The T&T Film Com­pa­ny (TTFC) is invit­ing au­dio­vi­su­al pro­fes­sion­als to ap­ply for grants of up to $100,000 for pro­duc­tion and post-pro­duc­tion as­sis­tance for tele­vi­sion show pi­lots.

A re­lease from the TTFC said the grants are part of the Pro­duc­tion As­sis­tance and Script De­vel­op­ment (PASD) pro­gramme ad­min­is­tered by the TTFC.

Script­ed TV pi­lot episodes of stan­dard broad­cast length (TV half-hour or TV hour), for tra­di­tion­al TV or for In­ter­net TV, can ap­ply for grants be­tween now and June 27 when ap­pli­ca­tions close.

Con­tent may be dra­mat­ic or comedic. An­i­mat­ed shows, mag­a­zine-style shows, talk shows, doc­u­men­taries, and shows not de­vel­oped for TV and VOD dis­tri­b­u­tion will not be con­sid­ered el­i­gi­ble for fund­ing.

A com­plete list of el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments is avail­able from the TTFC's Web site.

The call for TV sub­mis­sions comes on the heels of PASD calls for doc­u­men­taries, fea­ture films and chil­dren's con­tent is­sued last year.

"The call for tele­vi­sion se­ries pi­lots seeks to sup­port high qual­i­ty script­ed se­ries that demon­strate in­no­v­a­tive and orig­i­nal cre­ative el­e­ments, by award­ing pro­duc­tion fund­ing," the film com­pa­ny said.

It said all award­ed pro­duc­tions must be com­plet­ed with­in 18 months of the award be­ing con­firmed.

"Each episode must ad­here to glob­al broad­cast stan­dards must have the ca­pac­i­ty to be screened on any ma­jor ter­res­tri­al, ca­ble, satel­lite, ca­ble VOD plat­form, or In­ter­net VOD plat­form."

VOD–Video on De­mand–is a fast grow­ing mar­ket for film and TV. The re­cent suc­cess of US TV shows such as Net­flix's House of Cards and Or­ange is the New Black has drawn in­dus­try at­ten­tion to the VOD plat­form.

Last year, re­gion­al VOD got a boost when Caribbean­Tales, a dis­trib­u­tor of Caribbean film and TV con­tent, launched its own VOD plat­form, Caribbean­Tales-TV.

Grants from the TTFC's PASD pro­gramme will on­ly part­ly-fund pro­duc­tions.

"The TTFC will sup­port a per­cent­age of the pi­lot's pro­duc­tion bud­get, up to a max­i­mum amount of $100,000, for pro­duc­tion costs spent in T&T. The amount of each award giv­en to any pro­duc­tion will de­pend on the ex­pe­ri­ence of the pro­duc­ers, the cre­ative and pro­duc­tion per­son­nel as well as the na­ture of the sub­mis­sion," the PASD call doc­u­ment says.

The film com­pa­ny will hold a How to Ap­ply work­shop to sup­port the call. In­ter­est­ed par­ties should con­tact the film com­pa­ny at in­fo@trinidadand­to­bagofilm.com by the end of to­day.

n For com­plete sub­mis­sions guide­lines and forms, go to: www.trinidadand­to­bagofilm.com.

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