Mitchell Block - Docunomics

iTunes and Shorts International Royalty Report… What’s the deal?

2012-01-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

Reprinted by Permission of the author.

Note: This article demonstrates the problem with having agents and other middlemen and then using a distributor to share streaming and other revenue..

Mitchell Block

by Chris on December 2, 2011 in Distribution, Gone Fishing

iTunes and Shorts International Royalty Report… What’s the deal?

By Chris on December 2, 2011 in Distribution, Gone Fishing

I thought I would share the recent sales report I got from iTunes via Network Ireland for my short Gone Fishing. The report landed on my desk around the same time as VFX expert Russ Wharton emailed me from his iPhone commenting that Gone Fishing is still charting VERY highly on iTunes shorts – when he took this frame grab we were at 14. I have occasionally checked in and we are usually toward the top of the charts, which is great news.

So how do the figures correspond?

Well this figures are for woldwide sales for one year, ending 30th June 2011 (reported to me late November).

Total sales = £1,480 from which iTunes take a 30% cut.

Then Shorts International take a 20% programming fee.

From that balance Shorts International take a 50% commission.

From that balance, Network Ireland (my sales agents who are really great I have to say) take a 30% fee.

The remaining balance then comes to me. So from that £1,480, I get £290.26.

I did a lovely chart to make the point even clearer.

I have no problem with Apple, I think 30% is fair.

I have no problem with Network Ireland, I think 30% is fair.

But Shorts International taking a 20% programming fee (what is that?) and then a 50% cut is rather unfair.

Apple will not deal with Network Ireland, they only distribute shorts through Shorts International. So it seems I do have a problem with Apple after all.

Why won’t Apple even consider opening up their platform for creative people to sell their work? They are soooo happy to sell us the tools. They own the best distribution tool right now. But they won’t even entertain the conversation.

I you want to read the whole royalty report, you can download it here…see below

If you want to know how I made Gne Fishing, there is a full two day workshop online here…
www.GoneFishingSeminar.com

And you can buy the DVD, BluRay or watch online here…
www.BuyGoneFishing.com

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspiritgroup.com
www.ProductionOffice.org
e: mail@livingspirit.com

Sample Royalty Report:

Poster Girl Brings Home Award Professor Wins IDA Award

2011-12-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

Published December 6, 2011

USC School of Cinematic Arts News

http://youtu.be/KJqfp76hOaA (Link to Trailer)

“I was delighted that our film was selected,” said Block. “It’s the first film for the director. It’s the second time I’ve mentored a first time filmmaker to an Oscar or a nomination. It’s always gratifying.”

Block decided to produce the controversial subject after seeing a cut of Nesson’s first documentary about PTSD, which included some footage of Murray.

Professor Block, Sara Nesson and Robynn Murray at the 2011 Academy Awards

“[Nesson] was asking me to help on another documentary she was doing about post-traumatic stress where Robynn was one of many characters,” said Block. “When I watched the rough cut, I asked her about her footage with Robynn and I asked her to string it out for me. When you think about it from a teaching point of view, we basically made a short film out of material that had been discarded.”

As a filmmaker, Block has marketed and distributed films that have won twenty-five Oscars, have been nominated for seventy-one and is personally nominated for Poster Girl.

“Here you have this amazing observational material,” continued Block. “I think it’s a very convincing story. My background is in fiction. It’s about story and story arc. So few student films get there. You realize that, when you’re telling stories, it’s incredibly important to pick material that has emotional and intellectual content.”

For more information on Poster Girl, please visit http://www.postergirlthemovie.com/

Poster Girl tells the story of Robynn Murray, a woman who served in Iraq and returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. The film was directed by first time director Sara Nesson and produced by Peter Stark Producing Program adjunct professor Mitchell Block. The film was recently awarded the International Documentary Association’s Award for Best Short Documentary and was also nominated for the 2011 Academy Award.

Tips on Securing Broadcast on National Public Television

2011-04-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

Filmmaker and station relations consultant Jennifer Owensby Sanza shares the advice she gathered from mentors and firsthand experience about how to secure public television broadcast.
March 21st, 2011 | Jennifer Owensby Sanza

Getting my first documentary, The Teachings of Jon, broadcast nationally on public television felt like walking through a minefield, blindfolded. As a recipient of a completion funds grant from Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), I was fortunate to have the best mentors to guide me through the process. Now when I work with other filmmakers, I’ve noticed that some of the mistakes I made are quite common, and easily remedied. Here are some important tips to help you avoid major pitfalls on your way to a national public television broadcast.

Get the Most out of Your Rejections.
Rejections are never fun. And after you’ve spent all of your money and years of your life making your film, it’s easy to take every one personally. Your friends will tell you “it isn’t personal.” Fact is, it’s totally personal. Yes, your film could be rejected simply because one person on a panel had an issue with it. So face the truth, if you’re a documentary filmmaker, you need to get used to rejections and learn how to make the most of them. Ask the person rejecting you if they would be so kind as to explain why. And then listen, and write everything down. Don’t defend yourself. Just listen and thank her or him. Decision-makers can provide some of the most helpful feedback to improve your chances of a national PBS broadcast. I always advise producers to submit their program to ITVS even though it would be a miracle for a program to be accepted on a first try. You can trust that folks at ITVS know what PBS wants and they offer extremely helpful feedback from inside the system.

Be Mindful with Film Credits.
As a PBS fan and filmmaker, if you’re like me, you dream of one day hearing the all too familiar voice saying, “Funding for this program was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.” And by all means, if you have that, allow me to bow. If you’re like the most of us however, you’re so grateful for any support that anyone offers along the way that you’ll give an executive producer credit just to say thank you! STOP RIGHT THERE! However desperate you are, don’t extend credits lightly. Many producers don’t realize that credits have specific meaning, and if you imply in any way that an organization or foundation had any editorial say so in your documentary, then you unknowingly put your film in the “infomercial” category. And that will disqualify your film from PBS broadcast. It’s very simple, but many producers make this mistake. Unless you are offered a whole lot of money, leave organizations in the “thank you” credits!

When One Door Closes, Go to the Next One.
Other cable channels may be known for producing some pretty good documentaries, but only public television has the potential to reach 99 percent of homes in the country. And let’s face it, having your documentary air on PBS’s national schedule or in an award-winning series such as POV or Independent Lens is the top of the heap. After pouring your heart into making your dream film, a pass from those programs can be really discouraging. Many producers don’t realize that within the PBS world there’s also APT (American Public Television) and NETA (National Educational Telecommunications Association). After being rejected by POV and Independent Lens, I took my film to APT, and they loved it. The rejection turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The Teachings of Jon is a great family film and through APT, my film was actually carried by more stations than it would have been on POV, and it aired during family-friendly timeslots (POV usually airs at 10 pm). So even if The Teachings of Jon had been accepted on POV, it wouldn’t have been the best way to reach the audience for my particular film.

Everyone Has an Ego.
After investing years of our lives and all of our resources into our films, we artists and filmmakers sometimes forget that the “suits” have egos too. Remember that whether they are part of a selection committee for a series or a festival, or a programmer from a major PBS station—these gatekeepers decide how many people see your work. And it took them just as long as you to work up to their important position. Present your film in the best possible way. Spend the extra $250 to get your DVD screeners professionally made so that they play well and look great. The point is not to annoy the one you are trying to impress with a homemade DVD that stops every four minutes. If you are Ken Burns or Michael Moore, feel free to write on your DVD with a sharpie. Everyone else should stick with a four-color print cover, including your contact info. It’s about making an impression for less, not making less of an impression. And, if and when they reject you, don’t cuss them out and tell others they are stupid for rejecting your film. Instead, use your inside voice. You’d be surprised how many producers don’t get this one!

Ye Must Please The Gods.
To a filmmaker, whoever is in the position to decide who sees your film is God. So if you want the best shot at getting your film aired nationally on public television, then you have to make the Gods an offer they can’t refuse. In other words, give them a program that is easy to schedule. Make sure it meets PBS standards. Familiarize yourself with the PBS guidelines in the PBS Red Book, a Guide to Program Packaging and Delivery for PBS. It’s best if you inform yourself of these guidelines before you start. I am so grateful that a producer told me before I began filming that the sound was more important than picture. You can cut away from a bad picture. But if you have bad sound, you’re screwed from the get go. And please, don’t think or even imagine that because your one-off documentary is so good that all the PBS programmers will be willing to create a new special timeslot just for you. It’s not going to happen. If you have a one-off and not a series, you give them what is easiest to program, a PBS hour, 56:46. Period. (Yes, they will accept an exceptional 86:46 program; it’s not out of the question. However, if you can cut it down to a PBS hour, that’s easiest for them to schedule.)

Do Things in the Right Order.
Because PBS has the highest technical broadcast standards, you want to make sure to save your final color and sound mix until the very end and hire someone who is familiar with the PBS Red Book specs. Many producers end up paying extra in post because they thought they’d save money having all the colorization and sound tracks done in the final edit at their local post house, only to find out it didn’t meet PBS specs and had to be redone.

If You Want National, Don’t Go Local.
Many producers make the mistake of rushing to their local PBS station, begging them to air their program. STOP RIGHT THERE! Yes, it is important to find out if you have the support of your local station—you may want to partner with them as a presenting station down the road. But don’t air the program anywhere until you have exhausted EVERY national opportunity first (and there are several). Airing locally may disqualify your program for national broadcast.

Never Underestimate the Importance of a Good Hook.
I worked with a producer on her wonderful film, The Dhamma Brothers, about bringing an ancient Buddhist meditation practice into the Alabama maximum-security prison with transformational results. It won awards at just about every festival it showed, the audience loved it, critics loved it, even programmers loved it. And yet, there is no special “Effective Prison Reform Month.” With no “month” dedicated to the subject matter of your film or no particular “hook,” programmers may have a difficult time scheduling it. The result is the momentum of an entire national rollout can get lost. So, if there is any special month dedicated to the subject matter of your film or a special anniversary, try to coordinate your airdate schedule to that month. And remember, plan on six to nine months from the time of acceptance to broadcast.

As an example, if you are to offer your documentary to public television through APT in their November offer, you won’t air until April of the following year, at the earliest. When my mentors asked me what my distribution plan was, I just looked at them cockeyed. Now I understand the importance of knowing how to maximize your broadcast opportunity. My motto, when you have no money, is get creative and take advantage of every free opportunity. With careful planning you can set yourself up in the best possible way by keeping the timing in mind as you work toward your goal of airing nationally on public television to the widest audience possible.

Most of all, don’t give up too early! You didn’t work hard for all these years making your dream come true just to give up after one measly rejection from someone who obviously doesn’t get how great you or your film is. If you have produced a well-made documentary, with tech specs of PBS quality picture and sound, about a socially relevant subject told in an interesting way, in the perfect time length of 56:46, I can guarantee you will increase your chances tremendously for national broadcast on public television.

Click here to learn about the difference between CPB, PBS, and NPR.

Editor's Note: We're aware of the legislation introduced on March 3rd, and passed by the House on March 17th, to eliminate federal funding of public radio and television. If you have news or opinions, please share them here or on The Independent's Facebook fan page

Jennifer Owensby Sanza produced The Teachings of Jon with the funding support of Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the guidance of amazing mentors within PBS world along the way. The Teachings of Jon won the 2007 National Telly Award, becoming one of public television’s most popular documentaries. Currently at work on a sequel, Jennifer also consults with producers about all aspects of distribution on national public television. You can reach her at: Jennifer@wakingheartfilms.com. Used by Permission of the Author.

The New Golden Age of Documentaries

2010-11-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

This article published in the Guardian discusses how the new technologies are making production of docs more artistically interesting. Despite the huge number of docs being
produced, it still does mean we're getting many "great" ones.

I think this article is excellent in terms of discussing this growth of production.
A link to the original article follows:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/07/documentary-digital-revolution-sean-ohagan

Camera, laptop, action: the new golden age of documentary

From Kevin MacDonald's examination of the YouTube phenomenon to a cab ride with Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard, cheap technology is allowing film-makers to stretch the form as never before

Sean O'Hagan
The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010
Article history

British documentary maker Lucy Walker: 'People are looking for bigger truths about the way we live'. Photograph: Lucy Walker

"

Right now, documentary film-making is like malaria," says Hussain Currimbhoy, curator of the Sheffield Doc/Fest, Britain's premier showcase for new documentaries from around the world. "It's a virus that's spreading fast and far and wide."

In the past week, the festival has screened 120 new documentaries – including shorts as well as feature-length films – from 26 countries. As well as fly-on-the wall documentaries about well-known figures, such as the American comedian Joan Rivers and the English playwright Alan Bennett, there were music documentaries about subjects as diverse as Elgar and Heaven 17, and biographical documentaries about the beat poet William Burroughs, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and a taxi driver who once worked as Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard.

This year, the festival also focused on low-budget films about everyday life and politics in the Middle East, made as Currimbhoy puts it "by people who really needed to tell their stories and can suddenly afford to do it on film". He seems genuinely excited, even by the films that have arrived on his desk unsolicited and not made it on to the festival programme.

"There is definitely a new energy out there. We are living in a moment when film-makers, and young film-makers in particular, are increasingly turning towards documentary as a way to make sense of the world they live in. They are more alert about, and suspicious of, the mainstream media and eager for a form that talks to them about real events in a real way, even if that form is often rough or even low-key. It's a very exciting and ground-breaking time for the documentary."

This view is echoed by the young British director Lucy Walker, whose latest film, Waste Land, opened to rave reviews across America two weeks ago (the film is out here in March). It tracks the artist Vik Muniz as he travels from Brooklyn to his native Brazil to undertake an unlikely creative collaboration with the "catadores" – garbage pickers – who scavenge a living on the world's biggest garbage dump in Rio. It is a film, says Walker, about "the transformative power of art" and one that utilises the grammar of fictional film-making to tell a real-life story that is as uplifting and redemptive as any fictional feelgood movie.

"I really do think we are living in a golden age of documentary film-making," says Walker, over the phone from Los Angeles, where she is currently on a frantic promotional schedule. "There is a frustration with traditional media and a hunger for documentaries that have the stamp of integrity. The week it opened, my film was number one at the box office in terms of what they call 'per-screen average attendance'. Of all the movies playing in America, a Portuguese-language documentary about the lives of people living on a garbage dump in South America had the highest per-screen average across America. That tells me that people are looking for bigger truths about the way we live now, truths they are not getting from Hollywood or the traditional media."

To a degree, this has always been the case, but today, with the coming of affordable high-end digital camera and laptop technology, it is possible to prep, shoot and edit your own film in a fraction of the time – and the budget – it would take to make a traditional film. In many ways, cheap technology has energised film-making for a fast-forward generation who have little time for the slowness of traditional script-based film-making. "I've been in development hell for four years for a fiction film that never got made," says Walker, bullishly. "I don't have that kind of time to waste. I want to get on and make films that I think need to be made."

The availability of cheap digital cameras and software has also meant that, for every campaigning film like Walker's more hard-hitting nuclear weapons documentary, Countdown to Zero (released in March next year), or Charles Ferguson's Inside Job, a riveting, clear-headed exposé of the ruthless financial tsars behind the 2008 global financial meltdown (due next February), there are a host of smaller, stranger documentaries being made, many of which seem to push the boundaries of the form almost to breaking point.

In Exit Though the Gift Shop, released earlier this year, Banksy, the world's most famous street artist and arch art-prankster of our time, plays havoc with notions of authorial "reliability" and takes the audience on an entertainingly self-referential rollercoaster ride that says more about the baroque pointlessness of contemporary youth culture than it perhaps intended.

One of the most ground-breaking documentaries of the year, though, is also one of the most complex, formally and emotionally. The Arbor (released last month) is a film about the short and brutal life of dramatist Andrea Dunbar (writer of the 1986 film, Rita, Sue and Bob Too), who died from alcoholism at the age of 29. Director Clio Barnard restages short extracts from Dunbar's work using actors on the estate in Bradford where Dunbar grew up. The director also uses actors to lip-synch to recorded testimony from Dunbar's friends, family and grownup children. This has proved problematic as well as distracting to some reviewers although, as the Guardian's film critic, Peter Bradshaw, noted, the end result is a kind of "hyper-real intensification of the pain in Dunbar's work and in her life". All human life, it seems, can now be reassembled, and sometimes even creatively reinvented, by contemporary documentary directors.

Many recent documentary films also denote a generational shift in both style and subject matter away from the political and outward-looking, towards the emotional and solipsistic. One could argue that Catfish (out here next month), currently the most talked about documentary of the year in the US, is one such film. It is a documentary for – and about – the Facebook generation and it was made possible, says co-director Henry Joost, "by technology that is available to anyone. You can now buy a consumer-level digital camera for $400 [£246] or less that shoots in HD [high definition] and that still looks pretty good when blown up on a cinema screen. This really is an anyone-can-do-it moment for film-making."

Catfish chronicles the odd relationship between a young, hip and handsome New York photographer, Nev Schulman, and Abby, an eight-year-old who initially sends him an unsolicited painting of one of his published photographs. She lives, she says, in rural Michigan with her mother and her sister, a horse-riding, guitar-playing beauty who flirts with Nev shamelessly via phone texts and email. It all seems too good to be true and it is, though in ways that are surprising and, at times, affecting.

Made in a seamless vérité style by Nev's brother, Ariel Schulman, and his friend, Joost, two young men who seem to chronicle every waking hour of their lives on camera, Catfish is essentially a film about narcissism and self-delusion in the social networking age. There is a sting in this particular tale – and one that would be giving too much away to talk about here. Depending on where you are coming from, however, this unlikely twist is either redemptive or exploitative. You may come away, as I did, feeling both charmed and manipulated, wondering if real life could ever be as unreal as this. Are we seeing a film that unfolded alongside the events it portrays, or a retouched version of the same. And, more pertinently, how retouched?

"It really was an unbelievable perfect storm of circumstances and events that led to this film being made," insists Joost. "We're a little compulsive, systematic. We are all making home movies all the time. It's kind of like fishing. Then, suddenly, we found a story right under our noses. Our friend, who's sitting right in our office, was the story. We just followed it to see where it led. I really do feel that my life as a film-maker – all the dumb jobs, the commercial work, the videos – all led up to this moment."

Catfish may indeed herald an age when the quotidian can become prime subject matter for documentarists – this has already happened with photography. With one or two exceptions, everyone in the film seems to live lives that are so mediated by the grammar of reality television and docudrama that they behave as if they are somehow both utterly knowing and wilfully naive. Like Banksy's film, Catfish may ultimately say more about the emotional shallowness of the culture it betrays than its makers intended.

