Calling all women animators and filmmakers! SYFY’s looking to produce a series of short vignettes that celebrate and amplify all women’s voices, stories, and experiences. We’re open to any medium, including live-action.
SYFY is the Alpha and the Omega of genre. They’ve got everything from cyberpunk sci-fi to futuristic fantasy and the boldest, bloodiest horror films you’ve ever seen. Superheroes, cyborgs, monsters, mashups, crossovers, comics – whoever you are, whatever genre you dig, SYFY’s got you. Every month, SYFY partners with different genre fans who work as artists, animators, designers, and directors, and gives them an opportunity to express their own love of genre in different ways, with an artistic and incredibly cool TV spot.
March is Women’s History Month, and for this project SYFY wants to spotlight women animators and filmmakers who can produce a short video vignette that can tell a story of empowerment through the genre lens and explore women’s experience in genre. Think about the genre moments, archetypes, characters, or scenes that made you fall in love with sci-fi, superheroes, fantasy, or horror, and give them your own spin. Push the envelope with how these stories are typically told and create something that really feels like a reflection of who you are, and what you want to see.
All great genre stories are often rooted in something very realistic and very human. In that light, how do we tell stories about the experience of being a woman – and all the nuances and complexities that come with it – through a distinctly genre lens? Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean plopping a female protagonist into an otherwise “male” superhero story, or choosing a narrative that revolves around a badass female demon hunter (although you certainly can go those directions if you want!). You can also tell the story of a woman who loves to code or bake nerdy cakes. Perhaps you’re the only woman in your gaming club, and it’d be nice to have another woman there to chat with. Or maybe you want to tell the story of a woman who actually creates her own comic books. You can also choose to use genre tropes and character types as a way to illustrate your own personal stories – SYFY is open to many different creative directions.
For your pitch, we’d recommend you show off your past work, and then submit several different narrative ideas for your video. If you’re greenlit by SYFY, we’ll work with you to develop ONE of your ideas during the pre-production process. Also, SYFY’s open to live action approaches this month, as well as ideas that use voiceover, narration, or visual text to help to tell your story. We understand live action is hard given the current circumstances, so we’d recommend you keep the scope of any live-action pretty contained if you go that route, and keep things a little more Lo-Fi. As a reminder, all work MUST be original, and should NOT include or reference existing IP or characters.
- This is NOT a SYFY logo video. If you’re familiar with this initiative, you know that we typically ask to integrate the SYFY logo in some way, but that’s NOT the case this time around, so don’t worry about it.
- This project is specifically geared for female and female-identifying artists, animators, designers, editors, and filmmakers; any medium can work (including live-action). They’ll check out 2D animation, stop-motion animation, claymation, creative motion graphics, mixed media, etc. 3D animation is acceptable, but hyperrealistic VFX work is difficult given the timeline and budget, so you must show that you can execute within these parameters. If it’s live action, DIY/home-made can work too. If it helps to tell the story, you can add voiceover, narration, or visual text to your video as well.
- The final 3 seconds of your video should resolve on a simple, uncluttered frame (with minimal motion) because SYFY needs room to incorporate additional center-frame graphics that will be added after you deliver. That means the “narrative” of your video should resolve at the end of the :12, :17, or :27 mark, and the final seconds should be a cleaner frame that’s related to your video, but not necessarily a part of the narrative.
- All work MUST be original and should NOT include or reference existing IP or characters. Any persons, places or things rendered should be of the artist’s own creation and should not be referential of any existing properties.
- “Genre” refers to science fiction, fantasy, superheroes, comic books, and horror, but it can be anything that falls under those categories, including something that combines more than one. Think about sub-genres too – science-fiction and horror include a ton of different styles and variations – and how genres have evolved over time and in different mediums.
- AVOID graphically violent or sexual images, or overtly political subject matter.
Shooting live action? Our priority is ensuring everyone’s safety, so please review our COVID-19 Production Safety Guide and check federal, state, and local rules before and during your shoot to make sure your on-set protocols are up to date. We’re working hard to keep people working during this extraordinary time, and our advice here is to make sure your submission is executable within the anticipated timeline, while also ensuring everyone’s safety.
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Awards:- $6,000
Deadline:- 30-12-2020
