I attended an info hour in FilmBase in Dublin this week where I found out about Lasair. The speakers were Proinsias Ní Ghráinne, Commissioning Editor for TG4, Alan Fitzpatrick, Director of Filmbase along with writer/director Daniel O’Hara and actor/comedian Paddy Courtney. Daniel and Paddy’s Lasair, Yu Ming is Ainm Dom, was one of the standout successes of the scheme winning over 40 international awards.

Deffo watch it guys; it is fantastic, funny, mixture of English and Gaeilge and it’s sweet!

Lasair (funded by TG4) has EUR 10,000 to give to new, expienced, inexperienced and even students to make their own short film.

To qualify for this scheme, which is administered by Filmbase, you must write a TV treatment with some Irish dialogue, get short listed and then win the grant to make your short. You will own the rights to it and it will be broadcast at the Cork film festival and on TG4. If you want to get it into film festivals then it is up to you to do so.

You can write the script in English and get help translating some of the dialogue to Irish. They said they are looking for a really great idea, not a monologue on the state of Irish. You can have a combination of dialogue in English and Irish. Another tip was to keep the dialogue short and snappy. It is usually a page for one minuet of air time and the short must be 10 mins. And yes, yes animated shorts are accepted, and they are open to shorting the time (of ten minutes) for an animated short.

So, this scheme is open to ALL, and I don’t want to hear, ‘after 14 years of learning Gaelige I can’t speak it,’ cause trust me, everyone has some Irish, beside you can get help if needed.

If you get shortlisted you will be interviewed, so you will have to source your own production team, do a search online, ask your mates, ask film students…..but a tip they gave was that to meet your team before your interview so that you are on the same page with the same focus.

Deadline for Lasair is 5pm Friday 27th January 2012.

As you know, I am a primary school teacher, so I have a bit of Gaeilge! I just completed a TV treatments course….so,yeah, yeah I am going to write up a Tv treatment and enter it for a giggle. Sure, I started this blog for a laugh in April ’11 and it is a finalist in the Int EduBlog Awards 11, so who knows!

For more details read below links

Lasair
Lasair Guidelines

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