"There is a sense that the grand narratives are gone and that people are now living in an age of uncertainty, and documentary increasingly reflects that," says the film-maker, Adam Curtis, who has made two ground-breaking documentary series for the BBC: The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares, each of which illustrated in their different ways how ideologies of power work on the collective imagination. "Traditionally, documentaries were part of a progressive tradition, a progressive machine. They provoked us or inspired us to do something. I would contend that, when politicians turned into managers, that system did not work any more and even big budget, well-meaning, measured documentaries, like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, leave us perplexed and helpless rather than angry and politically energised. At the other extreme, you have films like Catfish that noodle about with the intimacy of feelings. Here, people know the grammar of feelings, they know how to act on camera and how to emote formally, while real feelings, which are of course messy and complicated, are hidden."

Back in 1935, the pioneering British documentary film-maker, Paul Rotha, declared: "Above all, documentary must reflect the problems and realities of the present." Rotha was a socially conscious director who believed, like many of his contemporaries, that the role of the documentary film-maker was to help change the world for the better. One wonders what he would have made of The Arbor, Catfish, or Exit Through the Gift Shop, all of which undoubtedly "reflect the problems and realities of the present", but in ways that Rotha could not have envisaged. In doing so, they don't set out to change the world but rather to question the nature or reality, truth and, indeed, documentary itself.

"The form is certainly being stretched more than ever," says the director Kevin MacDonald, who has made feature films (The Last King of Scotland), documentaries (One Day in September) and merged the two (Touching the Void). "But documentary is a generous basket that can hold a lot of different things. If you think about it, journalism, letter-writing, memoir, satire – they all qualify as non-fiction, so why can't the same loose rules apply to documentary?"

To this end, MacDonald is currently working on the first feature-length documentary made entirely of user-generated content shot in a single day and then uploaded on to YouTube. Called Life In A Day, the impressionistic film is currently being edited down by MacDonald from 5,000 hours of footage from 190 countries. It will premiere as a three-hour documentary at next year's Sundance festival. "It's amateur film-making on a grand scale," says MacDonald. "But, because the participants are often showing such incredibly intimate things that you could not get in a traditional documentary unless you spent months filming, it is also ground-breaking in ways that we did not expect."

In the end, says MacDonald, it all comes down to great storytelling. "The irony is that, when I make a documentary, I always feel like I am taking all this real material and trying to tell a story almost as if it was a fictional narrative. When I make a fictional film, I do the opposite."

Documentary, as MacDonald reminds us, is essentially structured reality. "The only real breaking point," he adds, "is when documentary actually becomes fiction, but more often than not, as many great documentaries testify, real life does often turn out to be a hell of a lot stranger than anything you could make up."

That is perhaps the reason why its boundaries are currently being stretched – to keep up with the increasing unreality of the real world.

Correspondence With An Actor

2010-08-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

This last week I received a string of e-mails from a New York based actor. While nothing surprises me anymore, the level of disconnect between "reality" and "the business" was so striking I am reprinting the e-mails, only changing details out of respect to the privacy of the actor.

(Photo: courtesy Columbia Pictures)

In a message dated 08/26/10 10:47:43 Pacific Daylight Time, the actor writes:

Hello,
I am a young NY actor starting out and I am looking for any way I can into indy films? Right now I am literally being evicted and eating canned beans it sucks!, so I have to make any attempt I can to make my passion work, please understand. You never know if you don't try.

I love the look, story, and feeling of alot of the indy films and I would do anything to play a part of one of them. Can you possibly offer me any advice in how to get into one of these films? Or any help whatsoever(maybe even forwarding this to a friend, life is a chain reaction), it would mean the world to me because my future is at steak right now. Have a great day!

Thanks,

The Actor

BLOCK'S RESPONSE

Hi,

Acting in film (or theater) is not a profession.

It's a hobby.

My advice, get an education and training and work at something you love and do acting as a hobby until it can become a career.

Until your name can raise money or sell tickets it can only be a hobby. There is no reason to hire you.

I say this as a producer. It's not personal, it's just reality.

Actors until they can sell tickets are interchangeable.

Even if you're "great" it still is a haul to be a "star."

It also requires a bit of luck. Being in the right place at the right time. Being part of a television show that works (season after season), etc.

Even actors who have been in multiple seasons of a show can't get work regularly.

I don't mean to be discouraging but this approach (your letter) suggests a fundamental disconnect from a sense of reality in terms of how the business works.

I can't even open your head shot? Why wasn't it sent as a PDF? or a JPEG?

Independent films are struggling because there is no "there" there. How do you get paying parts?

Get breakdowns and go to hundreds of auditions for parts that call for your physical type. (I have no idea what that is.)

Hope this is helpful.

Mitchell

The Actor's Response

Hello,

My passion is to deep in my bones to ever consider it a hobby, even if that is what it is by definition.

I studied for two years full time at (an acting program) and I finished this June.

I don't take your comments personally, I know exactly who I am. (don't take that the wrong way, I mean no offense)

No reason to hire me though? Are you NUTS! I am a talented actor, writer, and producer, and I use to kill in all the comedy clubs in NYC(and more, but I wont bore you.)- but i want to do drama and film now. I am in the process of filming my second short film- I can shake and move with the best of them. I just have no money, I am doing my damnedest to make connections (I'm a fighter), you should admire that! But who am I to tell a producer what think, I'm just an actor right LOL.

I never said anything about being a "Star", I don't care about stardom, I just want to work with like minded individuals to make art that inspires the people who see it. (thats me)

You say it takes luck, I say everyone who is persistent gets lucky.

Look I realize I had no resume, perhaps I should have, but I am just starting out, as I just mentioned above, and my resume is weak (I was afraid people might see it and just automatically dismiss me)

My heroes like (Dennis Hopper) started out with very very small parts on TV, hell James Dean did a Pepsi add for 30 dollars.

The fact is that someone helped them at some point, they were not stars!

They didn't care about that I believe, they were storytellers.

I've been out of school for 2 months and I have been on as many auditions as I could, and I continue, its tough as hell, so thought I need to make more of an effort. Even if that means emailing people like yourself. Cause someone will make the connection and help me. I believe.

I'm not limiting myself to Indy film, but I thought that would be a good place to start.

Personally I think you should be the one to help me, don't you remember how hard it was starting out?

If you don't, I'm probably talking to the wrong guy.

The Actor

p.s. just calling it like a see it, just like you did, and what you said was very fair and appreciated.

p.p.s. I'm an actor, not an English major.

Block's Response (Bold and Italics)

Hello,
My passion is to deep in my bones to ever consider it a hobby, even if that is what it is by definition.

I am not suggesting that your desire to succeed is wrong, your drive or ambition.
ALL of that is fine.

What you're missing is that the business of being an actor is being between work, between jobs.

In order to support yourself you should see acting as a serious hobby and not a business. Get a well paying job that will allow you to go to auditions.

This will allow you to pursue your craft and dream.

When you are cast, they should allow you to take a day off or more to do the part.

Then while you're building a career you can make a nice living.

I studied for two years full time at (an acting program) and I finished this June.

I don't take your comments personally, I know exactly who I am. (don't take that the wrong way, I mean no offense)

No reason to hire me though? Are you NUTS! I am a talented actor, writer, and producer, and I use to kill in all the comedy clubs in NYC(and more, but I wont bore you.)- but i want to do drama and film now. I am in the process of filming my second short film- I can shake and move with the best of them. I just have no money, I am doing my damnedest to make connections (I'm a fighter), you should admire that! But who am I to tell a producer what think, I'm just an actor right LOL.

Again, there is a fundamental misunderstand about the business. I am a producer. I don't hire actors, I don't pick actors.

I work with a director, a studio, a network, a casting director. I do select the "star" if the "star" working on my picture will get it made. I don't ever get involved with casting the roles. It's inappropriate. That's the director's job.

I never said anything about being a "Star", I don't care about stardom, I just want to work with like minded individuals to make art that inspires the people who see it. (thats me)

I am only using the term "star" to refer to an actor that by agreeing to "star" in my project will enable me to make a sale to a studio or network.

You say it takes luck, I say everyone who is persistent gets lucky.

The luck, is that you not only need a great role, you need to be part of a work that will be a solid work. Most films are terrible.

Being is a terrible film but being a great actor does not provide a lot of help for moving a career.

Look I realize I had no resume, perhaps I should have, but I am just starting out, as I just mentioned above, and my resume is weak (I was afraid people might see it and just automatically dismiss me)

Your resume is fine. You are starting out. That's the point I am trying to make.

Since I can't raise funds with your being attached to my project--I can't cast you.

I can only cast actors that will enable me to make a deal.

Neither good not bad. Not connected to you at all.

That's just the way it is.

My heroes like (Dennis hopper) started out with very very small parts on TV, hell James Dean did a Pepsi add for 30 dollars.

The fact is that someone helped them at some point, they were not stars!

Hopper was in over 200 parts (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000454/)
This started in 1954.

Two Oscar nominations (writing and acting)

Perhaps 8 projects won awards (for writing, directing and even some acting)

Despite these wonderful parts, filmmaking, etc. he was not all that financially successful as an actor.

Judging from the parts, the credits etc. he struggled a lot for parts and opportunities.

They didn't care about that I believe, they were storytellers.

I've been out of school for 2 months and I have been on as many auditions as I could, and I continue, its tough as hell, so thought I need to make more of an effort. Even if that means emailing people like yourself. Cause someone will make the connection and help me. I believe.

I'm not limiting myself to Indy film, but I thought that would be a good place to start.

Personally I think you should be the one to help me, don't you remember how hard it was starting out?

If you don't, I'm probably talking to the wrong guy.

Again, I don't hire actors--I am a producer. Mostly focus on doc series.

SO while I can't hire you I am trying to encourage you and provide some useful info.

Good luck to you.

I feel confident that if you're given an opportunity you'll be fine.

My next few projects are docs.

Best
The Actor

p.s. just calling it like a see it, just like you did, and what you said was very fair and appreciated.

p.p.s. I'm an actor, not an English major

A Filmmakers' Guide to Capitol Hill by Will Jenkins

2010-08-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

Will Jenkins Guide was originally published in International Documentary which is the publication of the International Documentary Association. Follows is a link:
http://www.documentary.org/magazine/filmmakers-guide-capitol-hill

Mr. Jenkins is allowing this story to be reprinted in Docunomics. I think it's a really helpful story.

A Filmmakers' Guide to Capitol Hill by Will Jenkins

Many documentary filmmakers are driven by a desire not only to tell compelling stories but also to have an impact on public policies and laws. When such filmmakers see an injustice or abuse, they may make great sacrifices to bring the truth to light in hopes that change will come. The journey often brings them to the doors of Congress, where so many policies are made and amended.

This can lead to an awkward interaction with policymakers, who at times are part of the problem, yet whose leadership is needed to be part of the solution.

Having worked in communications for over a decade with social change organizations and on Capitol Hill, I have heard frustrations vented from both sides--certain politicians may seem too risk-averse, too beholden to powerful interest groups, while certain activists may appear too idealistic, too dogmatic to accept any compromise. And if you see a kid coming at you with a videocamera...

However, filmmakers and policymakers have much to gain by trying to understand each other better and by finding ways to work together more productively, when appropriate. After all, many policymakers, like many filmmakers, are doing this because they want to make a difference, to save the world--or at least some piece of it.

To put it another way, filmmakers create compelling stories that need action, while lawmakers take actions that need compelling stories, in order for the public to understand and support these actions. For example, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter is an outspoken advocate for food safety. Last year she introduced the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act to make sure antibiotics used in farm animals do not harm humans. However, as she told Reuters news service, "We're up against a pretty strong lobby. It will really come down to whether members of Congress want to protect their constituents or agribusiness."

Fortuitously, the documentary film Food, Inc. was released around the same time. According to Sonny Sinha, one of her staffers, Rep. Slaughter established a relationship with filmmakers Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein and then hosted a special screening for policymakers in Washington, DC. This high-profile screening increased the film's national exposure, which brought food-safety issues to the forefront of public discussion. Rep. Slaughter followed the screening with a Congressional hearing on the same topic. By the end of the year, her bill had 100 co-sponsors and a related food safety bill was passed in the House of Representatives.

This is one example of how filmmaking can have a positive, synergistic relationship with policymaking.

The Policymaking Process

If you want your film to impact policy, it is important to have a clear strategy of where in the policymaking process it can have maximum impact.

Here are some potential entry points in that process:

1) Raising Awareness--Determine your target audience (the public, lawmakers, agency officials, staff, etc.) and find a message or story that will motivate them to action.

2) Building/Promoting a Coalition--Your film may raise the profile of a coalition already doing good work on the issue or inspire a new coalition to form when people realize they share a common cause.

3) Introducing a Bill--A powerful film can inspire lawmakers or their staff to work on new legislation to remedy the problem. The introduction of a bill helps raise the profile of an issue.

4) Holding a Hearing/Investigation--As noted in the example above, films can raise the profile of otherwise routine hearings and help build momentum.

5) Passing a Bill (House, Senate, Conference, President)--A bill's passage usually requires grassroots support. A film can help mobilize the public engagement needed to achieve the passage of a bill.

6) Enforcing Current Law--Sometimes the right laws are already in place but are not properly enforced. A film can raise awareness and pressure officials to do their jobs correctly.

Even if you don't see results right away, films can play an important role in keeping an issue alive until there is sufficient momentum to achieve a solution. It may take years to achieve success. Even if you succeed in making changes, vigilance is required to make sure that the new policies are correctly carried out.

There is also the campaign side of politics--supporting or opposing votes for candidates, ballot measures, etc.--which I won't focus on here, but on which films can have a significant effect.

Building Relationships

Politics is all about relationships and trust. If you want your film to have an impact in Washington, it's important to partner early with like-minded advocacy groups as well as policymakers and their staff. Including interviews with policymakers themselves can raise the profile of your film, as well as encourage investment in the issue from the policymaker down the road. Lining up the right interviews can be a frustrating process, so what follows are a few pointers.

1) Finding the Right Policymaker--You may want to look beyond the famous or high-profile personalities, whose agendas are already crowded, to find someone more knowledgeable on, or with a personal connection to, your topic. Building a relationship with a policymaker who is actually invested will make a big difference. Newly-elected members may be more open to taking a lead on a breaking issue and to investing time and energy to advocate for change.

2) Develop Relationships with Nonprofit and Advocacy Groups who support the issues in your film. Such groups often have established relationships with members of Congress and can help steer you in the right direction.

3) Be Aware of the Constituents That an Elected Official Represents--It can be counterproductive to ask a politician to publicly advocate for an issue that may go against the best interests of his or her constituents. It is better to identify allies who can freely associate with your message. For this reason, it is important to be honest about your agenda from the start.

4) Work Closely with the Policymaker's Staff to prepare for the interview. Staffers on Capitol Hill can help in many ways beyond basic logistics, such as giving you valuable advice and even potential anecdotes to bring up during your interview.

5) Be Persistent in Your Efforts to Schedule an Interview--Even if a policymaker supports your agenda, there are thousands of other responsibilities to manage. Don't take it personally if the schedule changes at the last minute. Capitol Hill is an unpredictable place where crises are a normal occurrence and schedules are in constant flux.

6) Prepare Some Selling points Beforehand to Make Your Case--Lawmakers always look for good stories to tell that support their policy agendas. Many times, filmmakers can discover and develop powerful stories that traditional news media and policymakers don't have time to find. Lawmakers also want their story to be told, particularly when they are fighting for a cause they believe in. So it is helpful to research their values and priorities and how your film may be able to give voice to these.

7) Establish Truth with Your Interview Subject--While guerilla-style documentaries have their place, in most cases you do not want to blindside or otherwise make your subject feel attacked during the interview. Again, trust is important and you probably don't want to develop a reputation for misleading policymakers. Even if you disagree with a policymaker, it will benefit your film and your chances for future interviews on Capitol Hill if you let them fully explain their position rather than taking their words out of context. Presenting these deep disagreements honestly will increase public understanding and hopefully encourage progress.

Promoting Solutions

When portraying politics in films and documentaries, as well as in the news media, it's easy to take shortcuts, oversimplify or fall back on old stereotypes. For the sake of your audiences and the democratic process, please take time to understand and to educate. Documentaries actually have a greater chance of doing this well than cable news, with its short segments and real-time analysis. Congress is complicated, but citizens need to grasp how and why policies are the way they are, so they can engage effectively.

While there are many easy targets to attack (i.e., bills are long, the federal government is big, corporations are greedy, etc.), identifying practical answers can be much harder. Try to show workable solutions. If audiences later demand solutions based on faulty evidence or unrealistic proposals, it only makes the process more difficult.

Nothing is ever final in Washington: Bills may pass but not be signed; laws may not be enforced or may be changed. So there is always an opportunity to make a difference if you are prepared.

Will Jenkins has worked in media production, social action and political communications for the last decade. He currently works in the United States Congress. This essay is drawn from a panel presentation at the 2010 AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival. For questions or further information, he can be contacted at 202-228-5258.

Why Microbudget FIlmmaking Sucks

2010-08-09T08:26:00.001-07:00

Crafty on a makeshift table--a trash bin.
(Photo: Anton Delfino's Craft Disservice)
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2010 by Mynette Louie
http://mynettelouie.com/

Note: I am repeatedly asked about Microbudget filmmaking. I respond and say that feature filmmaking is for professionals, Microbudget filmmaking is really what I consider home movie making.

I think it's critical that filmmakers and their casts (if working with actors) are paid for time and work. If one wants to make an independent feature, one should do it professionally and not expect people to work for free in violation of state and federal labor laws. Filmmaking is a busines, making a product for mass distribution. Home movie making is a hobby that is best done as such. Have a good time, make a film.

Ask people to "work" on your film, treat them as professionals and pay them. Provide safe working conditions, insurance to cover injuries, work days that reflect overtime compensation, etc.

I found Mynette Louie's blog by accident. It's wonderful and relates to her experience making a fiction film that screened at Sundance in 2009 called "Children of Invention." I like both her positive and negative points of making a microbudget film. It's a good point of view even if I don't agree with it...

By Mynette Louie

Microbudget filmmaking is all the rage right now--it's the new paradigm b/c it MUST be. The old system is bloated and fiscally irresponsible.

