SLFW Professional Finishing Grant
SLFW follows the four grant stages:
(1) application; (2) review; (3) grant payment; and (4) analysis.
Grant eligibility:
To be eligible, filmmakers must be:
• 18 years of age
• Living in the Greater St. Louis MSA. This comprises the City of St. Louis plus Missouri counties: St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson Franklin, Lincoln, Warren, and the following Illinois counties: Madison, St. Clair, Monroe, Clinton, Jersey, Bond, Macoupin, and Calhoun.
• Provide samples of finished work, completed project (see FAQs at the end).
• SLFW will accept applications from individual artists who also have LLCs.
• You may only receive a single award per year.
Project criteria:
• Project must be original work owned by the applicant or demonstrate provenance or permission from owner.
• Scripted work must be copyrighted. SLFW is a liable for legal disputes regarding copyright or intellectual property infringement.
• Grants are given to individuals with creative and financial control of the project. In the case of collaboration, a sole project director must be designated as the applicant.
• Filmmaker must articulate/demonstrate specific need/end result, and dollar amount needed.
• Filmmaker must provide tangible result to demonstrate success of grant. Tangible testimonies are required to demonstrate program success. (provided example of what we consider tangible)
How much can you apply for?
The maximum amount you can apply for and receive is $2,500. This is the total pool available for our 2024 pilot year and we expect to increase this pool each year. SLFWwill make an effort to divide the pool among multiple applicants.
Tip: requests in the $800-$1000 range have a better chance of being awarded.
Grant application process:
Any applicants involved with SLFW must notify the Board of Directors. See Conflict of Interest policy.
Applicants will need to provide:
• Name
• Phone
• Mailing address
• Project description
• Logline
• Genre
• Purpose of finished product
- Feature
- Scene (from a feature/series)
- Short documentary
- Other (describe)
• Description (project must fit within SLFW content guidelines. See FAQs)
• Project need/s (if multiple needs, prioritize project and associated dollar amount.)
• Upload media/pdfs if necessary to demonstrate need.
• Amount requested (up to $2500)
• Are you able to provide SLFW with tangible results of the grant?
• Date tangible result will be available.
Timeline
SLFW finishing grant application period will be approximately 30 days. Winners will be announced 40 days from application deadline.
Conflict of interest policy
To avoid conflict of interest, advisory board, and board of directors of SLFW are ineligible to apply for grants.
As many members of the film community volunteer and assist SLFW in informal ways, such individuals are eligible but 1) must recuse themselves from any activity involved in selection
process. Applicant will inform the board of directors who will as well as the subcommittee head in writing (via email) at the time of the application. 2) applicants who are involved with SLFW are requested to not disclose they have applied to avoid any favoritism among the selection committee.
Grant review process:
Compliance, initial review
Applications will be reviewed by the Grant Selection Committee (GSC) for compliance. If the GSC feels there was an error, you will be contacted to correct, modify your application. If attempts to contact you are not successful or application is deemed unsatisfactory after contact, it will be removed from consideration.
Distribution for review
After compliance, applications are be distributed to the judges on the GSC. The judges have two weeks to make their recommendations to the board for review. Recommendations will include nominees and alternatives. The board will review to ensure projects are in line with SLFW mission and content guidelines. The SLFW Board of Directors do not parcipate in the selection nor awarding of grants.
Grants will be approved by the following criteria:
• Filmmaker’s caliber of work.
• Quality of story/concept
• Amount requested.
• Impact of funds on project? Completion or next phase?
• Does request create a separate creative entity: e.g. Music, artwork, prop, costume?
• Is there a demonstrable outcome?
• Project value: does the project have potential to create significant impact in the region? (potential feature, series)
Notification
All applicants will be notified by email and letter of the Grant Selection Committee’s decision. Grant recepient(s) will be notified by email and letter
Terms and conditions acceptance
If awarded a grant, you will be asked to sign a terms and conditions agreement. This is mandatory must be signed for grant funds to be allocated to project expenses.
Grant payment process:
Allocation
SLFW will pay submitted invoices up to awarded amount.
Publicity and SLFW acknowledgement
Recipients will be announced via SLFW social media: instagram, linkedin, facebook.
Recipients acknowledge SLFW — ‘With Support from St. Louis Filmworks (logo)’— on the finished piece of media and other materials, social media regarding the project: A link to graphic/mp4 files will be provided.
Record-keeping and reporting:
As SLFW is paying invoices directly, funds will not go directly to the recipient, therefore record-keeping is satisfied by 1.) Submission of invoice(s) to be paid and 2.) Result of service and/or product resulting from the invoice.
Recipients will be asked to provide:
• Tangible example (finished project/phase) per application.
• Video or written testimony of grant impact
FAQs
What type of projects are eligible?
Projects that are in post-production, nearing completion. These may include:
• A feature film (70+ minutes)
• A short film (3-12 minutes) that is a finished piece and is a contained story or scene.
• A teaser, sizzle for a feature/series. The project must be comprised of mostly original content, not a ripomatic.
• Documentary, feature or short
• Student project
What types of projects are not eligible?
• Paid or spec projects for a client, brand (includes music videos)
• Self-promotion reel
• Experimental, abstract or high art pieces
• Projects in development phase or pre-production
• ‘Fan Films’ of projects with unlawful use of copyright/intellectual property.
SLFW content guidelines
St. Louis Filmworks does not support projects with the following content:
• Content affiliated with or promoting a political party.
• Content affiliated with a religion/religious denomination or promoting their beliefs.
• Lobbying, content promoting public policy (in support of/opposition of a bill).
• Promoting hate speech, bigoted viewpoints.
• Promoting racism or racist ideology.
• Pornography
• Commercial/advertising content selling or promoting a product, venue, service, etc.