Google and Screen Australia have today announced the second annual recipients of the Skip Ahead initiative. Skip Ahead will provide the five 2015 recipients with the funding and production resources required to create unique online content and engage new audiences around the world. Google will contribute funding and resources, and will support the successful applicants to travel and work at the YouTube Space in Los Angeles this November.
Considering that Skip Ahead is only in its second year, we were thrilled with the range and originality of content that Australian creatives pitched to us this year, said Screen Australia's Investment Manager Mike Cowap. We're really confident the 2015 recipients will not only deliver great content, but will demonstrate Australia's creative ingenuity internationally.
Comedy trio SketchShe will deliver Traffic Jam The Musical, whilst French SungaAttack and The Roundabout Crew will collaborate on tongue-in-check series Australiana Hostel. In factual programming, Draw with Jazza plans to create a documentary The Tale Teller about animated storytelling whilst How To Cook That's Ann Reardon will go on tour to find (and make!) The Sweetest Thing - Australia's most extreme dessert. Finally the team from Aunty Donna will deliver absurdist webseries 1999 based on the Y2K panic of last century.
Skip Ahead fosters the next generation of Australian storytellers by providing funding, education and support for the production of new online content. The first round winners created fantastic online series and we think that this second wave of funding will help even more Australian voices to reach global audiences, said Maile Carnegie, Managing Director of Google Australia and New Zealand.
All Skip Ahead applicants had to satisfy the initiative's criteria which included proof of existing audience, concept creative strength and the financial viability of the project.
I am beyond ecstatic to have received the Skip Ahead, said Josiah Brooks of Draw with Jazza. For me YouTube has been an incredible resource to deliver work directly to my fans, and Skip Ahead gives me the boost I need at this stage in my career to take my work to the next level.
The 2015 selected projects are:
THE TALE TELLER
An old travelling storyteller enters a city with nothing to his name but the stories he has spent his life gathering, which he wishes to pass on before he dies and a 3-part documentary series about the past, present and future of animated storytelling.
Channel: Draw with Jazza (402,326 subscribers 22,758,977 views)
Creators: Josiah Brooks
Genre: Animation & Documentary
Format: 4 x 10 mins
TRAFFIC JAM THE MUSICAL
The SketchSHE girls inadvertently cause a frustrating fender bender on a busy freeway resulting in a frenzy of road rage. Through song and dance they teach commuters how to get along.
Channel: SketchShe (686,411 subscribers 70,498,143 views)
Creators: Shae-Lee Shackleford, Madison Lloyd, Lana Kington
Genre: Musical comedy
Format: 4 x 6 mins
1999
An absurdist sketch webseries loosely following a professional business in the lead up to New Year's Eve 2000, as the employees prepare for the dreaded and unfathomable Y2K.
Channel: Aunty Donna (63,533 subscribers 7,137,237 views)
Creators: Max Miller, Mark Samual Bonano, Zachary Ruane, Broden Kelly, Sam Lingham, Tom Armstrong.
Producer: Nel Minchin
Genre: Comedy
Format: 10 x 3-5 mins
THE SWEETEST THING
From fabulous liquid nitrogen ice-cream, to gold-leaf chocolate bombs, to candy balloons filled with helium that literally float above the dinner table, food scientist and pastry chef Ann Reardon will uncover the weird, wild and wonderful world of extreme desserts and cakes as she travels around Australia.
Channel: How to Cook That (1,882,673 subscribers 218,450,660 views)
Creators: Tom Maynard, Ann Reardon, Sophie McGill
Genre: Documentary
Format: 4 x 10 mins
THE AUSTRALIANA HOSTEL
A narrative comedy series featuring an ensemble cast of YouTube personalities who are working at a rundown Sydney hostel on the brink of closure due to a string of unbelievably bad online reviews.
Channel: Frenchy SungaAttack (174,914 subscribers 28,274,291 views) and The Roundabout Crew (57,481 subscribers 5,075,910 views)
Creators: Benjamin French, Tom Armstrong
Genre: Comedy
Format: 4 x 5 mins
Skip Ahead was first announced in 2013, with the inaugural funding awarded in March 2014 to five recipients who have since gone on to deliver their content:
Axis All Areas by Axis of Awesome (Musical Comedy)
Lend Us A Ride by Mighty Car Mods (Doco-Comedy)
Neighbours Zombie Edition by Louna Maroun (Dramedy)
Fernando's Legitimate Business Enterprise by Sexual Lobster (Animation)
Reinventing Education (episodes 2 and 3 to come) by Veritasium (Documentary)
MORE INFORMATION
Scott Dawkins 0403 937 074 scott.dawkins@screenaustralia.gov.au
Imogen Corlette 0410 527 776 imogen.corlette@screenaustralia.gov.au
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Google and Screen Australia have today announced the second annual recipients of the Skip Ahead initiative. Skip Ahead will provide the five 2015 recipients with the funding and production resources required to create unique online content and engage new audiences around the world. Google will contribute funding and resources, and will support the successful applicants to travel and work at the YouTube Space in Los Angeles this November.