This is what everyone's saying these days. But many of those doing the talking have never even made a microbudget feature. While it's true that we all need to squeeze down our budgets now, I rarely hear the pundits and panelists talk about why microbudget sucks.

As someone who's made 3 microbudget features and a bunch of microbudget shorts, and will (must) continue to do so in the foreseeable future, I'd like to tell you why microbudget sucks:

1. The wages can't pay your rent. This relegates filmmaking to a "hobby"--but one that necessitates your 24/7 engagement. Paradox!

2. Tough to get experienced crew, so you have to hire and train newbies. Training takes time. A lot of it. As if my job weren't hard enough.

3. Hard to do more elaborate stuff like period pieces, night exteriors, car scenes, fantastical elements, guns, blood, dolly, steadicam, aerial, underwater, etc.

4. Hard to get A-list talent, which in turn, makes microbudget films harder to sell.

5. Craft service is often lacking (see above). Thankfully, this isn't true on my shoots (though I did have to nix the Red Bulls on Day 3 of CHILDREN OF INVENTION to preserve some dough for music).

6. You have to wear a lot of hats. This can be a "good" thing if you get bored easily, but it can also be exhausting. Also, there can be confusion as to who's responsible for which task.

7. The economically disadvantaged rarely apply to work on microbudgets. They can't afford to! This limits crew diversity and keeps the film industry insular and homogeneous.

And to counterbalance the above, here's why microbudget is good (from a producer's perspective):

1. It's financially sound and investors recoup faster. This is the reason cited by all the pundits, and they're right.

2. Creativity stems from poverty, or: necessity is the mother of invention!

3. You really learn how to cut the fat. Every single shot must have a purpose and be worth our time and money.

4. The fact that it's hard to do effects means that you make pure cinema. You focus on the writing and acting because you can't hide behind effects.

5. The "circus" is contained--there's often not a ton of crew and equipment to distract the actors and director, and the leaner and meaner company can move more efficiently.

6. You get to wear lots of hats. Yes, per above, this could be a "bad" thing, but not if you like variety.

7. Most of the cast/crew are doing it for the love of art, learning, and community...because they sure ain't doin' it for the dough!

Brendon' Blog MY FIVE YEAR PLAN

2010-07-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

Brendon Bouzard writes an interesting blog called, "My Five Year Plan..Stumbling toward bmovies since 2006..." http://brendonbouzard.com/blog His July 14 post looked at my film, NO LIES. The following is reprinted with his permission..He really nailed it. I've embedded the video from Vimeo.

By Brendon Bouzard

I'm going to take two steps in advance of talking about ...No Lies, which I think is an important film. One is that every single thing that follows is a spoiler. Including my second warning: that this film is potentially triggering.

...no lies - a film by Mitchell W. Block from Direct Cinema Limited on Vimeo.

...No Lies was directed by Mitchell Block while he was a student at NYU in the 1970s, and though it's just sixteen minutes long, it covers a lot of ground. It is a mockumentary (although that word seems inappropriate given the film's gravity) in which a student filmmaker pesters a female friend about where she's going that night as she gets ready. Slowly he coaxes from her - at first unwittingly and then exploitatively - that she was recently raped and that when she tried to file a police report she was harassed by the officers. She becomes upset at her friend's increasingly aggressive and accusatory line of questioning as he follows her around her small apartment with his camera, leading to her breaking down emotionally.

It's a difficult film to watch, but as I said above, I think it's an important one. Its subject is power relationships between men and women - rapist and victim, police officer and victim, filmmaker and... victim. It offers a withering rebuke to the then in-vogue trend of American documentary, the direct cinema style that informed the works of The Maysles, Frederick Wiseman and Alan and Susan Raymond, whose An American Family had premiered on PBS the year prior and whose filming of the divorce of Patricia and Bill Loud was fodder for ethical debates within the filmmaking community in the ensuing months. Surely Block had the Raymonds in mind when he conceived this film.

The film is very smart, asking questions about the relationship between subject and filmmaker early ("You're really intimidating with that camera, you know?" the woman jokes, offhand, unaware that her friend's camera will later become a weapon of humiliation), and recognizing that rape is one part of a continuum of power dynamics in American culture in which men exploit and degrade women. Though it predates the publication of Laura Mulvey's seminal "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (written in 1973, published in 1975) and Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape (1974), it was produced right in the thick of the development of feminist film theory at NYU in its most theory-intensive days and is likely informed by the ideas of Mulvey, Haskell, and the generation of film theorists who began exploring the problematic way cinema treats women. ...No Lies posits the relationship between the documentarian and subject as one of exploitation. It details the way, for example, pushing in for a close-up during an interview gives the documentarian power against his subject by isolating her face (roughly akin to the argument Mulvey would advance about filmmakers using close-ups as a means of fetishizing the female form).

On the level of aesthetics, the film is a remarkable success, so much so that many viewers believe it to have been actual documentary footage until they see the disclaimer at the film's end and the acting credits. The title of the film, of course, is a lie. ...No Lies is a fiction. And while it contains emotional truth, it nonetheless dupes the audience in the same manner, Block would argue, as direct cinema. By keeping the film to the putatively 'real' footage, Block implicates the viewer in the filmmaker's increasingly misogynistic interrogation and shows the callousness and idiocy of his victim-blaming and that of the police.

The film had a long life after Block made it -- it was used throughout the '70s and early '80s by state and local governments across America as a means of sensitizing police officers to the unique challenges of working with victims of sexual trauma. And though it is itself a problematic work -- the central question that I don't know the answer to: Does this film use cinematic exploitation as a metaphor for rape or rape as a metaphor for cinematic exploitation? I tend to think it's the former, but the latter would be unquestionably ghastly -- I take heart in knowing that this is the rare fiction film that actually made an appreciable difference in public life, marking an epochal shift in the way many police precincts addressed victims of sexual assault.

NO LIES and the NO LIES rehearsal tapes can be seen at this location:

http://www.directcinema.com/dcl/title.php?id=511&list=275,600,75,76,511,233,461,183,77,491,235&alpha=N

Dollars for Docs: Foundations, Fiscal Sponsors and Government Agencies

2010-06-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

by Michael Rose

Note: This was original published by the International Documentary Association in the Summer Issue of "International Documentary."

Used by permission of the author.

Money's been called the lifeblood of politics, and it's clearly a vital ingredient that also brings documentaries to life. No matter how brilliant your idea is, without funding, it's just an idea.

"Film is the most expensive art form under the sun--except maybe for opera," says Morrie Warshawski, author of the book Shaking the Money Tree: The Art of Getting Grants and Donations for Film and Video Projects. "The most important thing they never tell you in [film] school is, if you're going to make a film, you'll need thousands of dollars, and 80 percent of your time will be spent raising funds."

As you search for funds, you'll have to share your ideas with others, and that makes some documentary filmmakers nervous. "No one will steal your idea," assured Warshawski. "Why would they? It's too hard for you to do."

Funding your dream may not take millions, and you might be able to exhaust your credit cards, hit up your friends, borrow from parents, hold bingos, pawn your comic book collection or set up a PayPal account to accept donations on your website to make it happen. But you shouldn't quit your day job while trying to tap the funding mother lode. "It's not practical to make a living as an independent filmmaker, full time," says Warshawski, who has counseled hundreds of filmmakers over the past 25 years as a fundraising consultant and in his former role as the executive director of the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC). "You'll usually need a paying gig on the side, a spouse who supports your 'jones,' or an inheritance."

Burst bubbles aside, that doesn't mean you shouldn't suck it up and start looking. In addition to appealing to friends, family and neighbors, you'll want to investigate foundations and government agencies that are in the business of handing out money.

Corporations and wealthy individuals and families set up foundations for tax benefits, as well as to perpetuate--and sometimes burnish--their legacies, and to support projects and programs that best reflect the core values and mission of the given foundation. These charitable organizations are obligated by law to give away five percent of their holdings every year; the one hitch: typically, the IRS requires the money to go to nonprofits organized under 501(c)(3) guidelines. You can start your own nonprofit or become part of a fiscal sponsorship program at a nonprofit, such as the IDA, that allows grant-seekers to use the organization's tax-exempt status for a fee-usually between three and 10 percent of the funding you obtain.

Choosing the right fiscal sponsor is one of your first challenges, and it depends on the interests of the funders you are approaching. "Some want you to work with a fiscal sponsor that deals with films, and some want you to work with a fiscal sponsor that is knowledgeable about the subject [of your films]," explains Warshawski.

Some people have more than one fiscal sponsor, but you have to vet them. "You want one that is credible, one you can trust and one where your money isn't bigger than the organization's budget," says Warshawski.

Some supporters, like the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), don't fund projects submitted under the umbrella of a fiscal sponsor. It has "to do with the interpretation of the [governing] statute by the [agency's] general counsel," explains Ted Libbey, director of the Media Arts Division at the Endowment. It "had been allowing fiscal sponsorship but had to phase that out."

What this means for grant-seekers is that they need to find a 501(c)(3) organization that will act as the fiscal sponsor of the project while allowing the filmmaker to maintain ownership of it. In real-world terms, it's pretty much the same relationship you'd have with any other funder, but it's something you'll need to know before applying. You'll also have to think about whether this will work for you as you apply to other potential funders.

Finding a nonprofit to take you under its wing as a fiscal sponsor is important, but like any funder, you too need to define your mission and core values and dig deep to answer a very pragmatic question--Why are you doing this?--before you start. The most important thing to remember, according to Warshawski: "When you ask for money, the reason someone will give you money is because you exemplify values they value."

Once you've sorted out your mission, it's time to start shaking the money tree. In his day-long seminar held as part of IDA's Doc U series, Warshawski outlined some of the steps needed to navigate the foundation and government grant path.

One of your first stops should be the Foundation Center. It collects data on all US foundations, corporate and private, and makes this resource available through its computer database. The Center offers free classes and live webinars (recorded and maintained on its website) that help you get started, or you can go to one of the Center's Cooperating Collections--usually a university library--and ask one of the trained staff to help you start mining the database.

While the Foundation Center only has five offices around the country, it maintains a network of over 450 Cooperating Collections that have to meet the center's standards and provide someone to help you use their extensive online resources, according to Leeanne G-Bowley, manager of national training at the center.

This vast trove began to be assembled in response to the McCarthy era in the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy sought to uncover evidence of Communist sympathizers working in US corporations. Corporations and private foundations looking for a way to demonstrate their transparency started the center. "There's nothing to hide if you have ‘glass pockets,'" notes G-Bowley.

Today, the Foundation Center is a tremendous tool for anyone who wants to uncover who gets funding. There are a number of different ways to research who might be a funding source for your dream project. "You can search ‘film' or ‘arts' to see who supports documentaries," explains G-Bowley. "Or, you can go to look up related topics--the issues you're focusing on and who funds those subjects."

Once you've compiled a printout of possible supporters, you can do deeper research. Foundations must submit 990 Forms to the IRS, which track their record of giving; these are available at the center.

One longtime supporter of the media arts is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which helps fund such programs PBS' POV, Thirteen/WNET's Wide Angle and the International Media Development Fund of the Independent Television Service (ITVS). The foundation also supports the Sundance Documentary Fund as well as news producers like National Public Radio (NPR), PBS News Hour, FRONTLINE, the Center for Investigative Reporting and LinkTV. In addition, the foundation supports nonprofit media organizations like Kartemquin Films, the production company behind Hoop Dreams.

"To reach the broadest possible audience, the foundation supports programs intended for national public television and radio broadcast," says Kathy Im, director of general programs at the foundation. "The funding range is generally between $50,000 and $350,000 for documentary films, and higher for series and programs."

What might not be readily apparent is at what stage the foundation likes to come into a project. "We primarily provide support when a documentary film project is in production, preferring not to invest in the research and development phase so that we may base our review on a full and detailed treatment of the film," says Im. "Sometimes we provide support for post-production, when a film is in the editing stage and we are able to see some representative clips from the film."

Government agencies are also a major source of support for documentary films. In fact, these grants are among the most generous--and this is one important area the Foundation Center doesn't track. The top three US government funders for documentaries-the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)--award millions of dollars to filmmakers every year. A large portion of the PBS schedule is underwritten by this troika. And the agencies increasingly fund programs that appear on other outlets such as the Smithsonian and National Geographic Channels.

Not only do these agencies fund individual programs but they also support tent-pole series like American Masters, POV and Great Performances. The agencies also fund numerous film festivals. "We support the ecology," explains Ted Libbey of the NEA, when describing why it support programmers and well as program producers.

The three government funders have supported documentaries that tackle subject matter ranging from Wild Bill Hickok and Annie Oakley to the Buddha, from dinosaurs to Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange. For more information about grantees, areas of interest and the process and deadlines for submitting a grant proposal, check the agencies' respective websites.

While each agency requires an applicant to submit a rather substantial proposal, assemble a knowledgeable group of advisers and work out a distribution and evaluation plan, "the upside is that they'll give you six figures and they're easy to research," says Warshawski. The downside is that the process will seem slow to any filmmaker full of burning passion to get underway on an idea. There are set funding cycles and the decision-making can take months--and you shouldn't be surprised if the answer is "No."

"It's very competitive and not for the faint of heart," admits Valentine Kass, program officer at the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings of the National Science Foundation. "Competitiveness for our dollars is even greater than it was before. We're getting more proposals, and budgets are increasing, so we can't fund as many projects."

Being rejected doesn't mean you won't eventually get funded, or that you had a bad idea. When she was just starting out as a program officer at NSF, Kass once reviewed a proposal that she thought was "excellent"--but it was rejected by the decision-making panel. She read the panel's notes and agreed that the proposal needed work. When the disheartened producer called, Kass told him, "Here are ten things I think you should do." After the producer thought about it, he reworked his proposal and called her back and said, "I've done nine; is that enough?" She responded, "My advice is to do ten." He resubmitted the proposal, and it received the highest approval rating from the panel-and the project was awarded a grant. "He'd done 9.5," adds Kass.

"Some come back two or three times," she continues. But if you can't do it in three times, she encourages applicants to find another project.

The NEA gives out smaller grants than the NEH or NSF, but a filmmaker can come back again to get funding for successive stages of a project, explains Libbey. It's possible to be funded for research and development, come back for production, again for post-production and again for distribution--which is one reason the NEA gives out "a larger number of grants, but in smaller amounts than the NEH," says Libbey.

It's also possible to apply to both the NEH and NEA. "If you use the NEH and NEA, it has to be for different aspects, for different parts of a project," Libbey advises. To make your application to the NEH stand out, be clear about "what the story is, what the message is and what is the viewing public going to learn," says Thomas Phelps, director of the Division of Public Programs at the NEH.

Common mistakes Phelps sees are that the media team (producer, writer, director) is not ready, the proposal is not well written, or the story in the narrative treatment and proposed shooting script "don't match." Libbey sees proposals with missing elements such as rights clearances for music and film clips, as well as unrealistic schedules and budgets that don't hold up to scrutiny. Having a complete application is critical, he maintains.

While pursuing and securing a grant from one of these government agencies is an arduous and lengthy process, it can open doors to other foundations. The program officers talk to their counterparts in the private foundation world, many of whom see this as a vetting.

Several of these foundations have turned to the Sundance Institute to manage the funding process for them. The Soros-funded Open Society Institute "came to Sundance [in 2002] because they didn't want to reproduce a film organization," says Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. The success of this collaboration led to partnering with the Skoll Foundation for its social entrepreneur efforts and to a short-film initiative with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

These alliances have helped Sundance nurture stories others might overlook. Mertes looks for "the most important, relevant, creative, most under-heard stories." Her program attracts approximately 2,000 proposals annually, of which 40 to 50 eventually receive funding. She thinks three times that number merit funding, but her budget won't allow that yet. "We're seeing a lot more really great projects," she notes. "We're living in an incredibly visual culture and the production quality of the projects is always improving." The increase in production values is combined with a growing interest in documentaries. "There is a great willingness to share these stories--a hunger to understand, to find commonalities," Mertes maintains.

Other media arts organizations like Sundance have been supporting documentaries. On the East Coast, the Tribeca Film Institute has partnered with Gucci to form the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, which, according to its website, "provides finishing funds to feature-length documentaries which highlight and humanize issues of social importance from around the world." Cinereach is a New York City-based nonprofit film production company and foundation. Its grant program supports both documentary and fiction features that "possess an independent spirit, depict underrepresented perspectives, and resonate across international boundaries."

On the West Coast, the San Francisco Film Society, through its SFFS/Film Arts Foundation Documentary Grant program, provides post-production support for projects by San Francisco Bay Area filmmakers.

In the end, "Filmmaking is hard, finding money is hard, and you have to keep the momentum up," says Warshawski. "That's how you separate the people who are serious."

Funder Road

2010-06-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

Navigating the Correct Path to Packaging and Funding Documentaries

Published by “International Documentary” Summer 2010

by Mitchell W. Block

I am frequently asked by students and emerging filmmakers about how to fund their first documentary work, and it is evident that there is a disconnect between most of the film training programs and the field. Students and emerging filmmakers generally do not ask this question until they are well into production. This is a mistake. The process of selling a documentary (or fiction) work has remained unchanged since Edison and company first started cranking them out at the turn of the 20th century.

My first rule of production is, get funding before you start. It’s fine to start pre-production and casting without funding—put together your sizzle reel, see how your subjects present themselves on camera and capture material needed for your film. It’s not such a good idea to complete the production unfunded (or unsold) if one looks at the success rate of the 1,644 documentaries submitted to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Only a few of those films have found or will find, distribution, and fewer still will ever make back their cost.

1) Begin with the Idea
The idea is everything with a film.

a) Determine if Your Idea Has Already Been Done

This can be as simple as looking on Amazon.com to see if a video or DVD is being offered that is similar to your proposed project. Use search engines, looking by both topic and concept, to see what is out there. Talk with broadcasters, festival programmers, distributors and others to see what has been made. They are all gatekeepers and have seen thousands of works and have a good idea of what is in production as well as what has been produced. For example, when I started researching CARRIER (a 10-part PBS series about life aboard the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz), I kept finding references to numerous one-hour programs about aircraft carriers and a handful of books. I viewed every work that had been made about the subject, and read all of the books that were available. None of the existing nonfiction media works were character-driven, multi-part series, or even one-offs. They were focused on jets and technology, not people. I needed to be able to know what other works were out there and how my work would be different.

