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On 1st July 2006 BSÉ/IFB introduced changes to the ways in which it considers projects and reaches decisions with regard to its funding of development and production. These changes are still in force. An updated version of the explanatory text published in June 2006 is reproduced in this section.

Note: procedures for the consideration of MPD applications are specific to those programmes and not dealt with directly here.

General Aims

Development
Applicants will be strongly encouraged to submit projects at an earlier stage than has been the prevailing practice. In the great majority of cases, BSÉ/IFB will seek to become involved in the support of a project before a first draft screenplay has been written, when the project exists only as an idea, an outline or a treatment. BSÉ/IFB will be ready to take an early-stage risk on both new and experienced screenwriters, and recognises a responsibility to enable writers to be paid from the inception of a project.

Notwithstanding BSÉ/IFB’s earlier entry into a project, where a producer is involved and a full development plan is in place BSÉ/IFB will generally be prepared to make an in-principle commitment to provide support throughout the development of a project, subject to periodic reassurance as to satisfactory progress. Rather than requiring re-application on behalf of a project at each stage of writing or practical preparation, BSÉ/IFB will take an ‘innocent until proved guilty’ attitude to projects it elects to support: its Development Executive will engage in regular discussions with the filmmaking team as work progresses, and will be empowered to release (or withhold) further funding as requested within budget parameters agreed at the outset.

BSÉ/IFB’s preference for supporting projects from their inception does not preclude applications on behalf of projects already partly developed. These will also be candidates for an in-principle commitment of support by BSÉ/IFB over the remaining period of their development.

All BSÉ/IFB’s creative executives will follow the course of projects that proceed through development towards production, in order to ensure continuity of opinion and feedback across the agency.

These two changes – provision of support from an earlier stage and in-principle commitments to a higher level of support from the start – are likely to mean that the number of projects approved for development funding from BSÉ/IFB in a given year will decrease. In effect, the hurdle may be set slightly higher. Equally, the process should be simpler and more interactive, and rejection of a project before a significant amount of writing has been done should be more tolerable.

New Procedures in Practice

Development Funding

1. The most significant procedural changes in BSÉ/IFB’s consideration of projects submitted for Project Development Loans are to the modus operandi of the funding – availability at the very beginning of the writing process and as a single commitment over the whole period of development, subject to performance – as explained at the start of this paper.
   
   
2. Applications can be accepted at any time, and decisions will generally be reached on a monthly basis. Projects submitted will first be assessed by the Development Executive (Andrew Meehan) working with the Production & Development Coordinator (Sarah Dillon). Reports from external readers will be requested if deemed useful. Some applications may then be rejected, without further consultation, if judged to be particularly weak.
   
   
3. Applications retained as interesting may be sent to members of an Advisory Group of between four and six non-BSÉ/IFB consultants, some Irish, some not, with a variety of experience in film – in distribution, exhibition, sales, acting, cinematography, as well as in writing, directing, producing. Advisory Group members will be asked to respond to the proposal – the idea, the concept, the basic story set out in the application – in terms of its potential, if well realised, as a film for the cinema. (The Advisory Group will assess outlines or treatments only, not screenplays.) They will be encouraged to be rigorous. Although their contribution to the process will be strictly advisory, not decisive, a body of opinion one way or the other among a diverse group of professionals is likely to be both revealing and persuasive. Advisory Group members will not be asked to serve for more than one or two years, so that the mix can be regularly refreshed.
   
   
4. With the responses of the Advisory Group taken into account, decisions will be made on each month’s batch of submissions by the Development team working with the Production team (for the identity of Production team members, see B.1 below). An executive from the Legal & Business Affairs team may examine the development budget submitted and assist the Development team in negotiating with the producer to make adjustments, before an in-principle commitment (“provisional approval”) is given to the project’s development plan.
   
   
5. Provisional approvals of development funding require ratification by the Board of BSÉ/IFB.
   
   
6. Following provisional approval of a project by BSÉ/IFB, which includes specific approval of the first tranche of funding to be made available, development of the project will proceed in agreed stages, with the Development Executive empowered to authorise further funding as required, or to cut off funding if he (together with any BSÉ/IFB colleagues he elects to consult) concludes that the project and its sponsors have ceased to make useful progress.
   
   
7. There was a period of transition from the previous situation, where most development applications were made with a draft screenplay already written, to the point where such applications are now rare exceptions. While BSÉ/IFB executives will discourage applications with screenplays henceforward, these will continue to be accepted in circumstances of particular merit.
   
   
8. In addition to taking a long-term approach to the funding of projects in development by producers, as described so far in this section, BSÉ/IFB remains fully committed to its provision of support for writers applying on their own. After a transitional period of six months the writers-only awards scheme is now strictly limited to proposals to start from scratch, i.e. where no draft screenplay has yet been written. Further, the scheme is extended to encourage directors to initiate project development to a greater extent than at present.
   
   
9. Specifically, applications to the scheme, called First Draft Loans (as opposed to Project Development Loans made to producers), are invited from writers on their own, from writer-directors, and from teams of writers and directors. Directors who do not themselves write, and who have not decided upon a writer for a story they have conceived or discovered and want eventually to realise, may choose to approach BSÉ/IFB in order to request names, discuss possible candidates, read material, and so on. Thus the scheme is open both to individual writers (including writer-directors) and to teams of directors and writers. As before, the level of funding available under the First Draft Loans scheme is fixed, but higher and subject to periodic review: currently the amount awarded to writers and writer-directors is €12,000; to writing teams and writer-directors, €14,000; and to teams of directors and writers, €16,000 to be shared between them as they agree. All rights in projects supported remain with the writers or, in the case of directors and writers working together, as they agree between them.
   
   
10. Applications for First Draft Loans are subject to the same procedure as Project Development Loans, including consideration by the Advisory Group where a project is retained as interesting by BSÉ/IFB’s executives.

 

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