SOME young local filmmaker will be getting a six-figure boost later this year thanks to a new grant program launched Friday by Capilano University's film school.
The initiative, dubbed the Launchpad Fund, will award $100,000 annually starting this year to a single promising film project proposed by a graduate of the school's Motion Picture Arts degree program. The money, which can be used to make either a low-budget feature or a high-quality short pitch film for a larger project, is intended to help give the lucky recipient a head start in an industry that is notoriously difficult to break into.
"It's a really big deal," said Capilano's film centre director Bill Thumm. "There are a lot of very successful low-budget horror movies, for instance, that have made a lot of money and have been made for less than a $100,000 budget."
Thumm announced the fund Friday evening at the official opening of the university's Nat and Flora Bosa Centre for Film and Animation, a large, newly built teaching facility that boasts an 8,000-square-foot soundstage, a 200-seat movie theatre, editing suites and other big-ticket tools. Each year's Launchpad recipient will have free run of the new facility as part of the prize - a significant consideration
"What we're offering them is really more than $100,000, because it's a $100,000 cash budget plus at least double that in facilities, equipment and services," said Thumm.
The money for the program came from donors within the Lower Mainland film industry, he said. Each contributor was asked to pledge $5,000 annually for five years. At the time of writing, the school had reached at least the $80,000 mark. Thumm said he hoped to make up the remaining $20,000 quickly in the wake of Friday's announcement.
"The general response (from the industry) has been: 'What a great idea, and we would love to come on board,'" he said. "It really is an idea that in many ways sells itself."
North Shore Studios president Peter Leitch, whose company was among the donors, said he believed the plan could help boost the domestic industry as a whole.
"If we can create our own home-grown filmmakers that own the copyright of their projects and can exploit it globally, then they're going to build companies here that are going to employ more of their colleagues," he said. "I think that's where it gets exciting for us. . . . We don't want people to get a degree and that's the end of it, we want them to be an integral part of the industry."
The school says that in the long term the fund should become self-sustaining. Although any recipient whose project fails to make money will owe the school nothing, any who make a profit will be required to direct a portion of the windfall back into the fund for use in later years.
The contest will be open to all graduates of the university's fouryear degree program, regardless of how long it has been since they completed their studies, said Thumm. Entries will be judged each year by a panel drawn from the local industry.
No detailed timeline has been established, but Thumm said the first prize will likely be awarded in May.
Look for more about Capilano University's Nat and Flora Bosa Centre for Film and Animation in next Sunday's edition.
