Australia – Sixteen creatives from across Australia have been selected to come to Sydney for the three-day intensive Developing the Developer workshop, designed to give professionals from diverse backgrounds greater access to the screen sector.
“We know people from non-Anglo-Celtic backgrounds, and those who identify as being LGBTQI or having a disability are all chronically under-represented on our screens,” said Sally Caplan, Head of Production at Screen Australia. “It’s going to take the whole screen sector to work together to get to a place where the Australia we all experience in our day to day lives is actually represented on screen. For our part, Screen Australia is focussing on the early stages of creating a screen project – development.”
“We want to work with the 16 successful Developing the Developer applicants to help them in enhancing their story development skills and to be equipped to work on projects page to screen. We want to empower these creatives with the knowledge of how to leverage the funding and networking opportunities available to them, so they can inject new ideas, perspectives and authentic stories into an industry that is ready for change, but needs new voices in story development to be able to drive this change.”
Louise Gough, Development Executive at Screen Australia added; “When we first announced Developing the Developer, our hope was to have 10-12 solid workshop participants. We ended up receiving 89 applications and the standard was so high, we have extended the program to take 16 creatives. To see creatives joining us from all over the country, and from such incredibly different life experiences, gives me a quiet confidence that we can engineer some real change in the development of works that more accurately reflect the Australia of today”.
The Developing the Developer workshop will begin on 31 March 2017 and is provided to the recipients at no cost, including sponsored travel and accommodation where applicable. After the three-day intensive is complete, each creative will plan their next career steps with Screen Australia staff.
