Like everyone in the culture industries, Screen Australia’s Lee Naimo wants to work with the best creative talent. Ideally, however, the collaboration would not only be successful, it would be a one-off.

“The dream scenario for us is that we fund someone once and then they go off and don’t need our support,” says Naimo, who as the head of online and games for the federal government’s screen production funding body is tasked with helping the next generation of Australian talent find their path online.

Whether the screen format is vertical (Instagram, TikTok) or horizontal (YouTube), Naimo and Screen Australia are trying to be the starting point towards self-sustaining careers. For neophyte directors, budding writers, and ambitious producers, it’s a strategy that immediately makes sense. Backing from Screen Australia is a stepping stone to larger commercial stakes, proof that a promising pitch can become viable content.

For actor and writer Miriam Glaser, whose guest roles include Utopia and Fires, Screen Australia’s Online Production fund is the reason she and her collaborator, director Charlotte George (Surviving Summer), can call themselves showrunners. The duo’s new YouTube series, Buried, is a seditious black comedy that unfolds over five micro-episodes, each approximately six minutes in length. It’s a broadcast-quality calling card.

“There’s a huge jump from making a little film with your mates and buying them a slab as thanks for using their camera gear, and being able to go to an international production company and pitch a concept to them,” Glaser says. “There’s so little funding available that companies are reluctant to take a chance on you if you don’t have a track record. But the Online Production fund bridges that gap. You get a bit of money, not a lot, but then you can go to the big companies with a product to show what you can do with a little backing.”

“If you’re pitching for a $3 million budget, they want to see what you could do with a $300,000 budget,” Naimo says. “It’s about the talent and a proof of ability. People will know that the team, that writer, producer, that director can make something that looks great, tells a story in a setting, and they understand how to work with a budget of a certain size and scale. That then steps them up to the next opportunity.”

Buried is a sharply witty critique of the excessive expectations placed on the mothers of young children, but it’s told as a tense crime thriller. For single mother of two Abi (Glaser), school drop-off gets extra complicated when she accidentally kills a cyclist. Harried and terrified – she types “manslaughter prison time” into her phone – Abi decides that for the good of her children she will say nothing and dispose of the body. Cue trying to dig a grave while nursing a baby.

“As absurd as this situation is, and as dark and weird as it gets, I hope it has this deeper level which is the relentlessness of parenting, the impossible standards put on mothers, and the grey area between right and wrong,” Glaser says. “Hopefully the conundrum this single mum finds herself in is something where people will go: ‘What would I do?’ She’s always trying to be a good mum, even when she’s burying a corpse. It’s taken to an extreme level, but when you do that it can still expose what some parents feel.”