Commissioning Handbook

Working with The Space

INTERACTIVE PROJECTS

February 2017

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Contents 1 Introduction 4

2 The commissioning process 4

2.1 Amber-lit projects 5

2.2 Green-lit projects 6

3 Requirements for amber review 6

3.1 Budget and schedule 6

3.2 Project scoping questionnaire 7

3.3 Audience development plan 8

3.4 Audience analysis 8

3.5 Rights clearances 8

4 Requirements for green-lit projects 9

4.1 Contracting 9

4.2 Invoicing 9

4.2.1 VAT 10

4.3 Crediting The Space 10

4.4 Deliverables to The Space 11

4.4.1 Project plan 11

4.4.2 Prototype 11

4.4.3 Beta application 12

4.4.4 Final version 12

4.4.5 Rights Reporting Form 12

4.4.6 Video files for supporting material 12

4.4.7 Final production accounts 12

4.5 Evaluation materials 13

4.5.1 Audience data 13

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4.5.2 Evaluation form 13

4.5.3 Diversity monitoring form 13

4.5.4 Case study material 13

5 The Space Interactive Team 14

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1 Introduction

Welcome to working with The Space, and to this handbook, which is designed to provide our commissioned organisations with information that we hope will be useful when you are working with us. It may seem detailed for this stage of the process, but we’ve found that sharing this information up front helps us and the organisations we work with plan more effectively. These guidelines are intended for projects that focus on how digital can:

• ‘extend’ or deepen the audience experience of existing artistic works, exhibitions or events through the use of digital technologies and platforms, the development of online experiences and the creation of additional digital content

• make new works, termed ‘create digital’, which have digital at the heart of the creative process. They explore new forms of digital storytelling, interactivity and participation.

Separate guidelines are available for projects focused on the ‘capture’ of live arts performances, events and exhibitions. About The Space The Space brings arts organisations, artists and technology together to make great art and reach new audiences. We do this by commissioning projects, building digital skills, and helping organisations and venues reach more people using digital media. We are a Community Interest Company founded by Arts Council England and the BBC to make arts and culture for everyone, support new talent and original work, and help the creative economy grow. We are also supported by Creative Scotland, the Arts Council of Wales and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. We have a partnership with the BBC Academy to deliver a programme of learning events across the UK. The Space is passionate to defend the rights of artists to express themselves freely, to keep their intellectual property, and to inspire and share their work with audiences all over the world.

2 The commissioning process The Space is a commissioning and development organisation. Our aim is to support you in delivering a high quality artistic experience to the widest audience possible, within a timeframe and budget agreed with us. We also want your experience to help inform the wider arts sector so we can all benefit from greater knowledge.

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This means that we are not a grant-giving body. Rather we are investing in your project against some agreed deliverables. It also means that we’ll need to go through a process with you to ensure that the project can deliver what we agree together. This process is outlined below. The Space’s commissioning team reviews and recommends projects for commissioning. Projects come to us either as applications to one of our open commissioning rounds or as a result of discussions with arts organisations whom we have approached directly for proposal ideas. Recommended projects are reviewed by our Editorial Panel, which comprises representatives from The Space, Arts Council England and the BBC. If you are reading these guidelines, then your project has been selected by the panel as a work that we would like to commission in principle. We refer to this as being ‘amber-lit’. We then need to review your project in more detail before it can be approved for contract (‘green-lit’).

2.1 Amber-lit projects

All projects that are amber-lit go through a review process. Our aim is to ensure our investment in your project will effectively support your objectives, as well as our wider objectives for UK arts organisations and audiences. It is also an opportunity for you to be comfortable that you have considered all the elements you need to make your project a success. We aim to make the process as swift and straightforward as possible. The information we need from you will vary depending on the nature of your project and the application you have submitted. Areas that we need to explore in more detail might include budget, project timelines, conceptualisation of ideas, technical platforms, approaches to technical development and content management, publication and audience development plans. We’ve described what we need in more detail below. We understand that some organisations will already have experience of making interactive digital experiences or marketing and distributing work using digital media, technologies and platforms. Others may not and our experienced team is here to support and guide you through the process. We utilise a pool of freelance associates who specialise in the skills needed to deliver digital artistic projects. If it is useful, we may fund one or more associates to work with you to clarify and/or refine your project proposal. Once commissioned these associates can sometimes become part of your production team and support you all the way through the project.

