Dailymotion has launched a competition with the Raindance Film Festival to find the next generation of independent filmmakers with a prize of £2,500 prize towards producing the winning entry.
As part of the competion, Dailymotion, which has over 120m monthly users, in assosciation with the Raindance Film Festival, is urging filmmakers to submit a five minute scripted pilot episode of a series.
The winning entry will be funded and promoted through the Dailymotion website.
The move comes as part of the ‘Raindance Web Fest’, a web series festival, running during Raindance Film Festival. It will feature film screenings and panel discussions with industry experts, covering topics from digital storytelling, to social TV experiences.
This year’s festival will host the British Independent Series Awards as well as dozens of movie screenings.
Elliot Grove, founder of the Raindance festival, said: “The internet has created exciting opportunities for independent filmmakers, often working with limited budgets, to be discovered. A web series has become the new short-form content that creatives and studio executives expect and Web Fest aims to educate and celebrate the great work that’s already available online.
“We are thrilled to be working with Dailymotion to launch the web TV pilot competition and look forward to unveiling the next Jenji Kohan.”
Marc Eychenne, vice president of International Content at Dailymotion, said: “We’ve seen a huge surge in the popularity and quality of web series in recent years.
“We’re excited to be working with Raindance to support and showcase the most promising new talent in this growing industry.”
Pilot episodes from the scheme will be broadcast on Dailymotion and YouTube channel.
