Singapore is to tear down its government film financing infrastructure and replace it with five simplified schemes that cross all aspects of media and entertainment.

The announcement was made this afternoon (Wednesday, 28 Sep) by the Media Development Authority of Singapore in a briefing to the local industry.

The current system involves no less than 46 different MDA-backed support schemes relating to seven different industry sectors (film, broadcasting, music, games, animation, new media and publishing) which the local industry has found difficult to navigate. The film sector alone was eligible to use 14 different funding schemes.

These will now be closed to new applications with immediate effect and replaced with the new industry-wide schemes focussing on development; production; marketing; talent; and enterprise development.

The replacement of media-specific funding with schemes that relate to a project’s development or production status reflects a blurring of the boundaries between modern media and is intended to eliminate the need for separate applications for every component of a multi-media project. The MDA describes this as “being 360 ready”. It also says that it is not seeking to tie content creators to specific pieces of technology, such as 3-D.

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Via Film Business Asia

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]]> http://www.sinema.sg/2011/09/29/singapore-rewrites-funding-rules/feed/ 0 http://www.sinema.sg/2011/09/29/mda-streamlines-funding-schemes/ http://www.sinema.sg/2011/09/29/mda-streamlines-funding-schemes/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:00:53 +0000 Sinema http://www.sinema.sg/?p=22603

Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA) has streamlined its suite of funding programmes to provide a more systematic approach to support an increasingly sophisticated media industry.

It has whittled down the number of assistance schemes from the current 46 to just five.

They cover development assistance, production, marketing, talent support and enterprise development, and will apply to all seven media sectors – broadcast, film, animation, publishing, interactive media, games and music.

The move should sharpen the funding process and address industry feedback that MDA’s myriad array of schemes sometimes proved confusing, with some used only occasionally.

It should also address concerns over the application process. The criteria and key deliverables have been made clearer, while applicants will get an answer within eight weeks.

Leon Tong, a producer with Boku Films, called it a “radical” change, noting that the new scheme gives more flexibility to producers to pitch projects. He also welcomes the additional help to freelancers to upgrade their skills through government subsidies.

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Via Channel News Asia

To have a great idea, have a lot of them, American inventor Thomas Edison once said.

That is probably what the Media Development Authority (MDA) had in mind when it decided to overhaul its numerous funding schemes. In order to increase its chances of getting more hits than misses, the agency announced yesterday that it will fund specific phases of product creation.

This is to encourage media companies such as film-production houses to work on refining their pre-production ideas and doing more research on, say, conceptualisation for a film script. In the eight years since 2003, the MDA was more focused on taking a stake in the final product via funding. As a result of the nearly nine-month review, 46 schemes have been whittled down to only five.

These schemes cover development assistance, production, marketing, talent support and enterprise development. They apply to seven sectors, namely film, music, broadcast, animation, publishing, interactive media and games.

Mr Kenneth Tan, MDA’s assistant chief executive officer for industry, said before the revamp, resources for idea development were “very negligible”.

If more help for the development phase was available in the past, some media productions, like films and TV series, could have “gone further” and not be limited to Singapore and the region, he said on the sidelines of an industry briefing in Fusionopolis.

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Via AsiaOne News

Singapore’s lavish film funds have become the stuff of Asian biz legend. The city-state’s Media Development Authority has earmarked a great deal of coin for the making of movies, but the take-up has been slow so far.

While the local industry is outwardly pleased with the MDA’s efforts to help the biz, insiders say privately that Singapore is still not as easy a place in which to make movies as Thailand, which is more active in its wooing of foreign projects.

Singapore also has a small population, and faces stiff competition from regional giants like India and China. The small nation’s famous cosmopolitanism, with its Indian, Malay, Chinese and Western population, also means it suffers from a bit of an identity crisis.

But the hesitant take-up of funds on offer highlights a more challenging issue — though money is available, there is a shortage of viable projects that can compete internationally on which that money can be spent.

Still, the MDA is happy the fund is showing steady growth, because film financing is part of Singapore’s broader policy of establishing itself as a regional showbiz hub.

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Via Variety

Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA) and Britain’s South West Screen, are looking to provide up to five projects with the equivalent of some S$21,000 in development funding each.

This is the second round of funding under their Multi-Platform Content Across Continents initiative.

The scheme was launched last year to foster greater partnerships between Singapore and British media enterprises in creating innovative and engaging digital content that redefines television entertainment.

Last year’s selected projects were Eco Gone Mad, a factual entertainment series by Singapore’s Apostrophe Films and UK’s Junction K, and iLand, an animation series by Singapore’s Scrawl Studios and UK’s Wonky Films.

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via Channel NewsAsia