The Hodgman Liberal Government is proud to open the new short-form comedy development initiative #ComedyConcentrate.
#ComedyConcentrate will benefit from the Government’s commitment to support and grow the screen industry in Tasmania, with this initiative receiving around $52 000 to develop and deliver the program over the next six months.
On top of the Tasmanian Government’s financial support, an additional $37,750 from Screen Australia, will enable the development of a short-form comedy series designed for on-demand and online television platforms.
Over this weekend, 15 teams of emerging Tasmanian content makers will hear from senior executives from ABC Comedy, SBS Comedy, Comedy Central and Screen Australia on their commissioning strategies for comedy, who their audience is, and how to write for them.
Each of the teams were selected based on pitches they developed for short-form comedy series.
Comedy production stars Chloe Rickard of Jungle, Sarah Bishop of
Skit Box, Christiaan Van Vuuren of the Bondi Hipsters and Michael Shanks of Wizards
of Aus, will also present
case-studies on their projects.
Following this, Tim Ferguson of the Doug Anthony All-stars will deliver a whole day comedy writing workshop to the participants, and YouTube will present a seminar on building audiences online.
Four of the teams and their projects will then be selected to move into development, mentored by Kacie Anning, creator of Fragments of Friday, and Nathan Earl, creator of Plonk.
Ultimately, these four teams will then be presented with a production budget to produce a pilot of their series which can then be presented to commissioners to seek funding for further production.
Today I was also pleased to announce that Chloe Rickard has been appointed to the Screen Tasmania Advisory Board. Ms Rickard is a partner and Head of Production at Jungle, and has produced some of Australia’s most successful series in recent years, including Soul Mates, The Moodys, No Activity and Here Come the Habibs.
Ms Richard’s specialist advice at a Board level, alongside #ComedyConcentrate, will assist the exceptional pool of comedy talent in Tasmania grow professionally and develop world class comedy screen projects.
Ms Rickard replaces Di Drew on the Advisory Board. Ms Drew served with distinction on the Board for 10 years, helping to drive the development of Tasmania’s screen production sector to its current position of success.
I wish to thank Ms Drew for her years of service.