A project that has been done repeatedly is hard to sell. Always try to avoid news-type projects, if you have to raise funds. Ideas that can be produced by shows like 60 Minutes or Frontline or on network news channels (CNN, BBC, Fox) are best avoided because these broadcasters will get their work out well before yours, and the market will be even more difficult to crack when your film is finished. It is terrible to go to a meeting and have a buyer say he already aired a similar show or is making a program similar to yours. Be sure your take on the content is unique. Talk to as many people about your idea as possible. The more enthusiastic the funders or buyers are, the more you know you are on to something.

Do not underestimate foundations, television programmers and distributors as sources of information and as evaluators of your ideas. They pay a great deal of attention to what is in the market, what is coming in and how projects have been received in terms of reviews, ratings and box office.

b) Get the Rights

You cannot pitch a show when you do not have the exclusive rights to shoot, or some aspect of the shoot that makes your approach exclusive. With historical projects that cannot be filmed as they take place, be sure that you have footage to sell the story. What will be on the screen? While Fair Use can work in some cases to allow the use of footage, do not put together a pitch based on Fair Use footage without first talking to a knowledgeable copyright expert. While some networks allow the use of Fair Use footage, others that are owned by a company that includes a studio may insist on works being cleared. Can your work be based on a book (or books) or a newspaper or magazine story? Can some aspect of your work be exclusive? A film dealing with recycling, for example, needs a way to differentiate itself from the dozens of works made about recycling.

Do your homework and be sure that you will have “characters” that are interesting on screen; that you will have access to the process (the race, the show, the rehearsals, the results, etc.); and that you can shoot censor-free, or almost censor-free. Try to not give your subjects the right to approve what is shot and edited.

Be careful if your funding makes it look like you’re making a sponsored film. For example, PBS closely examines the funding to be certain that the funder does not benefit from the project or even “appears to benefit” from a project. The same PBS standards apply to many nonprofit and for-profit sponsors of works aired on PBS. For example, a film funded by the Ford Foundation about a program they are doing in Africa will not likely be aired in PBS’ core schedule because the film could appear to be “commercial” for the foundation.

c) Build a Production Team

If you are doing a first film, you will need footage to show how great the material is and that a film can be made based on your idea, your selection of the character, etc. Nothing, however, can replace an experienced production team with strong skills in producing, directing, camera, sound and editing. While it is great to give emerging filmmakers a start, it is difficult to get a serious financial commitment from any funder for an inexperienced director. Production teams should have at least one senior person who has made a successful film or series.

d) Make the Sizzle Reel Simple

Do not over-produce a trailer. Show characters, story idea and perhaps even some of the story arc. Recently, we pitched a show using a commercial the subject had developed. This 30-second spot summed up the idea of the show. It was dramatic and inventive and it had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of our consultants had found it on YouTube.

Another show was sold to a network based on a 20-minute edit of footage shot with the central character. Another was sold without any footage at all, but with a great original concept. An Inconvenient Truth was sold on the basis of Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation, although it also helped to have a former Vice President of the United States as the central character.

e) What is the Right Length for a Project?

The best length is the one the funder wants. A short documentary film for Academy Award consideration cannot be longer than 40 minutes. Television prefers works that will fit into 30-, 60-, 90- and 120-minute slots. Theatrical features generally need to be over 70 minutes. If you finish your film before you sell it to a broadcaster or distributor, it is likely that you will have to fix the length to fit the time slot it will air in. An “hour” is sometimes 44 minutes and sometimes 57. Some hours have no breaks for commercials and others have has many as six. The pacing of a commercial hour on A&E is different from one on HBO or PBS. Logic suggests that it is better not to “finish” a work until you have sold it. With computer-based software, you can make the best film for your portfolio and festivals and then make the version that airs on television and meets all of the network technical specifications. Series are even better, if the material can support a series.

2) The Proposal

Once you have the rights to the idea locked, write up the project. All that is usually needed is few pages about the show. What will the look and feel of the work be? What is special about it? What will the story be? How will you tell it? A proposal needs only a few things:

— A short treatment, focusing on one or more of the following: characters, the event, the narrative arc of the story

—A statement about the nature of your exclusive rights and access to the story

—Description of the team making the show

— Information about archives or footage that will be licensed for the show (if it’s a clip show)

— A summary budget and a detailed budget

—Some letters of support

—Articles, news stories and other printed materials about your show’s content to provide a funder with a sense of how current or important your idea is

—Sample works by team members and perhaps some footage that you’ve already shot

This proposal is the starting point. Get the idea on a single page for setting up meetings and pitching. Try to liven up the type with pictures; still images are a great way to sell your show. Try to have pictures of people who might look like your characters if you don’t yet know who your characters will be.

3) Paying the Bills: Selling the Film

Sorting out how to fund your film begins with locking the idea. The idea’s content, approach and form will further define the markets for the work. Once the length is estimated, then the filmmaker has started on the path to funding, since length helps determine markets.

There are only four ways to fund any work; one or more of these sources funds every film:

— Funding It Yourself. This is the classic independent film model—for example, Andrew Jarecki's first feature, Capturing the Friedmans. While this approach can speed the funding process, it does expose the filmmaker to all of the risks of production if the work can’t be sold to recoup the costs. Funding films with credit cards, second mortgages or your retirement fund is not a good idea.

— From Buyers. Networks, theatrical distributors and others who use works to draw viewers to their sites, sell copies, products or theatrical experiences are the best funders. There are also a dozen international broadcasters that fund documentaries of American as well as non-US-based companies. Ultimately these gatekeepers complete the process of making films, since they provide access to the audience or viewers and are in the business of promoting, marketing and selling films. As stated earlier, they should be the first stop for the filmmaker, not the last. Examples include those funded by studios like Disney/Miramax (Earth), The Weinstein Company (Fahrenheit 9/11) or Lionsgate (The US v John Lennon); specialized entertainment entities like Participant Media (Food, Inc.; An Inconvenient Truth); and networks like HBO (When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts). Of the ten highest-grossing documentaries of all time (according to BoxOfficeMojo.com), only one work, An Inconvenient Truth, was not funded by a studio-distributor. None of the 656 remaining theatrically released films on the BoxOfficeMojo list grossed more than $12 million, and most of these works were acquired, rather than funded.

Sponsors are a different kind of buyer. They fund films in large part to enhance their company profile and image. For example, General Motors supported Ken Burns’ films for over a decade. These sponsors are critical for public television documentaries.

Other examples of corporate-supported work include long- and short-form music videos (paid for by the acts or record label); and giant-screen films for museum and tourist sites, of which IMAX is a leading longtime underwriter. IMAX films are also funded by the museums and sites.

—From Investors. There are individuals and investors who feel that funding a film and then selling it makes sense. Private placements, finding investors and selling shares are all methods that can be used to raise funds. Be sure to check with a security or business lawyer to make sure your funding strategy does not violate state or federal security laws and that your deal is properly papered. While this method is both risky for the investors and difficult for the filmmaker––since only a small percentage of documentaries actually make a profit––it nonetheless seems to account for well over half of the over 1,000 documentaries that are submitted annually to Sundance.

This method of making films generates hundreds of workshops and seminars. The deliverable is a business plan, or something similar, and this method sidesteps the problem of getting “No’s” from buyers. Business plans don’t reflect possible failure, only possible success. But be sure to consider the specific strategies of your plan; simply planning to market the film via the festival circuit or your website doesn’t work in the vast majority of cases.

—From the Public Sector. Foundations, sponsors and individuals that want to support a project or filmmaker can do so with grants and donations. Government agencies such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts fund films, as do many state-level agencies. Thousands of foundations and religious organizations also fund works. Unlike buyers or investors, who generally focus on the bottom line when it comes to documentaries, public sector funding supports the production of works that further intellectual, cultural, political or other objectives of the funders.

PBS, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and PBS strands such as POV, ITVS, American Masters, American Experience and Frontline provide funding for documentaries. PBS itself (and PBS member stations) generally requires distribution rights or equity positions as a condition of broadcasting the works.

The “PBS-gets-to-show-the-film” model allows filmmakers to raise grants and other support that includes funding from for-profit entities, and then allows films to be aired. PBS is particular cautious about the nature of the funding and how it appears to relate to the content of the work (for example, an environmental work funded by a coal company would be difficult to clear), but the PBS schedule is heavily supported with films funded from outside of the network. This model works well with PBS when advertising budgets of for-profit corporations can underwrite programs, but filmmakers need to clear the funding sources with PBS prior to accepting funding.

PBS and other broadcasters often show films without paying for them or paying the fair market value of their production costs. Filmmakers should try to get PBS to pay and/or help raise funds for outreach (marketing) and consider retaining video rights as part of this kind of deal. While the CPB-PBS Challenge Fund, ITVS, POV and Independent Lens actually do require an outreach and marketing component as part of their respective support, this component is difficult for independent filmmakers to raise money for, given that they’re already struggling to find funds to cover production costs.

It is fine to mix for-profit support with nonprofit funding. For example, a film funded by a grant or a foundation can be shown and sold to commercial television (or cable) and distributed commercially in DVD. While some filmmakers choose to make their films within nonprofit structures, this complicates the ownership of the project. I do not recommend that the filmmaker own and operate the nonprofit producing the film, either, since this really complicates the filmmaker’s ability to end up owning his/her own film. I generally recommend that filmmakers use a nonprofit conduit to receive funding and pass the funds on to their own business for the actual filmmaking. This allows the filmmaker to keep ownership of the work and directly derive revenue from it.

4) You’ll Sell Your Show on the First Pitch if…

—The whole package makes sense to the funder

—Your idea fits the needs of the network, funder or distribution company

—You’re talking to the right buyer—ie, the decision-maker at the company

—Your project can be produced within budget limits

—Your team has a solid record of achievements

If your show is not selling, it is probably because one or more of these areas needs to be fixed. In my workshop, Documentary Tune-Up, I focus on why a show is not attracting funding. Much of time, the work can’t be sold. It is better to know sooner rather than later. Most documentaries that are not pre-sold never sell, much the same way most screenplays for fictional features are never produced.

Finally, a work-in-progress is worth more than a finished work. Once the work is done, you lose any leverage you ever had when it comes time to price it, unless you have that one-in-a-thousand work that is going to make several million dollars theatrically or win an Oscar. Not a smart bet.

Conclusion:

It has never been easy funding films or selling a finished film. While the financial entry barriers for character- or process- or event-driven documentary production now are really negligible, the difficulty of making compelling selections, getting access and having the skill sets necessary to produce a work is complicated. It takes a lot of talent to make a good film. Just as the advent of the word processor has not created more great books, the prevalence of the low-priced camera and desktop editing has not produced a flood of great films, just a flood of films. Unless a filmmaker wants to approach filmmaking as a hobby rather than as a business, it is imperative to consider the pre-sale of work as a prerequisite for a work being financially successful. Filmmakers need to understand that while the demand for documentaries is increasing, the funding for individual works is not. More channels means more buyers but fewer viewers and smaller acquisition and production budgets to acquire, since the audiences are smaller. It also is relevant that the buyers know they can buy completed works for less because the Sundance statistic shows there is an over-supply. The good news is that there is a shortage of great ideas. These ideas, if properly packaged and presented, will be funded.

Tony Bill on Pitching

2010-05-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Tony Bill, producer and director wrote the following e-mail to second year students at the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Tony's biography published (below) is on his blog on The Ultimate Movie Site: http://moviespeak.ultimatemoviesite.com)

Tony Bill, after graduating from Notre Dame with majors in English and Art, began his career in the film industry as an actor. His acting years were distinguished by the quality of the directors who chose him for their films: Bud Yorkin, Sydney Pollack, Terrence Malick, Steven Spielberg, Francis Coppola, Hal Ashby and others, such as Sir Carol Reed, and John Sturges. Despite being hailed by critics as an exciting newcomer, Mr. Bill wanted to become a filmmaker, not a movie star. He made the transition to producer with DEADHEAD MILES (1971), which he followed with STEELYARD BLUES (1973). His next feature, THE STING (1973), brought him an Academy Award for Best Picture and won six additional Oscars. It became one of the highest grossing films in history. His other feature production credits include numerous box office and critical successes: TAXI DRIVER (1976), HEARTS OF THE WEST (1975), BOULEVARD NIGHTS (1979) and GOING IN STYLE (1979).

His feature film directorial debut was the very popular MY BODYGUARD (1980) followed by SIX WEEKS (1982), FIVE CORNERS (1987), CRAZY PEOPLE (1990), UNTAMED HEART (1993), A HOME OF OUR OWN (1993) and FLYBOYS (2006).

Tony Bill is best known as the consummate independent producer/director with a reputation for discovering new talent. His first film, DEADHEAD MILES, produced for Paramount in 1971, was the first script by then-unknown writer Terrence Malick. Starring Alan Arkin, it also introduced newcomers, Paul Benedict, Hector Elizondo, Durning, Allen Garfield and Loretta Swit.

For STEELYARD BLUES (1973), Tony Bill partnered with Julia and Michael Phillips in backing another discovery, first-time screenwriter David S. Ward. STEELYARD BLUES was an offbeat sleeper, starring Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda, and Bill/Phillips' next Ward script was THE STING. TAXI DRIVER (1976) followed, written by another first-time screenwriter, Paul Schrader.

Other discoveries followed: HEARTS OF THE WEST: the first script by its author Rob Thompson; BOULEVARD NIGHTS: first screenplay by UCLA student Desmond Nakano; HARRY AND WALTER GO TO NEW YORK: first produced screenplay by John Byrum; GOING IN STYLE: first feature directed by Martin Brest; THE LITTLE DRAGONS: first-time writer/director Curtis Hanson.

For his own directorial debut, MY BODYGUARD, he also found a new writer, Alan Ormsby; and FIVE CORNERS was the first script of John Patrick Shanley. UNTAMED HEART was no exception to this rule, as it was the first produced screenplay of its author, Tom Sierchio. All were initially optioned outside the studio system with his own money.

In television, his directing credits include TRUMAN CAPOTE'S "ONE CHRISTMAS", with Katherine Hepburn, OLIVER TWIST with Richard Dreyfuss, BEYOND THE CALL with Sissy Spacek, and HARLAN COUNTY WAR, starring Holly Hunter, who received both EMMY and GOLDEN GLOBE nominations for her performance. He has also directed numerous commercials and episodes of television series.

In 2005, Tony directed FLYBOYS, a film about the Lafayette Escadrille; the legendary group of young Americans who volunteered to fly in WWI. Produced by Dean Devlin and Marc Freydman, the $60,000,000, independently financed film starred James Franco, Jean Reno and Martin Henderson, and was released by MGM. It pioneered the first 35mm digital camera: the Panavision Genesis.

In 2007, he directed the highly acclaimed PICTURES OF HOLLIS WOODS for CBS and The Hallmark Hall of Fame, starring Sissy Spacek, Alfre Woodard and Judith Ivey. Ms. Spacek's performance was nominated for a Golden Globe and the production earned Tony Bill a Christopher Award, a Camie Award and a Television Academy Honor Award.

Since 1974, his Market Street Productions, located in the heart of Venice, has been called "the closest filmmaking equivalent of an artists' colony you can find in the movie capitol of the world." For over three decades, independent writers, producers and directors have filled its offices and post production facilities; the list of tenants is legendary. In 1983, across the street from his studio, he founded 72 Market Street Oyster Bar & Grill (http://www.seeing-stars.com/Dine/72MarketStreet.shtml). Sponsoring a live radio show, a lecture/concert/performance series and other cultural events, it closed only after the death of his partner, Dudley Moore, and was one of the most popular and well-reviewed restaurants in Los Angeles for almost 20 years.

Tony Bill has shared his experience by teaching and lecturing at various universities: UCLA, USC, UCSB, Yale, Notre Dame, Columbia, AFI, NYU and Trinity College among others. He has served on the Motion Picture Association of America's Board of Governors and Board of Trustees, and on the board of The Public Justice Foundation, as well as being active in community services. In 2003, he was elected to the Producer's Guild Hall of Fame. Mr. Bill serves as a judge for several national and local screenplay competitions, and has several times been invited to teach a special course in producing for the USC Ray Stark Graduate Producing Program.

He is the author of MOVIE SPEAK (Workman Publishing, 2008), a book about the history and use of the language of the movie set; the first of its kind. He has also published articles for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Plane and Pilot and Flight Journal, among others.

A deep-water sailor since his teens, for over fifteen years his 65' yawl "Olinka" was a contender in major ocean races, logging over 50,000 miles on the West Coast, Mexico, South America, the Caribbean and New England. Having soloed at 14, and with time in over 50 different aircraft, he is a commercial-rated pilot, with multi-engine, seaplane, instrument and glider privileges, and has been active in aerobatic competition.

He is married to producer Helen Bartlett (NORTH COUNTRY, IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES, UNTAMED HEART), his partner in Barnstorm Films; both are avid collectors of literary first editions. They live most of the year in the oldest house in Venice, next to the Santa Monica Airport, with their daughters, Madeline and Daphne, several vintage cars and a barely-controlled number of four-legged, finned, and feathered critters. The rest of the time they can be found in an eighteenth century farmhouse in Washington Depot, Connecticut.

I think it's the best description of what makes a great pitch that I've read. With his permission I am reprinting this letter here:

THE PITCH

By Tony Bill

As I was driving home after the morning session of the “Pitchfest,” I had a sudden, singular moment of clarity: I realized that during the entire 2-hour session of 25 or so encounters, I had not heard a single “pitch.”

What I had encountered was, basically, a series of 6-minute regurgitations of plot-points, motivations, character analyses, scenes, salesmanships...ENTIRE MOVIES. These were not pitches. They were book-reviews; synopses; verbalized treatments. They were almost universally rambling, over-detailed, and over-rehearsed. I am compelled to explain and describe to you all what a pitch is...or should be.

First: why did you all feel compelled to burden the entire six minutes (a few went well-over or were unable to finish) with such detailed, descriptions of your yarns? Why was no one willing or able to pitch their project in 2 or 3 or even 4 minutes?

A pitch, as the baseball metaphor implies, should be fast, simple, and directed toward the strike-zone...in this case, the buyer. Realistically, although it really doesn't matter, this “buyer” will, in your cases, not be a studio-head, a major producer or director or even a powerful agent. It will be an underling of one sort or another, who, if sufficiently impressed, will endeavor to repeat it to his or her boss. Can you imagine anyone repeating your 6-minute pitch to someone else?

