Just had a long call with Ian @ NESTA. Bottom line, the project is recommended to go to the board but with several reservations and there’s 18 applications (normally around 5) lined up for this committee…
So I’ve agreed to take his advice and not put the application forward till the March 25th board meeting (papers sent out on the 12th). The assessment to-date is that NESTA should fund this but that there is some work to do to make the application more palatable.
The areas we’re going to work on uptil then (with Ian’s help) are:
• identify interest and names for film producer and game producer roles
• get in touch with Sony and Microsoft for expressions of interest
• reduce the vision somewhat so that NESTA re-couping their investment is not primarily based on 10weeks being greenlit (identify other opportunities with other films)
• gather more market evidence (“harder nuggets”) as to why the target market will like this
Slightly painful news but not bad news. As it was just put to me, if they didn’t feel that this was worth funding then the proposal would have simply been put to the board with a recommendation not to fund, end of story.
Any leads or thoughts relating to above please let me know.
Otherwise stay tuned…