.

4. Publicizing

Otherwise known as driving traffic. Go ahead, write that press release and send it out. But you better know who is covering the web series beat and my friend, there aren't too many. Tell your friends, tell your family, email everyone you've ever known. And then get to work. There is a tons of bloggage on stirring up traffic and you better start reading. You're going to have to try all of it and then some.

5. Monetizing

Yay, money. Oh wait, there is no business model for web series yet. So, huh, another tough one. There are a few ways to go: subscription, advertising, product integration, rev-sharing sites like MetaCafe or all of the above.

Go get some rest. You're going to need it because producing a web series is an uphill battle. On the other hand, I have a feeling it is going to be creatively satisfying and maybe, eventually, lucrative. So let's give it a shot. Over the coming months, I'll be blogging about your five tasks in more detail.

Via Bill Cunningham comes the news of iHollywood Forum's Virtual Venture Forum:

On Sept. 3, iHollywood Forum is launching its first Virtual Venture Forum for young companies involved in digital media, mobile, networking and green technology. Thirty select companies will pitch online before a panel of VCs and strategic investors and an audience of up to 200 invited guests from around the world.

Each company presents for 5 minutes using an online WebEx conference room, supported by live video, audio conferencing and slides. Their presentation is judged for an additional 5 minutes by a 3-person panel of VCs and/or strategic investors. Up to 200 invited executives from around the world will listen to the presentation and text questions to the presenting company. At the end of the day, the audience votes on which company they believe is most worthy of funding in each category. The grand winner receives a “Best of Show” award and press release over BusinessWire announcing the news.

The forum will be held Sept 3 from 9 to 12 (Hollywood time) and deadline for applications is August 3.