From pitch to premiere: How we’re empowering the entertainment industry

Entertainment is an industry where the need to make an impact with visuals is mission-critical, from major studio enterprises right down to individual storytellers and creators.

As a design-led company, we’re passionate about supporting the creatives who drive culture – and we know that behind the bright lights, there’s an incredible amount of work to be done. Professionals in the industry, from producers and directors to writers and costume designers, all need support – both with the right tools to create essential and impactful visual materials, as well as training and recognition within the industry itself. We’re committed to empowering the whole world to design, and that includes entertainment professionals who sit at the forefront of creativity.

Template collections: from your screen to the big screen

While we knew our platform was being used by entertainment professionals to create the materials they needed, until recently there wasn’t a collection of templates on Canva that was entertainment industry-specific. This year, we launched our first collection of custom Canva templates for the entertainment community to express their ideas, pitch film and TV projects, and plan shoots effortlessly.

Canva’s template design team engaged industry experts spanning multiple disciplines, from producers to studio execs, to help guide us on the optimal collection of templates as well as exactly what elements should be included as industry-standard.

These 26 templates comprise some of the most used visual formats across the entertainment industry, from pitch and treatment decks to series bibles, mood boards, call sheets, scripts, brainstorming whiteboards, and attention-grabbing film promotion posters.

Since launch, nearly one million members of our community have used these templates, which now have been published over 4 million times!

We’re now working on phase two of the collection which will see additional styles added, as well as new document types, all informed directly from industry feedback about what else they’d like to see on the platform.

Partnering with the entertainment industry

As well as having the right design tools, it’s important to us that entertainment professionals – especially emerging creatives – are recognized and empowered to achieve their goals. That’s why this year, we’ve forged strategic entertainment partnerships focused on workshops, incubators, and fellowship programs to show our support for the creative industry.

TV & film festivals

In June, we partnered with Tribeca Enterprises: founded by Robert de Niro and Jane Rosenthal, it encompasses a studio, International Film Festival, creative development programs, and events.

We launched the Tribeca x Canva Creative Program, which consisted of five $20K kickstarter awards for filmmakers (to be announced next month), as well as a workshop series including "Creating a Dynamic Pitch Deck with Canva” co-hosted by filmmaker Krystal Tingle, and “Creating Film Marketing Materials with Canva”, co-hosted by Emmy-nominated producer Caroline Groppa. Canva was also the Presenting Partner of the Tribeca Director’s Brunch, celebrating the 150 Directors from the festival's selections.

Canva has been adopted internally by the Tribeca team as their Preferred Design Platform to build out branded templates and streamline social posts from all the Tribeca events, including their Live from the Red Carpet content series.

Also in June, we partnered with ATX TV Festival, a major festival attracting TV creatives to Austin for four days of programming, pitches, and networking. As well as showcasing our new industry templates at our “Creative Juices” pop-up, we sponsored the Writers Pitch competition, supporting finalists with virtual workshops and training on their pitch visuals along with Canva Pro subscriptions to help them create their most impactful pitches possible. It was the first time the competition pitches had featured visuals, making them much more engaging than in previous years.

Canva also served as the presenting partner for the inaugural PROOF, a short film festival in Los Angeles dedicated to showcasing the best in proof-of-concepts, hosted by the American Cinematheque and attended by 3200 people across 27 events. Providing a highly competitive and unique festival experience, as well as opening the door for fruitful future filmmaking opportunities, PROOF is a one-stop shop for the newest emerging talent.

Canva workshops and panels were integrated throughout the festival, including a Film Pitch Deck Show & Tell, “Crafting the Perfect Pitch” workshop and demo, and “Finding Your People With Canva and ColorCreative” panel.

We’ve also announced our partnership with SeriesFest, who have made Canva their Preferred Design Platform.

Any TV creator who uses the Canva template we co-designed with SeriesFest for their series format deck will have the opportunity to win the inaugural Outstanding Series Format Deck Award and a $5,000 cash prize, to be announced at the festival in Denver next May. There’s plenty more to come, so stay tuned!

Hoorae and ColorCreative

In March, we partnered with Hoorae, a US media production company formed by actress, writer and producer Issa Rae with the aim of elevating content and careers of and for BIPOC creatives.

Canva became the design platform used across all of Hoorae and its portfolio of companies, as well as powering Hoorae’s management company ColorCreative's Find Your People Program, a short film incubator/mentorship and development program for 28 up-and-coming BIPOC film creatives to tell impactful stories via short films that represent their communities.

In a filmed interview series with marketing leaders, entertainers, and thought leaders in creative industries at the Canva Villa at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Issa was interviewed about the importance of the Canva x FYPP partnership, and more recently sat down with Canva’s CMO Zach Kitschke on a LinkedIn Live event to chat about building brands rooted in community, passion, and purpose.

American Film Institute

Our partnership with leading US film school the American Film Institute aims to bolster rising filmmakers and improve access to the tools and skills to realize their visions. As of this year, the Canva Fellowship will begin providing annual $20,000 scholarships to six Fellows across each discipline at the AFI Conservatory based on merit and financial need.

We’re also providing Canva Pro subscriptions to 250 AFI Fellows and 1,000 AFI Conservatory Alumni, along with in-depth design training and workshops to support the next generation of storytellers.

Continuing to empower entertainment

We aren’t stopping there; we're committed to continuing to empower creatives in the entertainment industry with the resources to succeed and bring their vision to the world.

Through our ever-growing template collections designed with entertainment professionals in mind and our continued partnerships with industry institutions, we’re excited to foster the next generation of visual storytellers.

Ready to get your show on the road? Dive in and explore our resources for TV and film creatives.

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