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2.2 Green-lit projects

Once the amber review is complete, your revised proposal will be submitted to the Editorial Panel so your project can be green-lit for contracting. The project can then move into production. Whilst delivery of the project will be managed by you in conjunction with any other creative or technical partnerships that you select, we will assist you throughout this process to ensure payment milestones are reached on schedule and that project deliverables are achieved. Regular catch ups with your key contacts at The Space will allow you the benefit from our guidance, discuss potential changes to scope or voice project queries or concerns. A small proportion of projects that are amber-lit do not proceed to being green-lit. There can be a number of reasons for this. Sometimes the organisations submitting proposals realise that what they are trying to achieve is not realistic i.e the project is technically too ambitious or budget needed is too great for the audience it intends to reach. They may withdraw the proposal and re-submit it at a future date or with a different focus. Sometimes we are unable to make the case that the project would provide sufficient outcomes for the commissioned organisation or in terms of our wider objectives. Even where a project doesn’t proceed, we hope that the process of working with us on reviewing and refining ideas is useful to organisations in planning future digital projects.

3 Requirements for amber review Items in this section will be required by projects undergoing amber review prior to being green-lit. Before a project is green-lit we need to review a detailed budget and proposed schedule for delivery and we will scope out the concept in more detail with you to ensure goals are clear and the project is deliverable.

3.1 Budget and schedule

Deliverables for this stage are as follows: Budget The budget will cover all key areas of the project to completion, including prototyping if required, technical development, any ongoing hosting and maintenance costs and any legal or licence requirements. Areas that need consideration when budgeting are summarised in our downloadable budget template.

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Schedule A schedule for the key stages of the project will be needed. We use our Project Scoping Questionnaire and Audience Development Questionnaire to help define this and these are described in more detail in the sections below. Common schedule stages are:

• Planning

• Prototyping

• Beta

• Go-Live/Launch

• Post Launch/Support

The schedule should reflect the reality of delivering a project of it’s type. The budget structure of a project will be defined by the type of project, technologies, dependencies and stages involved. We have a downloadable schedule template to help you structure this.

3.2 Project scoping questionnaire

To assist us in gauging the potential of your project and any needs you might have in terms of associate support, we will work with you on a project scoping questionnaire. This document is designed to capture as much high level information as possible at an early stage. We will work with you collaboratively to answer these questions, resulting in a project scope that can be submitted for greenlight approval. The downloadable scoping questionnaire template covers:

• Summary of project: what is the creative concept? Explain clearly and concisely your extend/ create digital proposal and how the audience will interact.

• Aims: what are the key ambitions for the project? What technologies will it involve? What are the key user stories that the project will fulfil? What demographic will the project be aimed at?

• Technical requirements: what technologies will be used to develop the project? What platform or hardware considerations might the project require? What sort of hosting or support will the project require?

• Assumptions & unknowns: any areas of the project that require further exploration, present possible risk or warrant further investigation during development.

We do not expect your concept to be fully formed at this stage. However this document helps us to envision the structure the project will take and assess how realistic are development plans.

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3.3 Audience development plan

We want your project to have a wide reach with your target audience. We therefore ask you to provide a marketing and distribution plan that outlines how you will distribute and drive audiences to the finished work. As well as considering appropriate distribution partners, this might include the creation of marketing assets to help promote the project, effective use of social media, search engine optimisation and other techniques. We can support you in the creation of this plan and can deploy an associate to shape it, if necessary. The project scoping questionnaire asks many of the questions we’d expect to see answered in the plan. Some questions may not be relevant for your project and we/an associate would be happy to walk you through them. In some instances, delivery of the completed plan may form a deliverable after your project has been green-lit to proceed.

3.4 Audience analysis

A key measure of success for each project we commission is its effectiveness at reaching and engaging your target audience. Alongside the audience development plan we will agree with you an approach to measuring and sharing audience data and your targets for this. Where appropriate, this approach may include future flexibility to refine the way the work is being promoted, distributed and experienced based on lessons learned from the data. Typically for interactive pieces, quantitative data will focus on measuring online interactions using analytic tools e.g. number of unique users, user sessions or downloads, average duration spent in the experience, proportion of users reaching key points in the experience and measures of social media engagement. The exact metrics to be used and how the data is shared will depend on the nature of your work and the agreed publication platforms and partnerships. In addition to quantitative data gained from distribution platforms, we are also interested in qualitative feedback and will look with you at opportunities to directly survey a sample of your audience to capture their opinions of the work plus more detailed profile information.

