Singapore and Western Australia reunite to develop cross-media projects

Projects to include new media channels like interactive television, web and mobile devices.

ScreenWest, Western Australia's screen funding and development agency and its counterpart from Singapore, the Media Development Authority (MDA), on Tuesday announced the third round of the MDA-ScreenWest Cross-Media Development Initiative, to encourage producers in their respective territories to jointly co-develop visual narrative concepts for emerging new media channels, according to an MDA report.

The initiative invites digital producers and traditional media practitioners, producers, storytellers and developers in Australia and Singapore to form complementary and synergistic development teams to jointly co-develop visual narrative concepts for new media channels, including and not limited to interactive television, web and mobile devices.

Up to two projects will be selected and awarded up to US$30,000 each in development funding. The funding will be shared between the Singaporean and Western Australian co-development partners. Details on the application guidelines can be found in the Annex.

“The emergence of new media platforms such as online and mobile creates alternative channels of delivering television entertainment and new means of making video programmes. This calls for a new era of media cooperation involving cross-border and cross-disciplinary partnerships. The joint initiative with ScreenWest aims to tap on this synergy by encouraging collaboration between digital and traditional content producers to develop original, engaging, and innovative story-telling content,” said Dr Christopher Chia, MDA’s Chief Executive Officer.

Ian Booth, ScreenWest’s Chief Executive praised the ongoing partnership with MDA. “ScreenWest and MDA both recognise the importance of supporting digital media storytellers and I am proud to celebrate our third year of partnering with Singapore to deliver this Initiative. The screen industries in Western Australia and Singapore will benefit from and continue to strengthen the strong relationship that exists between the two territories,” Mr. Booth said.

In the previous round of the MDA-ScreenWest Cross-Media Development Initiative, announced at last year’s MIPCOM, three projects received a grant of up to US$30,000 each in development funding. They are (1) Are you Smarter than Nature by Australia’s Sea Dog Films and Singapore’s Very! Productions; (2) Gallery of Everyday Things by Australia’s Great Western Entertainment and Singapore’s Infinite frameworks and (3) Global Sound Hunters by Australia’s Circling Shark Productions and Singapore’s Xtreme Production.