As part of the 2014 Platform X Initiative, the Australian Writers’ Guild in partnership with Storycode: Sydney, presents an exciting opportunity for Australian writers keen to expand their skills in the growth areas of interactive multiplatform storytelling and narrative gaming.
The Prize:
A select group of 5 writers will be chosen for a place in a one-day intensive story lab to develop their ideas into coherent, focused, effective pitch presentations and short documents to take forward for further development.
At the end of the lab, each participant will have a pitch, a succinct and compelling concept synopsis, a plan for next steps and developed ideas for concept art.
The lab will be run by experienced digital media practitioners Mike Jones, Ester Harding and Troy Bellchambers, joined by illustrator and production designer, Alan Chen.
The lab will be held in Sydney on Thursday 27 November 2014 and will culminate in a special Storycode event where participants will present their projects to a diverse audience of designers, technologists, producers & writers.
The initiative is open nationally and interstate winners are encouraged to apply to their state funding body for travel funding.
Mike Jones is a writer and creative producer working across screen, page and digital media. He is head of story development for UK-based interactive media company, Portal Entertainment – recipient of the highly regarded UK ICTommorow Digital Innovation Prize for Film & TV, as well as an award-winning screenwriter and novelist. Recent projects include interactive iPad thriller The Craftsman, iView digital series Wastelander Panda and the forthcoming gothic horror book and interactive project Transgressions developed with publisher Simon & Schuster and multi-platform company The Project Factory. To find more on Mike, visit: www.mikejones.tv
Ester Harding is a multiplatform producer with experience across film, broadcast, interactive and transmedia productions. Ester produced the multinarrative documentary After Six-Four for SBS online and was all-media producer for Storm Surfers 3D which has won several local and international awards, including the AACTA Award for Best Feature Documentary and the SPAA Award for Interactive Producer of the Year. Ester is currently working with celebrated documentary production company, Media Stockade.
Troy Bellchambers is one of the company directors of Adelaide based company, Monkeystack. Troy has 20 years experience in the industry and leads an award-winning team to deliver tailor made, high quality content across multiple platforms and delivery formats for both commercial and arts projects. Troy is a multiple award winning and AACTA nominated director, art director and creative lead across film, TV and Interactive projects. He was Art Director and writer for the AIMIA award-winning Dots and Diamond game for the ABC Gameon initiate and Art Director for BandAid Apocalypse for Australian Red Cross. The BandAid Apocalypse clip has won 3 WC3 awards and 4 AADC Awards to date and has had over 65 000 views on YouTube making it the most viewed video on the Australian Red Cross YouTube Channel.
Alan Chen is a filmmaker and storyteller with a background in design and illustration and excels in creating and developing concepts visually. Alan has worked primarily as a production designer and storyboard artist in the film and television industry, creating dozens of short films, commercials and music videos. Alan has gone on to work as a concept artist, producer, and director. He has a tendency to meticulously plan his work by using his own detailed storyboards and illustrations to create very intricate worlds. As a designer, he is highly skilled in traditional methods but equally comfortable using all the latest digital platforms.
What We’re Looking For:
Exciting and dramatically engaging storyworlds that have the potential to manifest across platforms old, new and interactive.
A narrative concept that is a story engine – one that can drive experiences beyond a single plot or a single platform and which encapsulates a clear role for the audience to participate or play.
Creators with a strong sense of audience, engagement and genre and projects that will compel an audience to immerse themselves and become active within a rich experience.
You don’t have to be a technology expert. We are looking for writers with vision and ideas for constructing narratives across media forms.
This intensive lab is about distilling and articulating those ideas into a refined concept that can be presented and pitched with clarity and vision that spans multiple formats.
Competition Guidelines:
To be eligible you need to be a current financial Full or Associate member of the AWG and own all the rights to the project.
New members are required to join for 12 months.
Students can upgrade to Associate membership to enter. Please contact the office for details.
The AWG will waive the joining fee for new members entering the competition. Whether becoming a writer for screen, stage, interactive or multi-platform productions is a reality or an aspiration, being a member of the Guild is the best investment you can make in your career.
Call us on 1300 552 228 or 02 9319 0339.
Judging Process:
An industry panel will judge the competition. The judges will select a shortlist by assessing the summary for:
The potential for the project to be developed for multiplatform and interactive execution.
Freshness of the project and its awareness of audience and genre.
Clarity of expression in the creator's ideas.
Application Process:
Applicants are asked to submit a 3-page summary of their Storyworld Concept that contains 3 components:
Short Summary of the storyworld (what, where, when)
Characters and Communities that live in that storyworld (who)
Conflicts and Dramatic Problems that affect that storyworld and are the engine of ongoing narratives.
Please email the Platform X Application Form, your 3-page summary to the AWG by Monday 20 October 2014.
IMPORTANT: We are not looking for a feature film plot outline or a single medium narrative, we’re looking for an idea that has possibilities across a number of forms including interactivity and game-play. You don’t even need to specify what those forms are yet, the judges want to see a story-engine that has the potential for an ongoing narrative from multiple perspectives.
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