2 to 3 minutes; 4 max: that's it. Anything longer is blowing your chances ENTIRELY!

Second: what is a pitch for, anyway? One of only two goals: 1) To get someone to read your script; 2) To get someone to hire you to write your script. In either case, why would you endeavor to detail the whole story? That's what the script is for. A pitch is not a scene-by-scene description. A pitch has one purpose only: it's to get the “pitchee” to say “I want to read your script.” Or, “Tell me more.” That's it. After that your script is on its own. They'll like it or they won't.

So don't try to make them like it before they read it!

Just get 'em to read it; that's the pitch.

Look at it this way. You're describing a blind date to someone. Do you spend six minutes going into details of their exact height, weight, education, family history, life story, musical tastes, religious views, etc, etc, etc? I don't think so. You give them the basics – maybe a couple of tasty details – and let it go at that. You don't oversell or go into excruciating detail. You pitch 'em and let it go at that. Over and out. Maybe they'll fall in love, but... That's what the date is for!

Same with your script.

So, please...never, never again spend 6 or even 5 minutes on a pitch. It's a waste of time; it's ineffectual; it's a disservice to your script. And it's doomed to failure and rejection. Don't think you can squeeze your plot into a couple of minutes? Check out a couple of reviews of a complex, plot-heavy movie like “The Godfather.” You can read the description of that story in a couple of minutes. You ought to be able to do the same for your own story.

There's an old vaudeville axiom you might want to keep in mind; it'll serve you well: “Always leave 'em wanting more.” And - in the best of all possible scenarios - after a brief description of your project, your “pitchee” might ask you to elaborate; might ask you to fill in a few details; might wonder about a scene or a character or a plot point. You should be so lucky: your pitch will have done its job.

And that, my friends is my pitch. Reading time: 2 ½ minutes, max; shoulda been shorter.

Review of NO LIES posted at UC Berkeley

2010-05-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

I found this today and like it:

"...No Lies is more than just a critique of the verite style. When the credits appear at the end of the film and provide the only clue that the film is a "fake" 'not a "real"' documentary, the first-time viewer may be more than a little puzzled. Eitzen writes that the film adheres so rigorously to documentary form that first-time viewers who were unaware of the film's true nature often become "visibly disturbed" at how the character of the filmmaker treats the woman. Upon being told that it is a fiction film, these same people redirect much of their anger to Mitchell Block, the man who made the film. "Viewers now feel angry at having been duped," he writes. Eitzen attributes this anger to the fact that the film lies about its true nature. It pretends to be a documentary, but is not. He states that No Lies is "a fiction film about rape, but it is a documentary about documentaries. But No Lies is unusual among mock documentaries, as it has the power to enrage its viewers by its central deception. Also, its principal goal is to dupe the audience, something not found in such extreme measures in later mock documentaries (though Man Bites Dog (1991) and Forgotten Silver (1996) come close)." [The Treachery of Images Ethan de Seife / University of Wisconsin]

Approaching the Festival Circuit

2009-12-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

If a filmmaker has a documentary short (less than 30 minutes) or feature how should they approach the "festival circuit?"

A matrix:

If the film has a television sale and/or theatrical deal in place:
-they should let the distributor handle it. festivals don't matter.
-they should be certain the film is cleared for Emmy, Oscar, Peabody, Dupont awards.
-they should see if they can coordinate some festival showings at "A" festivals to help with the theatrical release or television marketing. "A" festivals like: Cannes, Berlin, London, New York, Toronto are all excellent.
-Most festivals don't matter.

If the film does not have a television sale and/or theatrical deal in place:
-they should STOP and SHOP the work to find a sale BEFORE doing a festival.
Films are worth more not finished than finished since distributors and networks have different needs, markets, deals for works in process v finished works.
-I would ask the filmmaker why they made the sale without a deal (or deals) in place in the first place.

Trying to sell a show at a festival as a finished work is not a good idea.

The Festival "circuit" does not exist. It's not a business for the filmmaker, it's only a business for the festival.

The "Big Gloom" or Becoming a Feature Film Director

2009-11-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following for Howard Suber and Ken Suddelson's UCLA class on Producing in early November.

Howard one of the my professors from the UCLA doctoral program is team teaching one of the few courses offered anywhere dealing with the business of the movie business. FTB-289B "Strategy" Sending dozens of provocative e-mails to his students and former students, he has encouraged an on-line debate

I took the hook and wrote about how difficult it is to become a feature film director. The posting follows:

You just got the money question:

"I'm a directing student, and I wanted to get your thoughts on strategy from a directing standpoint.."

When I wrote the article the "Training of Directors from School to Screen" in the early 1980s it seemed there was a 10 to 15 year process of moving from graduating film school and becoming a feature director. While we could always point to one or two a year who "made it" more quickly, on the whole, the process takes a long time. A long long time.

Today, almost 30 years later, I'd tell this student to go to business school or law school or any graduate program that would enable him/her to make a living--since it's more or less a closed shop. With at least 100,000 directors coming out of film schools since 1980 and Hollywood releasing a few hundred films a year and filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, the Scotts, Woody Allen and others not retiring, almost no new slots open up.

As a producer, the last thing I'd do is hire a first time director or actor. They bring nothing to the deal. I start with Oscar winners or nominees. I need a filmmaker or a star who can bring money into the deal.

The big lie is that there is work or that making theatrical films is a career. One of my colleagues at USC called theatrical feature making a "hobby." He nailed it. As I ramp up to do my next series (documentary) for television I am hiring a number of "first time" directors as "story producers/shooters" a good start but the director is a fellow with gray hair.

Payne, one of your examples made his first feature 11 years after his short film CARMAN was released. He was 35. At 38 he did ELECTION, 41 ABOUT SCHMIDT and SIDEWAYS 2 years later. What's wrong with this picture? Payne is really talented both as a writer and director and 20 years after graduating from UCLA film school he's made 4 pictures.

You also mention Sacha Gervasi another major talent, faculty member at UCLA. 44 years old. His film writing is first rate. His film ANVIL might get an Oscar nomination. Started UCLA screenwriting in 1995. His career is moving along at rocket speed. 14 years from UCLA to his first feature.

My nephew less than a decade out of an unprestigious undergraduate college as a business major is well on his way to being a millionaire working as a buy side investment banker. I interview students who are applying for admission to Columbia Business School, if they go, when they graduate in 2 years, many will start with $200,000 salaries a year. This is not to say everyone should go to business school--the point I'm trying to make is that where do you go after spending a few years getting an MFA in film? Where are the jobs? the opportunities? It was like that when I got my MFA from NYU in the early 1970s. It's like that for my Peter Stark Producing students, except many have jobs since they move from their internships into the industry. They just don't make b-school kinds of starting salaries.

Howard, I am not a cynic. I want to see everyone make a living, live the dream, but things are pretty bleak. Film school does help students get skills, this class is one of the few in the world (at a film school) that seems to be dealing with the business of the industry--but let the truth be told.

--One needs more than just raw talent.

--One needs more than just socialization skill sets.

--One needs a huge amount of luck.

and then it's still likely a 15 plus year wait.

As someone who has mentored a number of filmmakers to Oscars, I can say that seems to be a good way to get some attention. Better than Sundance (which is not very helpful), but still not the gold ticket. I think a good thing to do is to tell the students to approach becoming a director as a "hobby" and then they will be miles ahead. Making a good short film might help, producing some money making features might help, writing some money making features might help--but this is a long way to an uncertain end.

Hope this is helpful.

NO LIES on SIN-E-FILE and post by Peter Rinaldi

2009-06-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

SIN-E-FILE (...no lies)

"I have the sin of the cinephile" - Jean Luc Godard

This posting originated on the Film of the Month Club blog, where this month's film ...no lies is my selection. As such it is my duty to write an introductory post. Which is what follows.

(If you are about to read this having NOT seen the film ...no lies, I would advice you do so before reading further. Watch it below)

...no lies - a film by Mitchell W. Block from Direct Cinema Limited on Vimeo.

In 1972, Mitchell W. Block was working as the Line Producer on Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. This left him little time to complete a full-scale film of his own, which was required to get his MFA from NYU. As he writes in The Truth about NO LIES, he thought he “should do a work that would be ‘easy’ to make. Limited locations, interior practical location, a short shoot, few actors, low shooting ratio, no period costumes, no score, etc. Keep it really simple.” The result is sort of a cinematic miracle.

In the spring of 1995 I was in a similar situation. I was a film student at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I had just completed my third year project, a film that seemed to polarize the class and faculty. Having had little money and not enough sufficient time to devote to a full scale production, I conceived an idea that involved basically a woman against a wall.

I showed it to my boss at the time, documentary filmmaker George Nierenberg. When it was over he didn’t have a lot to say about it, instead he starts to scan his towering piles of VHS tapes in his living room. “You have to see this documentary”, he tells me. “Documentary” is what he calls it. He doesn’t tell me anything more.

When ...no lies was over, I was so shaken by it that I hadn’t noticed the credits. George and I started talking about it. When it became apparent to him that I hadn’t seen the end credits, he told me what they said(the woman played by Shelby Leverington, etc.) and I didn’t believe him. He replayed the tape. Okay, “The filmmaker put that there so as not to embarrass the woman”, I concocted. There was no way this was acted. I couldn’t believe it. Once I watched it again, knowing now that this was, indeed, a performance, I was blown away.

Is it really necessary to go through the process of thinking you are seeing a moment captured on film that occurred in reality, and then, at the end, realize that it was manufactured like most films? How much does this play in its potential appreciation? This can be a point of discussion, but, regardless, it is how I experienced it, so it is, in turn, how I presented it to people when I showed it, on a VHS tape copied from George's.

I showed it to everyone in my life. “I have a documentary to show you. It is only 15 minutes.” I don’t remember all of the reactions but once in a while, it knocked someone out. What was it about this film that impacted us?

When the Film of the Month Club started, I dreamed of being able to present ...no lies, but I knew that it wouldn’t be worth it if we didn’t get Mitchell Block involved. I reached out to him and he graciously granted my request to put the film online so it would be available to us and he agreed to an interview.

In our interview, which I will post later in the month, I tried to find out from him if he intended to trick the audience from the beginning or did he realize, after it was made, that he had a fiction that looked impeccably like fact. After all, there is nothing in the film that leads the audience to the understanding that what they are about to see is real. Block doesn’t outright lie, like other fake documentarians do, by presenting written or spoken documentary style, fact-like information (like Peter Greenaway’s The Falls). Even so much as a date at the beginning would imply non-fiction. Some, however, might consider the title to be the written info that puts the viewer in the mind-frame of “fact”. So, can Block really be called a trickster simply because of the title? What is even leading us to believe that Block’s intention is to fool the audience at all?

Well, ...no lies played at the 1974 Flaherty Seminar, a place where people generally expect to see a documentary. It caused controversy and discussion on what “real” is in film and the emotions wrapped around such notions. If Block didn’t conceive the film as a trick, it certainly was one now. As George Nierenberg and others have theorized, there are three “rapes” that occur with ...no lies; the offscreen rape of the woman, then the figurative one inflicted on her by the “cameraman”, then we, the audience are taken advantage of by Mitchell Block. I would take this a step further and say that Block can’t do the act alone. In my case, Nierenberg himself helped in the violation by calling it a documentary, the Flathery Seminar too. Perhaps if you simply found this film somewhere and watched it, you wouldn’t feel like it was trying to trick you into thinking it was real...or would you? Wouldn't you just think, if you appreciated it, that the actors were just doing their jobs well?

Let’s forget for a moment about Mitchell Block’s “trick”. This film is (and is about) a performance. Shelby Leverington. Once this performance was made know to me as such, it became, in my mind, one of the greatest I had ever seen on film. Nuanced and complexly structured so as not to appear so, I can write (and just might) a moment by moment analysis of it. Its success does not rest simply on the fact that people think it is not a performance; its authenticity runs much deeper than that. She manages to haul her character through varying emotional terrains with no sign that the “vehicle” is on pre-laid tracks, and in such a limited amount of time. Mitchell Block is also planning on giving us the added honor of viewing the “Rehearsal Tapes”. Would it be weird if I said I am thinking about NOT viewing them? I don’t think it's right. Like reading a first draft of a masterpiece; rewarding on one hand, and forever damaging on the other. As a filmmaker, I am tremendously interested in the work it takes to get to something this successful. But as a viewer, in this case, I'm obsessed with this performance, not with the process.

Last year, ...no lies was accepted into the National Registry, an honor bestowed on only a handful of films from each year. Here’s what the press release said:

Done in faux cinéma vérité style, Mitchell Block’s 16-minute New York University student film begins on a note of insouciant amateurism and then convincingly moves into darker, deeper waters. Opening with a scene of a girl getting ready for a date, the camera-wielding protagonist adroitly orchestrates a mood shift from goofiness to raw pain as an interviewer tears down the girl’s emotional defenses after being raped. One of the first films to deal with the way rape victims are treated when they seek professional help for sexual assault, "No Lies" still possesses a searing resonance and has been widely viewed by nurses, therapists and police officers.

Yes, the film has had a life as a tool to train police officers and others to better assist rape victims. Block has marketed the film for such public service use since its release. A police captain actually asked Block for the name of the officer who interviewed the woman in the film. To reprimand him in some way? We can assume, I suppose. Did he not see the credits? What about the pretty obvious cut? The looped bit of dialogue? Maybe there is a mysterious quality in their performances that reached something that, even if they gave a bow at the end, some would not waver in swallowing as some kind of truth. Mystically, Ms. Leverington speaks a truth for victims that can't speak, or have been hushed. Is this the "fact" that we want to believe?

Indeed, in many ways this film is a lie, but can you think of a film that has this much truth? That is, I think, what makes great film art. And ...no lies, to me, is just that. And I'm excited to know what you think.

-Peter Rinaldi

A Response to Trading Up: New Paradign Poaches from Fests

2009-02-21T13:07:00.000-08:00

Trading Up: New Paradigm Poaches From Fests

by Mike Jones (February 20, 2009)

Why did Geoff Gilmore leave the most coveted position in the independent film industry? The answer almost lies within the question itself.

For years festivals, conferences and awards shows have made a lot of hay over the so-called industry of indie film. Yet any industry requires a strong delivery system. And it’s no news that the system is ailing. From Gilmore’s perspective, maybe it always has.

Film festivals began as art film’s primary exhibitor, and with the closure and hobbling of so many specialty distribs they have resurged as one of the few places audiences can see art film as it was intended—on the big screen and in the company of strangers.

Yet some fest directors looked at their event’s success—a success confined primarily to a locality and/or industry clientele—and felt frustrated. After screening countless DVDs and sweating over a program to be exhibited just once a year, where did they see their selections going but to other fests. Aside from an exciting screening and endless pints of Stella, most undistributed films aren’t seeing a dime from a successful “fest run.”

After almost 20 years of watching some of his favorite films be overlooked or flatly forgotten in a distributor’s marketing scheme—Gilmore’s frustration is understandable. A look back at his 19 Sundance fest catalogs is sobering—even within the successes, there’s still a lot of good work that never stepped outside of the fest circuit. And a lot of good filmmakers that couldn’t build the Sundance laurels into another film or, more importantly, a sustainable career.

In my talks with him, Gilmore was never one to embrace the idea that fests alone were a realistic distribution model.

Fests remain vital city events that remind people what it means to leave their plasma screen for the big screen. They weren’t built to shoulder the burden of indie film’s problems. But they did grow into unique laboratories where alt-distrib ideas were tested on panels, in demonstrations, and with frustrated filmmakers looking for something beyond their fest run.

Gilmore’s move indicates we are well out of the testing phase. And he’s not alone.

His cross-country jump is only the latest in a trend of festival execs moving up, not only for a bigger paycheck, but for a bigger canvas—a way to expand art and indie film out of a broken domestic model and into a global one.

Moreover, it shows that fests have turned into hunting grounds for certain companies looking for a different kind of exec—one who can take ideas formed within their microcosmic event and apply them to an international strategy.

Christian Gaines left AFI FEST to be Director of Festivals for Withoutabox, now a division of IMDb.com, which in turn is owned by Amazon. While Gaines is charged with helping client festivals connect with filmmakers and audiences, his job title stresses the global outreach of Amazon and IMDb.

In theory, lineups from festivals via Withoutabox are cataloged on IMDb and either streamed right on IMDb, or linked to VOD purchases and rentals on Amazon. And while Amazon’s ebook device, Kindle 2, doesn’t yet have movie-viewing ability, you can bet that’s in the works, closing the circle.

“Being a festival director often means addressing the basics needed to put on a good show,” says Gaines. “In doing that, I learned about the evolving needs of filmmakers and audiences. Now I work with the world’s great film festivals to harness the benefits of emerging, global distribution platforms. It’s a fascinating challenge.”

Matt Dentler left SXSW Film to manage digital rights for Cinetic. At SXSW, Dentler championed a group of filmmakers who shared internet-based marketing and distribution notions. Thus, at Cinetic, Dentler has been pushing a steady stream of festival films to iTunes, Amazon, Jaman, Hulu, SnagFilms etc. “The Auteur,” which premiered at Tribeca last year, is now on iTunes while Whit Stillman’s “Metropolitan,” which began at the Independent Feature Film Market in 1989, is on Hulu.

“It’s very similar to being a festival programmer,” says Dentler. “I’m still working in the world of contextualizing an indie film for the right audience. And my favorite part of my old job still rings true: uniting filmmakers with audiences.”

Paola Freccero left Tribeca to head up B-Side’s new distribution arm, formed out of the company’s success distributing the docs “Super High Me” and “Crawford” via an internet-based, grassroots effort.

“Moving from festivals into for-profit distribution takes the same skills and expertise - on steroids,” says Freccero. “Probably the biggest difference is that instead of worrying about the launch of 200 festival films, I’m worrying about the entire fate of 10 or 15. The focus is more concentrated, but the skills and the stress are the same.”

And while some people think Gilmore is Tribeca fest’s new programming head, he clearly indicates he’s got much bigger ideas, as he told indieWIRE:

“The problems right now for the independent arena are multiple. They include the distribution bottleneck and the difficulties of finding new alternatives to having your films reach audiences. Festivals have helped that world change and festivals are going to continue to help that world change. What Tribeca Enterprises is going to do is be involved in setting up a new paradigm,” exploring, “the ways that festivals become platforms for new enterprises.”

As the economy sinks some believe time has run out on these ideas, or at least put them on the back-burner. Profit was elusive even before the downturn and a few industryites believe these business models are just too vague.