3.5 Rights clearances

Part of our approach to commissioning work is that ownership of the completed piece should remain with your organisation and/or its original creators. Therefore, The Space does NOT ask for any transfer of the ownership of rights. However, we do ask that you have cleared the rights sufficiently broadly in your work so that we can work with you to maximise its distribution.

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Generally this means we would be seeking the following clearances: non-exclusive, worldwide, non-commercial, online distribution and promotion for a specified time period (typically three years from first publication) and for ongoing use in case study material aimed at UK arts organisations. This is covered in more detail in our rights clearance requirements.

4 Requirements for green-lit projects Items in this section are required for projects that have been green-lit and are being commissioned by The Space. If your project has been amber-lit, you may still find it helpful to read this section so you can make sure your project plan allows you the time and resources you need to cover these items.

4.1 Contracting

Once your project has been green-lit we will draw up a commissioning agreement with you to formalise our discussions and project plan. We are not a grant-giving body, so the commissioning agreement is a contract for services rather than a grant award. The contract will incorporate our standard terms and conditions plus schedules that summarise the agreed scope of your project and The Space’s financial contribution. These schedules will include payment milestones and dates. Each milestone will have one or more deliverables that we must receive, review and accept before we approve the milestone. Once a milestone is approved and we have received your invoice, payment will be released. Should there be a material change in your production schedule, we may at our discretion agree to vary the payment milestones to reflect this.

4.2 Invoicing

Your organisation should invoice on, or slightly in advance of the milestone to which the payment relates. We cannot accept backdated invoices. To ensure prompt payment, please check that your invoice includes: • the word ‘invoice’ on the document

• a unique identification number (invoice number)

• your company name, address and contact information

• our company name and address: The Space CIC, Studio 30, Fazeley Studios, 191 Fazeley Street, Birmingham B5 5SE

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• a description of what you are charging for that corresponds with the milestone description in your commissioning agreement with us

• the date the goods or service were provided (supply date) if it’s vastly different from the invoice date)

• the date of the invoice

• the amount(s) being charged

• if you are charging VAT (see below), then:

– VAT amount

– % rate of VAT (in UK currently 20% should be displayed on all VAT invoices; European may have the words ‘VAT is reverse charged’ somewhere)

– VAT registration number

• the total amount owed

4.2.1 VAT

All milestones contained in your commissioning agreement will be quoted as net values, exclusive of any VAT. If your organisation is VAT registered then you will be charging VAT at the prevailing rate (currently 20%). Our contracts are generally for supply of services which is a VAT-able supply for those VAT registered and not usually exempt. However, you are responsible for checking your organisation’s VAT status for supplying and invoicing us. If your organisation is unsure about VAT registration, then there is useful information here: www.gov.uk/vat-registration/overview. The current requirement is that you must register for VAT with HMRC if your business VAT taxable turnover is more than £83,000. If your organisation does intend to register for VAT then, while you wait for your registration number to be issued by HMRC, you must not charge or show VAT on your invoices. If your organisation is not VAT registered, please let our production team know as soon as possible.

4.3 Crediting The Space

We are proud to support your project. Please include The Space branding when publishing and promoting your project and make sure that you follow our brand guidelines. It helps support the work we do.

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4.4 Deliverables to The Space

It is likely you will have a number of deliverables to us as part of our agreement. These may include: • Project Plan

• Prototype

• Beta version of your project for testing

• Final version of your project for publication

• Rights Reporting Form

• Video file(s) for supporting material

• Final production accounts

• Evaluation materials

Different elements will be required at different stages in the project depending on your schedule and the work being produced. These will be detailed in your Commissioning Agreement. The Space has a Production team who will be at your disposal to advise on any deliverables agreed and can be contacted on production@thespace.org

4.4.1 Project plan

The project plan will be created based on the documents completed during the amber review process. It will outline the detailed schedule and final agreed budget and will form the contractual milestones that will trigger payments. It should act as your control document throughout delivery of the project. It is not intended to be a static document but will be reviewed and altered as the project goes on, driven by the outcomes of project stages, emerging opportunities or risks and changes to scope. Your project plan will be reviewed throughout the project by our project manager and executives as well as your stakeholder team to ensure that project scope is clear and defined throughout.

