Jury Members Evaluate Canada’s Innovative Digital Projects

^[1]A jury of eight distinguished digital media experts ^[2] met in Toronto yesterday and today to evaluate innovative Canadian digital media projects that were submitted for production support as part of the Canada Media Fund ^[1]’s (CMF) Experimental Stream. Successful applications are determined using a selective process in reference to an “evaluation grid”. It lists the four basic assessment criteria used by the CMF and their respective weightings for each of the three types of funding in the Experimental Stream.

The four assessment criteria are:

• Experience and past achievements of the production/development team
• Innovation and advancement of the project
• The business plan, including the viability of the project and the financial stability of the applicant
• The distribution strategy

The jury is composed of Canadian and international industry specialists including:

• Bruno Guglielminetti (Montréal)
• Annelise Larson (Saskatoon)
• Amber MacArthur (Toronto)
• Tishna Molla (London, UK)
• Marie-José Montpetit (Boston, USA)
• Sébastien Provencher (Montréal)
• Adam Sigel (Los Angeles, USA)
• Patrice Slupowski (Paris, France)

All jury members have complementary skill sets including academic research, entrepreneurship, independent production (digital media, film, and television), and marketing. The jury provides an external perspective on innovation and assesses the experience of the production and creative teams with regards to their capacity to deliver the project submitted for CMF funding.

The Experimental Stream encourages the development of innovative, interactive digital media content such as console and casual games, interactive web series, apps, as well as software and enabling technologies. Later this fall, the CMF will announce the projects that will receive production support from the CMF’s Experimental Stream.