“You can’t blog your way to financial success,” quipped one major sales rep before this year’s Sundance. Don’t bother talking to him about digital, he continued. Traditional theatrical discussions were the only ones he was open to for his slate. Even when cash changes hands within these new models filmmakers mostly see pennies, he stressed.

And a national, grassroots distribution effort will not work for every film. When it does, it takes a long commitment. Even with this new marketing and distribution pipeline, it still takes experience and elbow grease. And less experience equals more grease.

So as indie film stakes its future on a different pipeline, the industry needs to remember what worked before and what didn’t. Gilmore’s old-school experience in a “new paradigm” may be what this new model needs. Let’s hope he’s able to build it from the experimental to the viable. Because within the tiring discussions between the “falling sky” and a “new frontier,” indie film simply needs something to work. And soon.

Mike Jones is a writer based in Los Angeles. He’s held senior editorial positions at Filmmaker Magazine, indieWIRE, and most recently served on staff at Variety covering the independent film and film festival beats.

My Response:

I remember when Geoff came to Sundance and replaced Tony Safford. The shift from Sundance to Tribeca should benefit both organizations. Sundance gets the opportunity to rethink Geoff's position and Tribeca can see if it can find a way to monetize Groff's skill sets. Safford has been very sucessful doing acquisitions for Fox.

Sundance has become a cheerleader for independent films. 3000 entries and a few financially successful works a year suggests a huge disconnect between the business of independent films and the reality of the film business. The landscape is littered with far too many films that never should have been made. The Festival Circuit is considered by many independent filmmakers as being a desirable outcome for their unsold projects.

It will be interesting if Gilmore will be successful in this transition. After all, Sundance became the tail that waves the Institute. If one believes the reality is to make films that work financially as well as artistically as I do, then festival models becomes almost irrelevant. Celebrating works that never really reach an audience, never break even or cover their costs isn't a very good model for a for-profit.

Let's see what happens.

Mitchell Block
February 21, 2009

"Roger and Me" Academy Myths

2009-02-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

Alternative Film Guide thinking film

by Andre Soares

Top Ten Biggest Oscar Snubs - Nominations #5

Roger & Me (1990)

Though attacked in some quarters for distorting facts to fit them into its director’s political agenda, Michael Moore’s Roger & Me, about Moore’s frustrated attempts to meet with General Motors honcho Roger Smith, was a box-office hit (for a documentary) and, generally speaking, a critical success, winning best documentary awards from the Los Angeles Critics, the National Board of Review, and the National Society of Film Critics, among others.

Roger & Me, however, was left Academy Award-nominationless.

Well, among those attacking Roger & Me was Academy Documentary Committee chairman Mitchell Block, who called the movie "unethical."

But wait …

It was then pointed out that Block had no qualms about potential unethical behavior — as in, blatant conflict of interest — for chairing a committee that in the year in question happened to pick three nominated films released by the documentary distribution company Direct Cinema, of which Block was president.

Mr. Soares,

It's interesting how factual errors live on.

For the "record."

1. I was never the chair of the documentary committee. I was one of the committee members for over 20 years.

2. AMPAS rules prohibited committtee members from voting or discussing films they had any connection to. To lobby for any film would be somewhat obvious to any of the 50 or so members of this small committee. I was not able to "vote" for my films, I was on record for my conflicts. Under AMPAS weighted ballot counting procedures not voting a film would hurt it in the ballot counting process.

3. Direct Cinema at the time did distribute three of the nominated films, including the winner, COMMON THREADS: STORIES FROM THE QUILT. COMMON THREADS was produced by Warner's HBO division, ROGER AND ME was released by Warner's Theatrical division.

Direct Cinema's PR director was hired by Warners on a freelance basis to work as a consultant on ROGER AND ME's Oscar campaign to try to reverse the committee's perception that the negative reviews of the film's distortions of "truth." This was the devestating review of ROGER by Critic, Pauline Kael in the New Yorker.

4. The other nominees of 1989 included ADAM CLAYTON POWELL, CRACK USA: COUNTRY UNDER SIEGE, FOR ALL MANKIND and SUPER CHIEF: THE LEGACY OF EARL WARREN. Interestingly the filmmakers of three of the other nominated features have multiple nominations (and/or Oscars). FOR ALL MANKIND by first time nominees received multiple awards in 1989 for its excellence.

5. COMMON THREADS continues to be praised for its excellence, historical accurate telling of the causes (and effects) of the AIDS epidemic. Robert Epstein one of it's two filmmakers is currently an elector Governor of the Documentary Branch.

6. Direct Cinema's documentary films continued to to receive multi-documentary Oscar nominations (and Oscars) after the committee was restructured so that members who had any conflict of interest could not participate in the nomination process and a few years later the Academy Doc Branch was formed. Because of the new "conflict" rule adapted several years later, I could no longer serve on the committee.

7. Today controversy continues to dog the Branch for omissions, clicks, etc.

8. Mr. Moore showed that creating controversy about the Oscars can sell movie tickets.

9. In Flint, a lawyer representing a number of the cast of ROGER AND ME prevailed in a court case to remove his clients from future releases of the film because Michael Moore placed them in a "false light."

Mitchell Block

The Truth About NO LIES (If you can believe it.)

2008-12-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

Alec Hirschfield, the Camerman

Note:

This was originally published in "F is For Phony: Fake Documentaries and Truth's Undoing (Visible Evidence)"

by Alexandra Juhasz Juhasz and Jesse Lerner (Hardcover - Sep 22, 2006)

By Mitchell W. Block

It’s July 2002 and I am observing a photo shoot for a new “reality” program that will air on TNT in 2003 called (working title) THE RESIDENTS. R.J. Cutler, produce of THE WAR ROOM, and most recently, the Emmy Award-winning series (FOX and PBS) AMERICAN HIGH, is the show’s executive producer and his company, Actual Reality Pictures, has been making this work for the last year. THE RESIDENTS follows a year in the life of surgical and family practice residents at UCLA’s medical centers in Los Angeles. They each allowed a film crew to shoot them at home and in the hospital. In most cases they even recorded themselves on a portable video “diary” camera, “private” moments which, if selected, will be included in the television show possibly seen by millions of people. This is a publicity photo shoot of the “real” doctors who participated in sharing their real life adventures with Cutler’s two (sometimes three) crews. Gathered around a real hospital gurney, with the green leatherette pad, are nine doctors. Some are wearing scrubs and others are in nice office clothes. They have all been to the make-up and hair stylists who are working in an adjoining room. The PR staffers from TNT coordinating with their photographer who is shooting large format still shots on a large photo stage of the doctors, carefully approving the look of each of the doctors, nodding as they are made up and their hair is styled. What is striking to this observer is that this multi-cultural group of attractive men and women could be actors playing doctors but they are actually made-up doctors playing themselves. They are “real”!

Alec Hirschfeld (L) Shelby Leverington (Center) and Mitchell Block during NO LIES shoot

Cutler and his team of vèritè crews are making reality television. A team of transcribers, story editors, many producers and editors supports the crews. They use terms such as “story arc”, “beats” “the ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ story lines,” refer to the real scenes as if they were scripted and film as they try to piece them together into minidramas which will become the acts of a 47 or so minute television hour with breaks for commercials. Shoot first then script. Sometimes instructions come to the crews from the story editors to shoot an ending to a dramatic arc. The crews oblige. The economic advantage of using real people is clear to program executives. One does not have to pay residuals (or actors) for what will be (or at least one hopes) a season’s series. Real life dramas from real life people present a solid economic model to network programming executives. It also can be first-rate programming. What are the responsibilities of the filmmakers to the subjects? To the audience?

I have observed this experience with the reader because R. J. Cutler’s work is taking place 30 years after I made NO LIES. It follows the pioneer work of Alan and Susan Raymond (who shot) and Executive Producer Craig Gilbert in their 1972/3 PBS series AN AMERICAN FAMILY and stylistically moves from the pacing and form towards what might be called an “MTV look”. This is not intended to imply one style is better than another but rather to suggest that the pacing is a whole lot faster. Many of THE RESIDENTS crew and cast were not even born when this showed aired. (THE RESIDENTS flows from the success of R. J. Cutler’s earlier work AMERICAN HIGH. Many of the key THE RESIDENTS crew worked on this project.) AN AMERICAN FAMILY also had press photos shot in a studio, 8mm film diaries were shot (home video was not yet usable on-air) and the crew developed relationships with the subjects. Simplistically almost everything is the same. The new work is not being made in an intellectual or cultural vacuum. THE RESIDENTS filmmakers in many cases went to film school and have a solid grounding in film history. A number of the filmmakers involved with this program were my students at USC. Despite the 30 years that have past there is almost no separation between Cutler and the filmmakers of the 1970’s. Joan Churchill who was one of the cinematographers on AN AMERICAN FAMILY is one of the two principle cinematographers for Cutler.

I share this with the reader because I made my work, NO LIES in response to AN AMERICAN FAMILY as it was in production/post production 30 years ago. NO LIES is a film about filmmaking (and filmmakers making films). AN AMERICAN FAMILY was the catalyst. Eleanor Hamerow, one of my teachers (at the NYU Graduate Film Program) was one of the original editors for the series. She is credited with editing its first hour. I understand she left AN AMERICAN FAMILY because she was so concerned about the many ethical questions that the production process raised. How was the filmmaking process affecting the people who were sharing their lives with the filmmakers? How would showing the film to the public affect their lives? Was the process of making AN AMERICAN FAMILY altering the course of the lives of the film’s subjects? NO LIES is a simple story with a simple narrative arc that explores these relationships between filmmakers and their subjects. The big difference is that my work was scripted or story-edited before it was shot. It is a drama that is fictional rather than drama that is “real.” No real people were exposing their inner lives to the camera or the public since no real people were used. The idea for the work developed, in part, because of the tensions I observed between Hamerow and Gilbert. I did not see AN AMERICAN FAMILY until many years later, in part, because of the anger Hamerow felt towards the work as well as my lack of access to television and the work not being available on film or video. I wondered, “Is it possible to film reality without changing it?” or “Could one create reality fictionally and not worry about how filming it would effect the subjects since in my work the subjects do not exist, they are actors?”

Three years earlier, in the fall of 1968, I had the experience of seeing DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY at New York University. Jim McBride, L.M. Kit Carson and Michael Wadleigh’s DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY is in many respects the staged documentary that started a movement. The screening was not part of a class but rather a thrown together evening done as a student initiated event, Jim had been a graduate student at NYU. This screening forever changed my relationship with film. Without DAVID HOLZMAN, there would be no NO LIES. I believed it. I loved the film. I was taken in by Carson’s Holtzman character. I wanted to be Holtzman. What young aspiring filmmaker in 1968 would not want to be the Waspy Holtzman character? His life was falling apart before our eyes but we loved this character. In the end, David’s (Holtzman) Éclair camera and Nagra are stolen leaving him without a way to work—so the film ends over black as Holtzman tells us what has happened, this was something we all could relate to, after all our cinematography teacher Fred (Beta) Badka kept his 35mm cameras in a bank vault.

Carson/Holtzman (the fictional character) loses everything in the process of making this work. The film like the French New Wave works we are seeing is so (I can say it) cool. It hero’s downwards spiral that the film personally and painfully documents makes it so one can’t help not loving his character. (SEX LIVES AND VIDEOTAPE years later has a similar feel.) McBride, Wadleigh and Scorsese were all classmates in NYU’s pre-School of the Arts graduate film school in 1966. That same year John Cassavetes’ FACES premiered. Cassavetes influenced their work with his fictional reality. FACES was a gutsy “real life” drama with a tour de force in your face performance by it stars. These works, a few years later, when combined with the relentless screenings and analysis of BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Gillo Pontecorvo) in the fall of 1973 in the Graduate Film Program (where I made NO LIES as my MFA thesis work) created the intellectual atmosphere where one felt it was safe to challenge the conventional form of cinema. It made complete sense.

We were studying with revolutionaries. Leo Hurwitz was the directing teacher in the program-our filmmaker-in-residence. His professional credentials were impeccable and distinctly left wing. A one-time member of the Film and Photo League, Hurwitz had collaborated on pictures such as NATIVE LAND and we had the good fortune to have him as the chair and one of the master teachers in the program. Leo provided a remarkable standard for the program. Artistically he was a powerful force. No one could doubt his ethics or integrity as an artist. He was deeply respected by all of the students even if they did not always agree with him. His take on filmmaking deeply affected me. Finally, there was my experience working as the New York line producer of Martin Scorsese’s MEAN STREETS in the fall semester of 1972. This made NO LIES inevitable since I needed to do a thesis work and had only limited time to write, shoot and edit it starting in January 1973 since I was the sole graduate student in a prototype one-year MFA program. If I did not direct a film I would not graduate.

I knew as a producer that I should do a work that would be “easy” to make. Limited locations, interior practical location, a short shoot, few actors, low shooting ratio, no period costumes, no score, etc. Keep it really simple. The work was based on an unpublished video called THE RAPE TAPE in which a number of women who were raped talked about their experiences. This early video diary was produced Jenny Goldberg (and three other women) using a Sony Porta Pack (who was the sound person on NO LIES.). It was a deeply moving work that provided much of the material for the actress Shelby Leverington who plays the woman in NO LIES to base her performance around. The location selected was Muffy Meyer’s apartment. Meyer was editing documentaries (GRAY GARDENS) with Ellen Hovde (who became her film business partner) at the Maysles. They were close friends of Charlotte Zwerin (who was the original editor of AN AMERICAN FAMILY who also resigned from the project) and was a resident filmmaker at the Mayseles. While I did not know the Raymonds (or Gilbert) at this time, I was responding to their work (without seeing it)—people who had a very strong emotional reaction to the ethics of this film surrounded me. It was the talk at many a dinner. My concern about the nature of the documentary was ongoing because of my relationship with these filmmakers. It cut across a range of films and the expediencies of my required thesis work forced me to think continually about DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY and another fiction film from the period called A SAFE PLACE (directed by Henry Jaglom).

My fascination with this form is directly connected to my interest in the relationships between:

a. The filmmaker (Block) and the subjects—the “cameraman” and “his subject”

b. The filmmaker (Block) and the audience.

c. The audience/viewer and the film (from the point-of-view of the audience)\

This tripartite relationship is clear to see in NO LIES, I abuse (a) the subject with an insensitive filmmaker, (b) undermine the audience’s relationship with the filmmaker, by making him unlikable and unethical and (c) abuse the spectator by pretending to present the truth and lying. In this case, (unlike a “real” documentary), I am not in the film but manipulating it by using a non-fictional form to tell a fictional story. The filmmaker/cameraman who is very much a part of the NO LIES story is actually a character playing the filmmaker. In the traditional “real” work the filmmaker is, well, the filmmaker. While we are used to talking about the filmmaker and the subject (a) and the audience and the film (c), NO LIES is really about the filmmaker manipulating the audience (b). ALL filmmakers in both dramatic and non-fiction forms do this. However, in the non-fiction form the filmmaker has a responsibility to the subject. By manipulating the film, the filmmaker is manipulating reality. In a non-fiction, work the subject is a real person and not an actor. But real life is not “dramatic” within the convention of film time. It needs to be structured and edited into film form; the lack of action in real life needs to be accelerated. The structure of film allows for this manipulation of time with the use of editing. While picture logic allows us to see events as they really happen, this is usually not acceptable to audiences because “reality” is slow and not usually dramatic and filmmakers are almost never filmmaking at the “right” moment. Filmmakers therefore need to use the device of telling us what happened rather than showing us what happened. The non-fiction film is formed in the editing room to tell the story in a dramatic fashion from the material that is shot. The editor pushes the narrative elements of the shot material together to make it flow in a cinematic way—faster. They depend on the filmmakers to be there at the key moments to film the story as it happens. If they miss filming the story the filmmakers either have to reenact the story, have the subjects tell us about what happened (voice over or interview), provide a card or perhaps tell us in their own words what happened. Since most of the time, filmmakers miss these key moments; the documentary film is always rushing to catch up with the story.

The paradigm shift between Gilbert’s/Raymonds’ AN AMERICAN FAMILY and Cutler’s AMERICAN HIGH and THE RESIDENTS is that the filmmakers (the crews shooting the films) will have their footage radically broken up and there is no attempt made to show it as a whole. The sequences are diced and split by the editors into fragments that are intercut with other fragments so that the hour work has a more intense pacing caused by the fragmentation of the stories. As soon as the action (or story) slows, the filmmakers cut to another story and cut back to that story later. The multiple filmmaking crews become part of an industrial process—making a collective story rather than allowing the filmmakers to “create” a story of just what they shoot. There is no “director” but only producers, directors of photography, editors, story editors and other supervisors.

The Raymonds are credited as the “filmmakers” of AN AMERICAN FAMILY but the “authorship” is difficult to pin down. There is no “director” credit given. AN AMERICAN FAMILY runs the shot sequences far longer, stays with the action/characters and allows the pacing to be far less frenetic. It’s focus is also smaller, on a family, and not on a dozen or so high school students. Both works are character driven. AMERICAN HIGH focuses on the students and their interrelations. AN AMERICAN FAMILY’s focus on the lives of the family members. NO LIES is a sequence that could be in any of these films—except the filmmakers would not be part of the action. The “fly-on-wall” film crew who in reality is interacting with the subjects is the hidden secret of both of these series. The subjects tell the crew when something is going to happen and they happen to be there to film it, or if they miss it, they can stage it or interview the subjects about what they missed. The crew is alerted to the coming drama and the results are covered. They know what is going to happen before it happens and sometimes nothing happens until the crew is present.

NO LIES follows the strategy or style of AN AMERICAN FAMILY for two reasons: it gives the work the appearance of being a reality and the story line is very simple. (My 1974 work, SPEEDING predates the fragmentation style of AMERICAN HIGH since it is an intercut story of a number of real people and actors playing real people.) The audience does not want to observe the two edits of cutting the three shots into one in NO LIES. Like the work of Cutler NO LIES was actually shot on video, at least the rehearsal stage. (THE NO LIES REHEARSAL TAPES) using now primitive Sony porta-pack video equipment. The use of film was mandated by the unavailability of high quality hand held video equipment. The sense of reality is captured by the conceit of the work, the whole work is presented as a single-take-truth (or a non-edited work) and hence could not be a lie. Audiences believe single continuous shots. While the docu-series is always presented as the truth despite the fictional style of the editing. Reality rarely is interesting on today’s MTV driven (or VH1, whatever..) for 15 straight minutes. (Are there any interesting 15 minutes (without cuts) in any film in our cannon?) We require fragmentations to heighten the drama of the moment. Fragmentation of the plots so that the work presents multiple plots to intercut. Since I was trying to make a point about making films about real people, NO LIES suggests it is possible to craft reality without hurting anyone.