4.4.2 Prototype

A prototype is any form of proof of concept suitable for review and feedback. This could be a functional or technical demo, interactive prototype, animated or interactive wireframes, storyboards, concept designs or any other user experience focused deliverable that clearly demonstrates the potential of the full project. Not all projects will require a prototype and the scope of any requirement will be agreed as part of the project plan.

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4.4.3 Beta application

We would expect the beta version of your project to contain all the major features and enough sample content necessary for end to end user testing. The beta application will usually go through multiple rounds of testing and feedback to ensure that any bugs or user experience issues are captured and resolved. We would expect you to manage some of this testing, with our guidance, whilst we will also undertake our own quality checks. At this stage we will feed back on accessibility and usability to ensure that quality levels are achieved and that the application is an accessible and engaging experience for as wide an audience as possible.

4.4.4 Final version

The final version will be a feature and content complete version of your project. There may be one or more final versions of your project for publication, depending on the requirements of different publishing platforms and whether your project has content that is published episodically.

4.4.5 Rights Reporting Form

We won’t ask you to send us electronic copies of all fully executed underlying rights clearance paperwork for your project but we will ask you to complete our Rights Reporting Form which gives a summary of the rights clearance position on the project. The form has been designed to be used as both a planning tool in the early stages of production as well as to report the information back to ourselves.

4.4.6 Video files for supporting material

The final master version of any video elements of your project needs to be delivered to The Space in both a High Res and Low Res format. All material should be of HD quality. Both versions need to include the necessary branding, credits and logos. We also ask for a textless version (or the textless elements) to be delivered. Exact file format to be delivered to us will vary according to your distribution plan and we will work with you to find the most suitable format specification(s) for your project.

4.4.7 Final production accounts

We need to review your final expenditure on the project against the agreed budget. We therefore ask that you provide production accounts that reconcile expenditure against agreed individual budget lines and provide an explanation of any variations +/- 10%. We reserve the right to request invoices/receipts as evidence of expenditure. Please complete your production accounts using our production accounts template.

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4.5 Evaluation materials

The Space is committed to measuring the effectiveness of each project we commission and of our overall programme of activity. Feedback from commissioned organisations is vital to this process and normal falls into four areas:

4.5.1 Audience data

We are interested in tracking the reach and engagement your project has with its target audiences across different platforms both in quantitative and qualitative terms. Methods for doing this will be agreed with you in advance of publication (see above) and we will gather and review data with you at agreed intervals dependent on the distribution plan.

4.5.2 Evaluation form

To measure the effectiveness of The Space’s investment in your project and to help us improve our work, we ask you to complete a short evaluation form at the end of your project. The data provided in this form may be shared with our funding partners and/or used in aggregate with information from other projects for public reporting. Your comments may also be used in public reporting but will remain anonymous and will not be attributed to you or your organisation.

4.5.3 Diversity monitoring form

One of our objectives is to encourage diversity in the teams creating the works we commission as well as in the audiences engaging with them. We therefore ask you to complete a diversity monitoring form covering the team working on the project.

4.5.4 Case study material

A key part of the remit of The Space is capacity building for the arts sector. To this end we ask commissioned organisations to help us where requested to create a case study of your project so that insights can be shared with other arts organisations. We will prepare the case study at our own cost. What we will ask of you is to supply the building blocks from which we can work. This is likely to take the form of an interview with covering questions such as, why you embarked on the project, what your outcomes were, what you learned from the process and how it might impact your future work. We may also ask for some quotes from key contributors (e.g. artists, director etc.) and images to support this. We would also request a video walkthrough of the project that captures as best as possible the user experience and aims of the project. Once the case study has been reviewed and approved by you, we may then publish it in our learning resources on http://www.thespace.org/ and share it at events we run.

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5 The Space Interactive Team Our team comes from the arts, digital media, gaming, digital development and broadcasting backgrounds. We're united by a passion for making great art and getting it to the most people possible using digital technologies and platforms. We’re based in Birmingham but are often on the road at The Space’s regular events, or meeting organisations and artists. The different members of our team will be introduced to you at the start of your project and will be in regular contact with you during the planning phases. Once your project is contracted we will then arrange regular catch-up calls or meetings with a key contact person on our side to ensure communications are well co-ordinated. This person can then involve other members of our team as required.