In your answer to this question you should tell us about any key assumptions that you have made to cost the above items and tell us what they are based on e.g. suppliers quotes (if so, how long the quotes are valid for?) You should also tell us what the main items of expenditure include and why they are important to the project.
If your costs include VAT, indicate whether this is likely to be recoverable. Please see the guidance notes for further general information on VAT but please bear in mind that NESTA cannot provide specific tax advice to applicants
The key assumptions in the drawing up of figures are:
That the online technology and services used for this project will be hosted by thequality.com at cost price and that new components will be built largely from open source or otherwise low-cost software.
That open technology standards are constantly moving in a direction which supports this idea and thus reduce the costs of implementing the re-mixable framework. A funded development phase will enable the team establish working ties with open source communities like the World Wide Web Consortium and leverage bleeding edge technology on the basis that usage will be open and benefits passed onto others via the re-mixable platform.
That key technology vendors will provide licenses at reduced cost as sponsorship in-kind, in return for recognition as partners on this and future projects.
That thequality.com infrastructure is sufficient to develop the project till at least the animatic prototype stage with little additional investment other than wages.
All costs are based on pre-existing financial knowledge of relevant fields or quotes, and are valid for the whole period of NESTA involvement.
The main items of expenditure are the salaries of the key team members and the creation of the film and console elements. The nature of this project is such that no one person will have the expertise necessary to produce all three elements (the online community being the third element) and so the infrasturucture of knowledge, skills and information is key to the success of the project. The film and console elements are the two most expensive areas of the project, and it is important for these to be well executed that the market penetration of the core product be maximised.
The company will register for VAT in order to recover VAT on purchases.
This proposal is for £85K which is less than the initial proposal (£150K). There are several reasons for this. In not wanting to compromise on quality, and to reduce the risk of not reaching the overall goal, I have chosen to remove the production budget entirely from the proposal. This means that initial expenditure is more tightly focused on R&D and prototyping which reduces the risk of the subsequent production phase. The proposition is far clearer as a result.
This revised budget allows the NESTA funded outputs to be more readily demonstrable as relevant to a wider range of applications (not just film). Most importantly, this revised plan will be more appealing to traditional investors because they can contribute to a subsequent production phase with considerable less risk. This is a far more viable route than it was when submitting the initial proposal because there is evidence, as discussed, of more relevant markets opening up. At the same time, discussions with games publishers, the UK Film Council, and film financiers, have highlighted the importance of securing development funding from NESTA because industry definitions of "development" are too narrow for this idea.