Funding models for documentary. Part 3: The transmedia documentary | Arnau Gifreu

Funding Models for Documentary
Part 3: The Transmedia documentary

By Arnau Gifreu

Broadcasters constitute an important part of the budget for transmedia documentary production, but there are still few television networks involved in this format. In countries with a strong interest in cultural issues, however, the networks are usually heavily invested in the documentary as a form of storytelling and technology. Examples of this tendency are the NFB, Arte and RTVE (Spanish TV). Generally, a public or private television station will join up with a multimedia production company or studio; to this initial alliance are added development funds from the government or private institutions, and they sometimes also seek the complicity of a technology developer. This structure, with greater or lesser variation, is becoming consolidated in countries like Canada and France, which lead in the production of this narrative form.

In the Canadian case, the government allocates a core budget to institutions that produce interactive audiovisual works, such as the National Film Board (which creates competitions to produce works), and secondly, technological support agreements with technology developers like Mozilla are set up (to optimize the code and innovate). Multimedia producers and studios such as Helios Design Labs are also involved in order to design the interface and code. The tasks can vary depending on each production, development and implementation contract. In the case of the transmedia project Highrise, the structure that makes it possible to produce big successful productions with the NFB is composed of Helios Design Labs (production company) and Mozilla Foundation on specific projects (Web Made Movies, Popcorn.js).