The Changing Landscape for Funding Creativity

Sustainable Funding Course for Creatives, Educators and Technologists The Changing Landscape for Funding Creativity

When I wrote my first television series – a kids science show, I was lead to believe there were two ways of making this happen:

get hired by broadcast network and convince them to shoot the series in-house, or
find a producer to sell the series to a broadcaster.

A scene from Erica's science show, The Magic Backpack. — _{A scene from my science show, once it was finally produced. No, I was never turned into a purple dinosaur scientist. I did however get an animated sidekick, named Dr. Peevil, and my friend Marcia was turned into a hologram. All of which was kind of fun and high on the awesomely nerdy factor.}

I went with option 2 and pretty quickly discovered that:

not everyone that says they are a producer is a producer (who can actually sell or finance a show);
if a producer turns to you and suggests you need to pay them to film a demo reel – RUN AWAY;
be prepared for the producer to completely change EVERYTHING about the series in order to sell it to a broadcaster (yes, this means if you suddenly discover that you are now a scientist in a purple dinosaur costume, you shouldn’t be surprised);
expect that nothing you agreed on, will actually be written in the contract;
oh, and even if there is no signed contract and you hold all the rights, don’t be surprised if they fire your co-writer without your knowledge and blame you.

Needless to say, this lead me to take an interest in seeing if my team and I could be our own producers on the projects we were building. Not my favourite job as a creative, but one that I discovered is necessary if you want to actually pursue your dreams and not have them butchered or be treated like a puppet. This is particularly true when it comes to creating projects that are targeted to making people think, promoting cultural understanding, and sharing hope. Being our own producer has been an interesting road, and one that we began to see success on, once we walked away from the traditional pathways, followed our instincts, and played in emerging spaces.

_{Which path will you take? (Image care of Burst via UnSplash)}

Within this course, I will share some of what my team and I have learned from both our own experiences and from other creatives, educators, and technologists that we have interviewed through our Sustainable Funding Series. We in fact started the Sustainable Funding Series to help other creatives and educators, like ourselves, find their own pathways forward with funding, thinking beyond the traditional approach to and recognising that there are many pathways to the same destination.

You are entering this space at an exciting time, as with technology costs decreasing and digital media perpetually changing the landscape, there is a lower barrier to entry and new ways to step around gatekeepers. There are no longer just two pathways forward, barred by gatekeepers, like there were when I first got started. In joining us within, you will learn about both traditional and emerging funding solutions, that will allow you to mix and match the right model for creating sustainable funding for your project.

_{Join us in thinking creatively about approaching your funding model, along with your content. (Image care of Arno Smit via UnSplash.)}

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