Film Victoria is a government agency which supports film, television and ditigal media content.

As such it is of vital importance to Australian filmmakers, not only those who reside in Victoria.

Recently it announced the Catapult Lab initiative to support new writers.

In part, this was spurred by the Australian Writers Guild, Vic branch, who lobbied FV for a new writers’ scheme. In the past FV ran new writers’ schemes but were chopped due to lack of funds.

The Catapult Lab is to be supported as it offers new writers ‘a foot in the door,’. However more than 130 people applied in the current round, which had a cutoff date in early January 2012. Of those, around 40 will go to the next round, and then around 10 will be selected to workshop their project or projects.

They will be paid the princely sum of $500 for writing a two page outline. Not much, but apparently FV can’t afford to invest more in our new writing talent.

Is this a noble initiative, in that it assists new writers, or is it a bit of an insult? What do you think?