4 Talent Extra
A new strand of 30 half-hour primetime documentaries, aimed at the brightest and best new directing talent. Films will be showcased primetime on More4, with the best also running as a series on Channel 4.
First Cut is part of the Channel's passionate commitment to nurturing people looking at breaking into the industry, and forms a clear rung in a ladder leading from FourDocs and 3 Minute Wonder through to Cutting Edge and feature-length documentaries.
The strand will be eclectic in style and subject, but all films should be bold, attention-grabbing, entertaining, original, contemporary and accessible. Ideas must comfortably sustain 24 minutes and hold their own in a primetime slot.
A fixed budget of £45k per half hour and the support of Channel 4 who will pair you with an experienced exec and a production company to "warehouse" your film.
This is not an entry-level strand. You should have several years of production experience under your belt, perhaps as an AP or even as an up-and-coming director of broadcast or non-broadcast films or shorts in any genre. You should be a generator of ideas, have real visual flair and be looking to get your first primetime network terrestrial credit.
Channel 4 are particularly keen on those who feel frustrated that they have been unable to make the break through to direct the film that brought them into television. They want filmmakers who don't pull their punches - be it with form, technique or subject matter.
Read about James Price and Lenka Clayton's First Cut commission, A Piece of the Moon, on 4Talent
Read about Tim Wardle's First Cut commission In Search of Mr Average, on FourDocs.
Check out the full line-up on the FourDocs blog.
Bruce Fletcher sets out to chronicle the pop princess breakdown industry in Saving Britney Spears.
Lucy Cohen goes searching for stories of the un-mourned dead in her First Cut film, Watch Me Disappear.
Send a copy of your CV along with a one-page treatment of your idea and how you propose to structure it as a half-hour film, to Aysha Rafaele, editor of First Cut (Deputy Commissioning Editor, Documentaries).
The next set of First Cut films will be shown during Septmember 2009 so we are looking to commission 10 new films between now and then, have an idea? Get in touch!
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