Television Projects: Planning, Scripting, or Production

The summary for the Television Projects: Planning, Scripting, or Production grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the National Endowment for the Humanities, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Television Projects: Planning, Scripting, or Production: NEH supports projects that use the medium of television to address significant figures, events, or developments in the humanities and that draw their content from humanities scholarship. Projects may be in the form of either documentary programs or historical dramatizations and must be intended for national distribution during prime time on either broadcast or cable networks. Support is also available for datacasting, DVDs, and websites that accompany television programs. Digital projects should expand the content of the television program and provide the audience with ways to explore subjects beyond the television airing. Projects should use a team of scholars to ensure that the humanities themes and questions are well conceived and that the project is informed by significant scholarship. These advisers should represent the major areas of scholarship on the subject and have diverse perspectives and approaches. Support is available for projects in three different phases: 1. Planning grants support the development of the project. Before applying, applicants should have clarified the themes the project will explore and made preliminary decisions about the format and storyline. They should also have located materials essential for the production and obtained commitments from the principal scholars who will guide the project. Finally, they should have recruited the appropriate media professionals for this stage of the project, especially the producer. The product of a planning grant should be a treatment. 2. Scripting grants support the refinement of the content and format. Before applying, applicants should have clearly developed the project's intellectual goals, scope of the issues, and program structure. They should have begun to think about how the analysis and intellectual content will be integrated into the storyline and have identified the principal materials available for production. In addition, they should have consulted extensively with a team of scholarly advisers and obtained the commitment of a scriptwriter or potential scriptwriters to join the media team. The product of a scripting grant should be a detailed treatment or a script. 3. Production grants support the production and postproduction of programs. Before applying, applicants must have written a detailed treatment or a script showing the narrative elements, the intellectual issues, and the creative approach. If production is requested for one program in a series, treatments should be included for all the programs. However, a detailed treatment or script is required only for the program for which funding is requested. The treatment should reflect extensive consultation with the advising scholars, and applicants should have obtained the commitment of the scholars to continue to advise the project. Finally, applicants should have already recruited the media team, including at a minimum the producer and the director. The result of a production grant should be a program ready for broadcast.