The largest Video on Demand service in South-East Asia announced its latest initiative – HOOQ Filmmakers Guild – a South-East Asia wide project that helps turn the most imaginative TV series ideas of filmmakers into reality, thus celebrating Asia, the nation from which great TV arises.
HOOQ calls for film professionals, be it directors, producers or scriptwriters to send in scripts and treatments for a TV series idea they have. From these, the five best scripts, regionally, will be given a funding of $30,000 to be converted into a pilot episode that will debut on HOOQ.
Submissions can be from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia. The best out of these five pilot episodes, decided by HOOQ subscribers and a star-studded judging panel consisting of the top film talents around Asia as well as Hollywood (to be announced), will be converted into a full series produced and aired on HOOQ.
“There is incredible talent for TV series making in Asia, and we want to give opportunities to film professionals to turn these amazing ideas into reality. HOOQ is built in Asia for Asia and we want to give Asian filmmakers the power to create quality entertainment that gives our customers that escape into worlds of romance, action, adventure and even heroism, all in the setting of their backyard. HOOQ Filmmakers Guild does just that, making Asia the nation from which great TV arises!” said Chief Executive Officer of HOOQ, Peter Bithos.
This project commences on June 1 and will be open for entries till Aug. 1.
Applicants must be either in film school or working as professionals in the film industry with prior film production experience.
They should submit the script and treatment for a mini-series or a full series with a maximum of 13 episodes for a single season in order to qualify. There will be no restriction to genre, however submissions and productions must be in the language of the applicant’s country.
This announcement came a day after HOOQ announced four new HOOQ original productions – Critical Eleven and Sweet 20 to hit cinemas in May and June respectively and the other three to hit the platform (The T Party’and Marlina and the Murderer in Four Acts) later this year.