Meet the Artlist $100k Fund winner

In September 2023, we announced our creator challenge to date – the Artlist $100k Fund. As part of our mission to empower our community to create, we challenged creators to pitch us an idea for their most mind-blowing video project. In return, we’d give one lucky winner $100,000 to bring their idea to life.

We want to inspire our community to think big and remember the crazy ideas that made them fall in love with film in the first place.

We received thousands of applications, and we’re blown away by the level of creativity and passion for filmmaking. But, in the end, we had to narrow it down to one incredible winner. So, without further ado, the winner is —Sent Into Space.

The winning idea

Our winners are a creative agency/engineering firm that specializes in making outer space accessible to the masses. Sent Into Space’s winning application is all about filming the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, from 100,000 feet above Earth.

The Sent Into Space team will travel to a remote part of northern Europe in the Arctic Circle to send their custom-designed cameras into space to film the northern lights from there. The team will film their journey in a documentary called Reaching for Light, which will share the logistical, physical, and emotional challenges, from modifying the camera systems to building the spacecraft and scouting the locations.

But the heart and soul of the project will be the footage: unprecedented, high-quality imagery of the aurora, closer than it’s ever been seen before. Sent Into Space believes this footage will provide a new perspective on the aurora, space, and planet Earth and inspire viewers to explore the mysteries and wonders of the universe.

The flight footage could be aired in full 360° form in a personal, immersive viewing experience using VR headsets or in a large-scale exhibition in a planetarium to create a meaningful contribution to science education.

About Sent Into Space

Sent Into Space was founded by Dr Chris Rose and Alex Baker in 2011. They met while they were completing their Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield and bonded over their love of space. Together, they started launching cameras into space to shoot incredible panoramas, launching their first flight from the back garden of Chris’ family home in 2010.

Sent Into Space is one of the most experimental and creative providers of Near Space launches. They’ve conducted flights to the upper stratosphere, launching World Cup trophies, Barbies, and bottles of tomato ketchup into space. Their work includes stunts for brands, space cinematography, scientific research, aerospace research, educational projects, and even ash scattering services.

They currently have 20 team members who wear a variety of different hats. Around four of the core team will be traveling to the Arctic Circle to execute this project, including Alex Keen, the communications and marketing manager.

“Our mission is to bring space a little closer to everyone,” Alex tells Artlist. “We’re always looking for ways to push the boundaries of what’s possible from a technology perspective and use engineering, complex cinematography, and aerospace technology to connect to deeply human stories.”

Creating without limits

Because Sent Into Space usually works to a brief, they’re often torn between their creative aspirations and the needs of their clients. “There’s always a slight tension between our favorite view – which is the unimpeded majesty of space – and the fact we have to put a product in front of it,” Alex says. “We love the creative challenge of that, but we’re happy to go and turn the camera on for ourselves and present and tell a story that doesn’t have a commercial message behind it but a more educational and informative one. Ultimately, we’re celebrating the beauty of the earth, just for the sake of it.”

It’s also an opportunity for the company to share their own culture and stories with their audience. “It’s exciting to show our personalities, which we’re not really able to do when creating something for a commercial client,” Alex says. “This project will be about us, our journey, and how we capture these images. We’re excited to share our passion with a wider audience.”

Empowering anyone to create

For Sent Into Space, this project is for the viewers just as much as for themselves. They hope that people who see the documentary and imagery will get a sense of what it’s like to be an astronaut exploring space, looking down at the earth and seeing the beauty of nature, and getting a sense of the scale of our planet and the scale of the beauty that’s out there.

“Reaching for Light will be a continuation of our drive to pursue a seemingly impossible thing,” Alex says. “We’re pushing the boundaries of technology, filmmaking, and bridging the gap between engineering and art.”

This project will also set them on the path to explore different facets of their creativity and accelerate their business goals in the future. “I would love for us to work on more cinematography projects,” Alex says. “Science Fiction has never been more popular in cinema, yet more and more of the imagery we see is CGI and computer-generated. Call me old-fashioned, but I think there’s something inspiring about knowing the footage you’re seeing is real. A pixel-perfect replication won’t capture the same emotional response from a viewer. So we’d love to use our skill set and expertise to elevate other creative work.”

Artlist’s mission is to empower people to create. With the $100k Fund, we can encourage some of the industry’s brightest minds to explore the unthinkable and push their creativity to its limits. Through this, our creatives can inspire the next generation of makers and continue to push the boundaries of film and innovation.