I love what Cutler and company are dong to the non-fiction form and share his work to show that the form is continuing to evolve. His work, for me, is still ethically provocative. In the last 30 years because of media, subjects one would think are more accustomed to the media intruding on their lives. They allow their trials, their arrests and their lives to be captured. With Winona Ryder real life adventures captured on store video surveillance cameras and alleged criminals caught in the act on shows like COPS and a host of programs like SURVIVORS and numerous dating shows we see hundreds of hours of “real” programs. In addition, the genre is being expanded in works like FRONTIER HOUSE where real people play roles, in this case frontier families.

Unlike Michael Moore’s fake non-fiction works, the cameraman/filmmaker in my work is allowing the character to be truthful (within the context of the fiction) and, unlike his works, we are intentionally betraying the audiences’ trust. We are after all fiction and while we are pretending to be non-fiction, we are not non-fiction. Moore, on the other hand, is using the technique of NO LIES but is telling the spectator (and the subjects) that he is being truthful. If ROGER AND ME was a fiction, with actors instead of real people, it would be fine. Alas, Moore is a documentary liar. His works holds up its subjects for ridicule and scorn. We laugh at these real people who, in some cases, are being presented in a false light by Moore. Compare this to the respect with which the subjects are treated by Cutler or the Raymonds and Gilbert.

What then is “fake?” ROGER AND ME has a number of “fake” scenes and/or depictions of characters but the filmmaker tells us that this is a “documentary.” My work rings true but is a fiction. It is “fake” carefully built as truth (but is labeled as fiction in its credits). While the actual rape is a fiction, the two characters are a fiction, the emotions and feelings the women shows in her interview, while acted, read as “truth” to the spectators and to experts. Even the New York City police when using the work in training in the 1980s asked me for the “name of the officer who interviewed the woman in the film.” Clearly, there is (or was) a training problem in police departments with the officers who interview rape victims. This came out repeatedly in researching the film. The New York Police training group wanted to interview the officer(s) on video who interviewed the actress in NO LIES and use the interviews with the film for training purposes. (I’d love to have a copy of that interview tape.)

Sound recordists Jenny Goldberg with Alec Hirschfield

Looking to the future. For the past six months, I have been working on my third work in this genre. What is interesting to me is to continue to play on the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject and the audience. I want the cameraman to again cross the line and home in on the subject who clearly does not want to expose her feelings. He, like the television news people and Mr. Moore, wants to get his “Roger” on film regardless of how “Roger” feels about being on film at any moment of vulnerability. I want that moment I experienced once in a UCLA film class after a screening of the NO LIES sequel SPEEDING? when a student asked, “How to you happen to film movie stars getting speeding tickets?” It is the moment of “ah hah!” in the audience, wanting to believe that the actor is the real person getting caught on film rather than the actor playing a character who is in a fictional work.

What is critical is that the spectators become more sophisticated reading the film text being presented. They need to understand how easy it is to manipulate the form so that it appears to be the “truth” when it is not the truth. NO LIES should have been called, ALL LIES. We all believed the fiction of the dot.com boom or the MCI/Worldcom or Enron reports. We wanted to believe that the auditors, the government officials, the bankers, the brokers and the analysts were telling the truth. Trillions of dollars have disappeared. The investors, like the spectators, want to believe what they are told. Everything has changed since I made NO LIES, but I feel that everything is still the same.

Mitchell W. Block is executive director of Direct Cinema Limited (directcinemalimited.com) a non-profit film and video distributor. He executive produced the Academy Award winning documentary BIG MAMA in 2000. For the past 23 years, he has been an adjunct professor and is currently teaching independent producing for the Peter Stark Producing Program in the School of Cinema-Television at USC. He consults, lectures, writes and continues to work on a wide range of film projects ranging from documentaries to features. He lives in Santa Monica, California.

Images: (From Original Article)

NO LIES (Block, Alec Hirschfeld and Shelby Leverington during the shooting, 1973)

RESIDENTS (The doctors as they are being shot for publicity, 2002)

Filmography Notes:

NO LIES (1973) Produced and directed by Mitchell W. Block is available from Direct Cinema Limited directcinemalimited.com

SPEEDING (1975) Produced and directed by Block is also available from Direct Cinema

note: CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM consists of a pilot which is a staged document and the series. The pilot was done I believe in 1999.

NO LIES Selected 2008 for National Historical Register of Films

2008-12-31T13:46:00.000-08:00

December 30, 2008

Cinematic Classics, Legendary Stars, Comedic Legends and Novice Filmmakers Showcase the 2008 Film Registry

The holiday season is usually a busy time for moviegoers, but December is also the time of year when attention is focused on the preservation of the nation’s movie heritage. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today named 25 important motion pictures--classics and genres from every era of American filmmaking--to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, including "The Asphalt Jungle," "Deliverance," "A Face in the Crowd," "The Invisible Man," "Sergeant York" and "The Terminator." Spanning the period 1910-1989, this year’s selections bring the number of motion pictures in the registry to 500.

Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 films to the National Film Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant, to be preserved for all time. These films are not selected as the "best" American films of all time, but rather as works of enduring significance to American culture.

"With this year’s list, the registry now includes 500 films and stands as a matchless record of the amazing creativity America has brought to the movies since the early 1890s," said Billington. "Both as a public-awareness tool and as an educational learning aid for students, the registry helps this nation understand the diversity of America’s film heritage and, just as importantly, the need for its preservation. The nation has lost about half of the films produced before 1950 and as much as 90 percent of those made before 1920. In addition, more and more nitrate-based and acetate-based films are deteriorating with the passage of time."

The Librarian makes the final selection, after reviewing hundreds of titles nominated by the public and having extensive discussions with the distinguished members of the National Film Preservation Board, as well as the Library’s motion picture staff. Dr. Billington again solicited public nominations at the Film Board’s Web site: www.loc.gov/film/, and issued a call for lesser-known, but culturally vital, films such as amateur and home-movie footage. This year’s list includes "Disneyland Dream," a significant home movie record of Hollywood and Los Angeles in 1956, and the student film, "No Lies."

Congress established the National Film Registry in 1989 and reauthorized the program most recently in September 2008 when it passed the "Library of Congress Sound Recording and Film Preservation Programs Reauthorization Act of 2008." For each title named to the registry, the Library of Congress’s Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center works to ensure that the film is preserved for future generations, either through the Library’s massive motion-picture preservation program or through collaborative ventures with other archives, motion-picture studios and independent filmmakers.

The Packard Campus is the Library’s state-of-the-art preservation facility in Culpeper, Va., which was made possible through the generosity of David Woodley Packard and the Packard Humanities Institute. The Library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division’s collections include nearly six million items.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. It seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its Web site at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a new, personalized Web site at myLOC.gov. For more information about the National Film Preservation Board and the National Film Registry, visit www.loc.gov/film/.

2008 National Film Registry

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

John Huston’s brilliant crime drama contains the recipe for a meticulously planned robbery, but the cast of criminal characters features one too many bad apples. Sam Jaffe, as the twisted mastermind, uses cash from corrupt attorney Emmerich (Louis Calhern) to assemble a group of skilled thugs to pull off a jewel heist. All goes as planned — until an alert night watchman and a corrupt cop enter the picture. Marilyn Monroe has a memorable bit part as Emmerich’s "niece."

Deliverance (1972)

Four Atlanta professionals (Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronnie Cox and Jon Voight) head for a weekend canoe trip — and instead meet up with two of the more memorable villains in film history (Billy McKinney and Herbert Coward) in this gripping Appalachian "Heart of Darkness." With dazzling visual flair, director John Boorman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond infuse James Dickey’s novel with scenes of genuine terror and frantic struggles for survival battling river rapids — and in the process create a work rich with fascinating ambiguities about "civilized" values, urban-versus-backwoods culture, nature, and man’s supposed taming of the environment.

Disneyland Dream (1956)

The Barstow family films a memorable home movie of their trip to Disneyland. Robbins and Meg Barstow, along with their children Mary, David and Daniel were among 25 families who won a free trip to the newly opened Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., as part of a "Scotch Brand Cellophane Tape" contest sponsored by 3M. Through vivid color and droll narration ("The landscape was very different from back home in Connecticut"), we see a fantastic historical snapshot of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Catalina Island, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios and Disneyland in mid-1956. Home movies have assumed a rapidly increasing importance in American cultural studies as they provide a priceless and authentic record of time and place.

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Before Andy Griffith became a television legend playing a likable small-town sheriff, he portrayed a completely different type of celebrity in this dark look at the way sudden fame and power can corrupt. In his film debut, Griffith plays a rural drunk, drifter and country singer who becomes an overnight success when a radio station employee (Patricia Neal) puts him on the air. Behind the scenes, he turns into a power-hungry monster who must be exposed. This film is based on the short story "The Arkansas Traveler" by Budd Schulberg, who also wrote the script for director Elia Kazan.

Flower Drum Song (1961)

This film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical marked the first Hollywood studio film featuring performances by a mostly Asian cast, a break from past practice of casting white actors made up to appear Asian. Starring prominent Asian-American actors Nancy Kwan and James Shigeta, this milestone film presented an enduring three-dimensional portrait of Asian America as well as a welcomed, non-cliched portrait of Chinatown beyond the usual exotic tourist façades.

Foolish Wives (1922)

Director Erich von Stroheim’s third feature, staged with costly and elaborate sets of Monte Carlo, tells the story of a criminal who passes himself off as a Russian count in order to seduce women of society and steal their money. This brilliant and, at the time, controversial film fully established von Stroheim’s reputation within the industry as a challenging and difficult-to-manage creative genius.

Free Radicals (1979)

Born in New Zealand, avant-garde filmmaker Len Lye moved to the United States and became a naturalized citizen in 1950. For his four-minute work "Free Radicals" (begun in 1958 and completed in 1979), Lye made scratches directly into the film stock. These scratches became "figures of motion" that appear in the finished film as horizontal and vertical lines and shapes dancing to the music of the Bagirmi tribe in Africa.

Hallelujah (1929)

The all-black-cast film "Hallelujah" was a surprising gamble by normally conservative MGM, allowed chiefly because director King Vidor deferred his salary and MGM had proved slow to convert from silent to sound films. Vidor had to shoot silent film of the mass-river-baptism and swamp-murder Tennessee location scenes. He then painstakingly synchronized the dialogue and music. Around themes of religion, sensuality and family stability, Vidor molded a tale of a cotton sharecropper that begins with him losing his year’s earnings, his brother and his freedom and follows him through the temptations of a dancehall girl (Nina Mae McKinney). The passionate conviction of the melodrama and the resourceful technical experiments make "Hallelujah" among the very first indisputable masterpieces of the sound era.

In Cold Blood (1967)

In 1959 two men brutally murdered four members of a Holcomb, Kan., family. Truman Capote reported on the infamous incident, first in a series of New Yorker articles and later in his non-fiction novel, "In Cold Blood." With an unsparing neo-realism, director Richard Brooks adapted Capote’s novel, focusing on the motivations, backgrounds, and relationship of the killers, society’s failure to spot potential murderers, and their eventual execution on death row. Filmed in striking black-and-white documentary style by cinematographer Conrad Hall, the film starred then-unknown actors Robert Blake and Scott Wilson, both of whom bore a close physical resemblance to the real-life murderers. Blake, in particular, provides a sensational, multi-layered portrayal. The chilling ending depicts Blake climbing to the gallows to be hanged as we hear his heartbeat slowly come to a stop as the screen fades to black.

The Invisible Man (1933)

Universal released many classic horror films during the 1930s and director James Whale crafted some of the greatest from that famous cycle: "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein," "The Old Dark House" and "The Invisible Man." Whale brought a dazzling stylishness to what were essentially low-budget horror films and, in the case of "The Invisible Man," produced sophisticated special effects, aided by John P. Fulton. As in his discovery of Boris Karloff to play "Frankenstein," Whale made another inspirational choice in picking British-born Claude Rains, in his American film debut, to portray H.G. Wells’ tormented scientist Jack Griffin. In the film, after discovering a drug which provides the secret to invisibility, Rains becomes an insane maniac and goes on a power-hungry murder spree, but later makes a deathbed confession to his fiancée: "I meddled in things that man must leave alone."

Johnny Guitar (1954)

Often described as the one of the stranger, kinkier Westerns of all time, Nicholas Ray’s film-noiresque "Johnny Guitar" possesses enough symbolism to keep a psychiatrist occupied for years and was a favorite film of French New Wave directors. "Johnny Guitar," filmed in the Trucolor process, also rates significance as one of a few Westerns featuring women as the main stars (Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge). Crawford is the owner of a gambling saloon in an isolated town waiting for the train lines to arrive so she can get rich; McCambridge plays her nemesis. Upon its release, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter panned "Johnny Guitar," but the film’s reputation has soared over time.

The Killers (1946)

Director Robert Siodmak took the original Ernest Hemingway short story as the film’s opening point and developed it with an elaborate series of flashbacks, creating a classic example of film noir. Two killers shatter a small town’s quiet before an insurance investigator (Edmond O’Brien) digs up crime, betrayal, and a glamorous woman (Ava Gardner) behind an ex-fighter's death (Burt Lancaster's electrifying film debut).

The March (1964)

George Stevens Jr., who headed the United States Information Agency (USIA) Motion Picture Service unit from 1962-67, brought in several young talented documentary filmmakers such as Charles Guggenheim, Carroll Ballard, Kent McKenzie, Leo Seltzer, Terry Sanders, Bruce Herschensohn, and James Blue, who directed "The March." This period ushered in the "Golden Era" of USIA films. Examining the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington from the ground-level and focusing on the idealistic passion, joy and synergy of the crowds, Blue’s documentary lets us see the event take shape from the planning stage — with sound checks and worries about whether people will attend — to the arrival of enormous crowds on parades of trains and buses. It culminates in Martin Luther King’s electrifying "I Have a Dream" speech. These USIA films were rarely seen in America because, fearing propaganda, the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act mandated that no USIA film could be shown domestically without a special act of Congress. These films are being rediscovered because a 1990 act of Congress (P.L. 101-246) authorized domestic screening 12 years after release.

No Lies (1973)

Done in faux cinéma vérité style, Mitchell Block’s 16-minute New York University student film begins on a note of insouciant amateurism and then convincingly moves into darker, deeper waters. Opening with a scene of a girl getting ready for a date, the camera-wielding protagonist adroitly orchestrates a mood shift from goofiness to raw pain as an interviewer tears down the girl’s emotional defenses after being raped. One of the first films to deal with the way rape victims are treated when they seek professional help for sexual assault, "No Lies" still possesses a searing resonance and has been widely viewed by nurses, therapists and police officers.

On the Bowery (1957)

"On the Bowery" is Lionel Rogosin’s acclaimed, unrelenting docudrama about the infamous New York City zone known as the Bowery. The film focuses on three of its alcoholic skid row denizens and their marginal existence amid the gin mills, missions and flop houses. Bosley Crowther in The New York Times wrote that "this is a dismal exposition to be charging people money to see." Rogosin and his small crew spent months on the Bowery observing and talking with residents. They crafted the film as a "synthesis" of Bowery life, and it remains a wrenching portrait of hopelessness, despair and broken dreams. The film’s writer, Mark Sufrin, wrote in an issue of Sight and Sound magazine: "Very few, once they hit the Bowery, ever leave, are reclaimed, or rehabilitated…I had escaped that frightening place. They still remain."

One Week (1920)

"One Week" is the first publicly released two-reel short film starring Buster Keaton. One of Keaton’s finest films and one of the greatest short comedies produced during the 1920s, the film, as critic Walter Kerr noted, shows Keaton as "a garden at the moment of blooming." Considered astonishingly creative even by contemporary standards, "One Week" is rife with hilarious comic, often surrealist, sequences chronicling the ill-fated attempts of a newlywed couple to assemble their new home.

The Pawnbroker (1965)

"The Pawnbroker" was the first Hollywood film to depict in a realistic, psychologically probing manner the trauma of a Holocaust survivor, a subject previously taboo because of the fear of poor box office or offending delicate sensitivities. Rod Steiger’s astounding performance — as he tries to repress his memories of the anguish, physical and emotional shame of being an internment-camp inmate — also serves a perfect allegory for American film’s own struggles to represent this major tragedy of 20th century history.

The Perils of Pauline (1914)

"The Perils of Pauline" was among the very first American movie serials. Produced in 20 episodes, in a groundbreaking long-form motion-picture narrative structure, the series starred Pearl White as a young and wealthy heiress whose ingenuity, self-reliance and pluck enable her to regularly outwit a guardian intent on stealing her fortune. The film became an international hit and spawned a succession of elaborate American adventure serial productions that persisted until the advent of regularly scheduled television programs in the 1950s. Although now regarded as a satirical cliché of the movie industry, "Perils of Pauline" in its day inspired a generation of women on the verge of gaining the right to vote in America by showing actress Pearl White performing her own stunts and overcoming a persistent male enemy.

Sergeant York (1941)

Gary Cooper, in one of his favorite roles, won his first Oscar for his dead-on portrayal of Tennessee pacifist Sgt. Alvin York, who in an Argonne Forest World War I battle single-handedly captured over 130 German soldiers. A stirring film, which appeared six months before America entered World War II as a nation and inspired Americans through the later conflict, "Sergeant York" contains three main segments all masterfully directed by Howard Hawks: Cooper’s life in Tennessee, the war scenes, and post-war scenes in New York City where his newfound fame briefly tempts Cooper not to return to his Tennessee home. This film is Americana at its finest.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

Special-effects master Ray Harryhausen provides the hero with fantastic antagonists, including a giant cyclops, fire-breathing dragons, and a sword-wielding animated skeleton, all in glorious Technicolor. His stunning Dynamation process, which blended stop-motion animation and live-actions sequences, and a fantastic score by Bernard Herrmann ("Psycho," "North by Northwest," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Citizen Kane," "Vertigo") makes this one of the finest fantasy films of all time.

