WHAT

Amateur Hour, the brain-child of Melbourne musician/socially awkward tv host Laura Imbruglia, is a web based variety show bringing together a stellar cast of Australian bands, artists, performers, and straight up weirdos. Each episode will feature a selection of interviews, skits, surprises, curios and live music filmed in Melbourne’s most iconic bars and rehearsal spaces. This is a unique arts & culture show created by the artists of Australia.
Our pilot season (available to view at www.amateurhour.tv) was made last year with zero budget and facilitated entirely by volunteers. We're about to make Season 2, but this time we wanna pay the people making the show at least something for their power and their passion (sometimes you've got to take the hardest line).

WHY

We miss Recovery. We miss Countdown. We even miss Hey Hey. We miss the much needed support and showcase of creatives in Australia. We have such a long and successful history of wild variety shows that we’ve watched disappear as funding for tv has dried up. The weirder tv options have definitely fallen by the wayside, and we want to change that. We want to showcase local talent from a local perspective in a way that is distinctly Australian – slap dash, DIY and above all else: chaotic fun.

WHO

So far we have featured a range of talented artists (both emerging and established) performing across all manner of genres…from Sarah Blasko to Batpiss. Folk musician Laura Jean teaches you how to cook with minimal ingredients and even less enthusiasm . Ben Salter walks around patting cats. Laura I will continue to round up her favourite musicians, visual artists, actors and comedians and ask them to appear on, or contribute content for the show. It's a lucky dip (except in this lucky dip, the prize is always awesome).

WHERE

You can watch our entire pilot season for free at www.amateurhour.tv. ABC iview have also acquired our Spotlight interviews (docu-style interviews with creatives), so you may seem them pop up on the ABC Arts channel on iview from time to time over the next 2 years.

WHEN

We'll be filming Season 2 over the next 12 months, and will send each music performance, interview and comedy skit live as soon as they're edited this time! More regular content!

At the end of production, we'll then assemble all the bits and pieces into full length episodes for a tidy retrospective collection.

If you wanna be the first to know when new content is live, subscribe to our youtube channel.
You can also follow our facebook, instagram and twitter to stay abreast (hehe) of developments.

WHAT WE HAVE = $38k

We have already received:
$25k in funding from Creative Victoria, which will go towards costs for filming the Melbourne-based music content.
$5k in funding from APRA AMCOS, which will go towards music licensing and theme writing, plus some of our Sydney music production costs.
$5k in funding from City of Melbourne, which we're putting towards advertising.
Laura has a $3k limit on her credit card, so she's offering to max that out for catering and hard drives.

WHAT WE NEED= another $15k (at least)

We need money to pay for all the other things (of which there are many!)
- the rest of the music filming/recording/editing costs
- the comedy skits (writers, actors, crew, editors)

- Laura's time spent producing this monster
- Equipment (lighting & lapel mics for example)
- Insurance

- Travel

IF WE GO ABOVE OUR TARGET...

The costs of actually producing this series are more like 100k (and that's a conservative estimate).
All the people involved have agreed to work for a reduced fee that is far below industry standard.
Any money we get above the 15k target will go into our production team's pockets, and lift their hourly salary. It will also help us allow for budget blow-outs and unforeseen equipment purchases.

If we ended up with a ridiculous amount of money (above 100k), we could do so many things with it...

- Throw a huge launch party

- Hire our own permanent space to film and edit in

- Hire professionals to help us find ways to monetize the site and grow the audience

- Hire an online editor and website builder so Laura doesn't have to do alllll the jobs

- Buy more filming and recording equipment

- Pay for editing software

- Fly interstate and do more filming around Australia

- Pay Laura a full-time wage so she can make this her actual job (lofty ambition, I know)

- Pay our musical guests a performance fee (do you know bands actually take time off work to film tv shows, lug all their shit around and play for free?)

PAYING FOR THIS BEAST!

Every song you hear, every scene shot, every painstakingly edited moment is the result of long hours of work. Someone will ride across 4 suburbs, hold a boom mic above their head for many hours and then ride home. They will do this many, many times. Do you know how hard that is on the muscles?
Whilst you are out at the pub with your mates, one of us will spend 8 hours straight dragging around files on an editing timeline. It's gruelling and important work and it deserves a pay cheque.

We wanna keep making the show, cos Australia needs it.
But we can't do it for free. Everyone needs to be paid for their time and I need to be paid for my sandwich ingredients.

If the television channels refuse to acknowledge the healthy and vibrant arts scene in Australia, we will do it! But it costs money to make the show. We're not trying to make a profit, we're trying to raise the bare minimum required to get the show made.

IF WE DON'T REACH OUR 15k TARGET, WE GET NOTHING

Your money doesn't leave your bank account until we reach our $15k target.
If we don't reach our target, we're going to have an uphill battle ahead of us.
It's really hard work and there are SO many costs involved with making a tv series (even on a shoe string budget). Our crew shouldn't have to drive ubers and scrub floors (or miss out on shifts in order to work for free for us) to facilitate making this amazing thing.
Please throw us a bone :)