Activity: ‘The Feast’ is an innovative training program teaming 20 artists with physical and intellectual disabilities with creatives from Jungle Entertainment and The Corinthian Food Store to learn about collaborative writing, development, pitching, pathways to audience, casting, directing and editing on a budget. Over one year, artists from Midnight Feast will be encouraged to work with new collaborators, to develop skills, and to deepen their connections in the film industry. At the culmination of the program, each artist will have a chance to pitch a project to executives from Jungle Entertainment and The Corinthian Food Store, and to receive feedback. A documentary crew will capture the work of the artists from start to finish. This program is about giving artists agency over their own work, as well as a place at the table with well-connected partners.
January 2022 Update: The artists are busy prepping ideas to pitch to the company, and to take into development workshops with industry professionals. Due to COVID, some of the workshops have shifted to an online format.
April 2022 Update: The Feast has been an absolute game changer for Midnight Feast, providing an educational project to focus on during a time of great upheaval. Their incredible artists have been working with producers and writers from The Corinthian Food Store and talking about all things screen development: from idea gestation, to looking at marketability, breaking down stories, forming writers’ rooms and communication skills for pitches. In the next term, The Feast will shift into developing individual ideas, joined by some phenomenal guest artists, and they are set to commence their work with the team at Jungle.
August 2022 Update: The Feast has completely galvanised our artists, transforming them from actors into multidisciplinary artists. It’s given them a voice, and a foothold in the industry, allowing them to collaborate with new teams and companies. We’ve been able to link up over the past year with luminaries such as Tommy Murphy, Michael Gow, Hannah Reilly, Blake Ayshford, Chika Ikogwe and Yolanda Ramke, to look at the different facets of writing, pitching and getting your work out there. The funding has also afforded us the opportunity to follow up on the masterclasses with a series of one-on-one sessions with various writers from The Corinthian Food Store. In these sessions, our artists have been able to personally debrief on where their pitches are at, how the process is working for them, and any support needs they have for the future classes. It’s propelled their understanding of the work forward significantly and we would never have been able to provide this kind of education beforehand.