So’s Your Old Man (1926)

While W.C. Fields’ talents are better suited for sound films — where his verbal jabs and asides still delight and astound — Fields also starred in some memorable silent films. Fields began his career as a vaudevillian juggler and that humor and dexterity shines through in "So’s Your Old Man." The craziness is aided immeasurably through the deft comic touches of director Gregory LaCava. In the film, Fields plays inventor Samuel Bisbee, who is considered a vulgarian by the town’s elite. His road to financial success takes many hilarious detours including a disastrous demo for potential investors, a bungled suicide attempt, a foray into his classic "golf game" routine and an inspired pantomime to a Spanish princess.

George Stevens World War II Footage (1943-46)

Having already directed classics such as "Swing Time," "Gunga Din" and "Woman of the Year," director George Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and headed a motion picture unit under Gen. Eisenhower from 1943-46. He shot many hours of footage chronicling D-Day, including rare extant color film of the European war front; the liberation of Paris; American and Soviet forces meeting at the Elbe River; and horrific scenes from the Duben labor camp, thought to be a sub-camp of Buchenwald; and the Dachau concentration camp. The footage has become an essential visual record of World War II and a staple of documentary films.

The Terminator (1984)

In 1984, few expected much from the upcoming film "The Terminator." Director James Cameron, a protégé of legendary independent filmmaker Roger Corman, had made only two films previously: the modest sci-fi short "Xenogenesis" in 1978 and "Piranha Part Two: The Spawning" in 1981. However, "The Terminator" became one of the sleeper hits of 1984, blending an ingenious, thoughtful script — clearly influenced by the works of sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison — and relentless, non-stop action moved along by an outstanding synthesizer and early techno soundtrack. Most notable was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star-making performance as the mass-killing cyborg with a laconic sense of humor ("I’ll be back"). Low-budget, but made with heart, verve, imagination, and superb Stan Winston special effects, "The Terminator" remains among the finest science-fiction films in many decades.

Water and Power (1989)

Winner of a Sundance Grand Jury prize, Pat O’Neill’s influential experimental work is in his own words "a landscape film that became animated by the beginnings of human stories." In this "city symphony," O’Neill juxtaposes images of downtown Los Angeles with scenes from the Owens Valley, Los Angeles’ source of water. This was a brilliant examination of water in all its forms and the one-sided sharing of energy between the two places, representing nature and civilization.

White Fawn’s Devotion (1910)

James Young Deer is now recognized as the first documented movie director of Native American ancestry. Born in Dakota City, Neb., as a member of the Winnebago Indian tribe, James Young Deer (aka: J. Younger Johnston) began his show-business career in circus and Wild West shows in the 1890s. When Pathé Frères of France established its American studio in 1910, in part to produce more authentically American-style Western films, Young Deer was hired as a director and scenario writer. Frequently in collaboration with his wife, actress Princess Red Wing (aka: Lillian St. Cyr), also of Winnebago ancestry, Young Deer is believed to have written and directed more than 100 movies for Pathé from 1910-1913. Many details of Young Deer’s life and movie career remain undocumented and fewer than 10 of his films have been discovered and preserved by U.S. film archives.

Films Selected to the 2008 National Film Registry

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Deliverance (1972)
Disneyland Dream (1956)
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Flower Drum Song (1961)
Foolish Wives (1922)
Free Radicals (1979)
Hallelujah (1929)
In Cold Blood (1967)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
The Killers (1946)
The March (1964)
No Lies (1973)
On the Bowery (1957)
One Week (1920)
The Pawnbroker (1965)
The Perils of Pauline (1914)
Sergeant York (1941)
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
So’s Your Old Man (1926)
George Stevens WW2 Footage (1943-46)
The Terminator (1984)
Water and Power (1989)
White Fawn’s Devotion (1910)

# # #

PR 08-237
12/30/08
ISSN 0731-3527

Broderick’s New World of Distribution

2008-09-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

Posted by Agnes Varnum

http://resources.renewmedia.org/2008/09/25/brodericks-new-world-of-distribution/#comment-3977

I’m a bit late in pointing to this, but if you haven’t read it, I’d suggest you do so. Distribution consultant Peter Broderick posted a two-part article on indieWIRE during Independent Film Week that is, in essence, a primer on the changing distribution landscape for independent film. Unlike the rants and raves we’ve been seeing (my own included), Broderick puts forward examples of successes and some very practical information for filmmakers who are trying to figure out what to do with their movie.

Part I Here.

Part II Here.

Or download a PDF from Broderick’s website.

Here are some of Broderick’s take-away tips about how you should consider approaching distribution:

Be strategic - In the Old World, most filmmakers have reactions not strategies. They chose the best offer from those they receive. It is essential to be proactive in the New World. You need a strategy to navigate it successfully.

Think long term - Be clear about your goals. Are you creating a business around a group of films with common content? Are you building a career as an artist with a core personal audience?

Stay flexible - Implement your strategy stage by stage and modify it as you go. You learn valuable information in every stage that will enable you to improve your plan for the next stage.

Split rights - Retain overall control of your distribution. Take a hybrid approach, dividing certain rights among distributors and retaining the right to do direct sales.

Target audiences - Research, test, and refine your approach to core audiences. Understand who is most responsive to your films, and how to reach them most effectively.

Find partners - Look for national nonprofits, websites, sponsors, and distributors to team up with to bring your film to their members, subscribers, and customers.

Build a team - Find teammates who can help with the website, outreach, fulfillment, theatrical, domestic sales, and foreign sales.

Harness the internet - Use your website to build awareness, develop a mailing list, attract user-contributed content, and make direct sales. Design a compelling site that will have a life of its own.

Be creative - Avoid formulaic distribution ruts. Apply the same creativity to distribution as production. It is often harder to bring a movie into the world than to produce it. An innovative approach to distribution can make all the difference.

Make distribution happen - Design a distribution strategy and find the distributors, partners, and teammates to help you implement it.

Tags: DVD, home video, self-distribution, theatrical

One Response

Mitchell Block

September 28th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
1

Note: This is a corrected version of the previous posting.

In reading Peter’s postings, I don’t think there is a “there” there. While these ideas can work for an occasional film, they don’t work for most independent film.

It doesn’t solve the problem that are inherent in most of the independent docs and fiction features. They are not commercial. People don’t want to see most of them. They have no hooks to use in marketing them. It’s not old v new but rather commercial v non-commercial v marginally commercial.

As soon as it’s evident the work will sell, people will buy it, if the filmmaker has the resources, or better yet, can get the resources then the film can go out. “Man on a Wire” v “Taxi to the Dark Side” or any number of other difficult to sell Oscar winning/Sundance Award winners.
Based on our experience it takes at least a half million dollars to launch even a small film–from making the 35mm prints and digital versions, setting up press screenings in NY and LA, doing the print campaign, the one sheet, etc.

Wonderful but difficult to sell films with a half-million dollars to launch them need a theatrical gross of $1.5 mil. or more just to break even.

“Man on a Wire” is headed for a multi-million dollar gross thanks to the excellent work of Magnolia. Even if Think could pour more funding into “Taxi” would it have done better? How much money can one make selling several hundred thousand DVDs even if they are sold off the filmmaker’s site?

Peter’s models don’t address the changes in how media is being used and how the mostly marginal works that are produced can make a decent (or any) return.

We have far to many works chasing the gold rings, the Sundance annual statistics of growing entries shows the continued disconnect between the real market and the “let’s make a film” indie film community. It’s such a shame that so many works are getting lost and so many funders are never going to be whole.

Mitchell Block
http://www.directcinema.com

Yellow Pages for Filmmakers:

2008-02-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

A Very Specialized Directory to Non-Theatrical U.S. Distributors

Originally published by the Film Arts Foundation, "Release Print" April 2009
By Mitchell W. Block

This guide is for independent filmmakers making shorts, documentaries, and feature-length fiction films. The distributors listed in this directory ordinarily make exclusive deals to sell and/or rent copies of independent films to the educational, institutional, and home video markets; some will also license work to broadcast, cable, and web-based companies. Although some might offer a small advance or guarantee, they seldom finance production. Unlike a television/cable buyer or studio, they rarely have the resources to “buy out” a program,
in which case the filmmaker sells all rights to the film (not only for the markets listed above, but also for remakes, sequels, etc.) in exchange for production funds.

I did not include companies or individuals that function as agents or producer’s reps, or lawyers who sell works to other distributors or buyers; nor did I list aggregators (Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, National Video Network, iVideo, etc.) since they do not market individual titles.
Distributors are very selective, so it is best to talk with them before you make your film.

My first rule of distribution is that if distributors will not buy your film when it is an idea, they generally will not buy it when it is finished. Distributors tend to specialize in market niches, such as health issues, Jewish films, women’s studies, and the environment. Visit their websites before you contact them to see if they handle films similar to yours. Send a short email to those that do; describe your proposed film, give running time, format, etc., and see what response you receive.

If there is interest, the distributor will likely be helpful and can tell you about the market
demand for your subject, what similar films are being made, and where you might find funding. If you are met with silence, try again or call; perhaps your e-mail did not get to the right person.
Selecting a distributor is similar to finding a spouse. Since no distributors are perfect, you need to spend time with them to find the one who will reach the potential buyers of your work.

All of the distributors listed do one or more of the following:
Educational Distribution (non-theatrical distribution): Manufacture video, DVD, and film copies of works. Sell to educational institutions, such as churches, schools, businesses, etc., under a “Public Performance”
license. Promote with catalogues, websites, and direct marketing.
Some have thousands of titles, and others just a few. Many specialize in specific markets, such as college and library, or by subjects,
such as environment, history, cooking, and spirituality.
Home Video Distribution: Manufacture copies of works and sell to wholesalers or directly to consumers.
Theatrical Distribution: Release independent films in theaters.
Television/Broadcast/Cable Representation: License works to broadcast markets, including public, commercial, cable, and satellite networks.

Note: Most represent works for stock footage sales.

Adler Media, Inc.
McLean, VA
(703) 556-8880
www.adlermediatv.com
Home video and broadcast agents.

AM Videos
San Francisco, CA
(415) 346-0199
www.amvideos.com
Educational: African-American experience.

Ambrose Video Publishing, Inc.
New York, NY
(800) 526-4663
www.ambrosevideo.com
Educational and home video: science, social studies, health, BBC Shakespeare series.

Aquarius Health Care Media
Sherborn, MA
(888) 440-2963
www.aquariusproductions.com

Educational: health care media.
Baxley Media Group
Urbana, IL
(217) 384-4838
www.baxleymedia.com
Educational: psychological and ethical issues in health care.

Benchmark Media
Briarcliff Manor, NY
(800) 438-5564; (914) 762-3838
www.benchmarkmedia.info
Distributes and produces curricular videos for release in the U.S. and abroad.

Bullfrog Films, Inc.
Oley, PA
(800) 543-3764; (610) 779-8226
www.bullfrogfilms.com
Educational: environment, ecology, indigenous people, performing arts.

California Newsreel
San Francisco, CA
(415) 284-7800
www.newsreel.org
Educational (nonprofit): African-American, globalization, ‘Media and Society.’

Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc.
Cambridge, MA
(617) 484-3993
www.ambridgedocumentary
films.org
Educational.

Center for Asian American Media
San Francisco, CA
(415) 863-0814
www.asianamericanmedia.org
One of the largest distributors of Asian-American audio/visual materials.

Chip Taylor Communications
Derry, NH
(603) 434-9262; (800) 876-2447
www.chiptaylor.com
Educational: 1,500 titles in all subject areas.

Clearvue & SVE
(formerly Center Productions & Churchill Films)
Chicago, IL
(800) 253-2788
www.clearvue.com
Educational (part of Discovery).

CRM Films
Carlsbad, CA
(800) 421-0833; (619) 431-9800
www.crmfilms.com
Educational: business training.

Direct Cinema Ltd.
Santa Monica, CA
(310) 636-8200
www.directcinemalimited.com
(educational)
www.directcinema.com (home video)
Limited theatrical, home video, and educational: documentary shorts, series, features, TV sales.

Documentary Educational Resources (DER)
Watertown, MA
(617) 926-0491
www.der.org
Educational: anthropology, ethnography, sociology.
Electronic Arts Intermix
New York, NY
(212) 337-0680
www.eai.org
Educational: experimental film, video, and performance works.

Emerging Pictures
New York, NY
(212) 245-6767
www.emergingpictures.com
Theatrical and home video: docs.

Ergo Media, Inc.
Teaneck, NJ
(201) 692-0404
www.jewishvideo.com
Educational and home video: Israel, Judaism, Jewish culture.

Facets Video
Chicago, IL
(773) 281-9075
www.facets.org
Educational (limited) and home video: foreign and independent docs.

Fanlight Productions
Boston, MA
(617) 469-4999
www.fanlight.com
Educational: health care, mental health, disabilities, gerontology, workplace, family issues, gender roles.

Film Ideas
Wheeling, IL
(800) 475-3456; (847) 419-0255
www.filmideas.com
Educational.

Filmakers Library
New York, NY
(212) 808-4980
www.filmakers.com
Educational: award-winning docs.

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative
New York, NY
(212) 267-5665
www.film-makerscoop.com
Educational and home video (one of the largest): experimental and avant-garde films.

Films for the Humanities & Sciences
(Films Media Group)
Princeton, NJ
(800) 257-5126; (609) 275-1400
www.films.com
Educational (one of the largest): docs.

First Light Video Publishing
Venice, CA
(310) 577-8581
www.firstlightvideo.com
Educational and home video: media arts.

First Run Features
New York City, NY
(212) 243-0600
www.firstrunfeatures.com
Educational, home video, and theatrical (limited): LGBT docs.

Frameline
San Francisco, CA
(415) 703-8650
www.frameline.org
Exhibition, distribution, promotion, and funding of LGBT films and videos.

Icarus Films/First Run
Brooklyn, NY
(718) 488-8900
www.frif.com
Educational and theatrical (large): curricular and non-curricular docs.

Janson Associates
Harrington Park, NJ
(201) 784-8488
www.janson.com
Educational, home video, and broadcast sales; retains a small collection of special interest docs.

Kino International
New York, NY
(212) 629-6880
www.kino.com
Educational, home video, and theatrical: foreign, independent, docs.

Kultur Video
(also White Star Video)
W. Long Beach, NJ
(732) 229-2343
www.kulturvideo.com
Home video: music, dance, art, ballet, opera.

L & S Video, Inc.
Chappaqua, NY
(914) 238-9366
www.landsvideo.com
Educational and home video: African Americans in the arts.

Landmark Media
Falls Church, VA
(703) 241-2030; (800) 342-4336
www.landmarkmedia.com
Educational: K-12, library, college.

Live Wire Media
San Francisco, CA
(415) 564-9500; (800) 359-5437
www.livewiremedia.com
Educational: K-12.

Lucerne Media
Morris Plains, NJ
(800) 341-2293
www.lucernemedia.com
Educational.

Media for the Arts
Newport, RI
(401) 846-6580
www.art-history.com
Educational: arts.

Milestone Film & Video
Harrington Park, NJ
(800) 603-1104
www.milestonefilms.com
Home video: independent, art house, silent films.

Monterey Media
Thousand Oaks, CA
(805) 494-7199
www.montereymedia.com
Home video.

MPI Home Video
Orland Park, IL
(708) 460-0555
www.mpihomevideo.com
Home video: television, movies, musical productions, and educational content for kids.

Mystic Fire Video
(800) 292-9001
www.mysticfire.com
Home video: New Age docs.

New Day Films
Harriman, NY
(888) 367-9154; (845) 774-2945
www.newday.com
Educational and home video (self-distribution/co-op): outstanding docs and other works.

New Video
New York, NY
(212) 206-8600
www.newvideo.com
Home video: houses many brands, including A&E, MTM, Scholastic, and Docurama.

New Yorker Video
New York, NY
(212) 645-4600
www.newyorkerfilms.com
Home video: foreign and domestic independent films.

Pyramid Media
Santa Monica, CA
(310) 828-7577
www.pyramidmedia.com
Educational (high-end).

Questar Video
Chicago, IL
(312) 266-9400
Burbank, CA
(818) 953-4153
www.questar1.com
Home video and broadcast: docs, with a historical emphasis.

Roland Collection
Harriman, NY
(800) 597-6526; (201) 251-8200
www.roland-collection.com
Educational and home video: international.

Seventh Art Releasing
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 845-1455
www.7thart.com
Broadcast and limited home video and theatrical: docs.

Shanachie Entertainment
Newton, NJ
(973) 579-7763
www.shanachie.com
Home video: music.

SISU Home Entertainment
New York, NY
(800) 223-7478
www.sisuent.com
Educational and home video: Jewish/Israeli and music.

Strand Releasing Home Video
Culver City, CA
(310) 836-7500
www.strandreleasing.com
Home video: independent domestic and foreign features.

Terra Nova Films
Chicago, IL
(800) 779-8491; (773) 881-8491
www.terranova.org
Educational: health.

The Cinema Guild
New York, NY
(800) 723-5522; (212) 685-6242
www.cinemaguild.com
Educational, home video, and theatrical (limited): health science, social studies, world cultures, arts and humanities, children’s and young adult, short fiction, how-to.

Third World Newsreel/Camera News, Inc.
New York, NY
(212) 947-9277
www.twn.org
One of the oldest nonprofit distributors of docs and other works.

Video Project
Half Moon Bay, CA
(800) 475-2538; (415) 284-0600
www.videoproject.com
Educational and home video: social-issue docs, educational.

Vision Video
Worcester, PA
(800) 523-0226; (610) 584-3500
www.gatewayfilms.com
Home video: Christian.

Wolfe Video
Los Angeles, CA
(800) 438-9653
www.wolfevideo.com
Home video and theatrical: LGBT.

Women Make Movies
New York, NY
(212) 925-0606
www.wmm.com
Educational and theatrical (limited): A long-established nonprofit with an outstanding documentary collection.

Xenon Entertainment
Santa Monica, CA
(310) 451-5510
www.xenonpictures.com
Home video: independent features, urban issues, African American.

Zeitgeist Films Ltd.
New York, NY
(800) 509-0448
www.zeitgeistvideo.com
Home video, broadcast, and theatrical (limited): art-house, docs, foreign.

The Money, Markets and Business of Documentaries Since 1983

2007-11-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

Originally Published in International Documentary
November-December 2007

Historians often reduce the cause of a seismic event to a single action such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the great stock market crash of 1929 and the destruction of the World Trade Center. We know that this is an over simplification. The Second World War, the Great Depression and the War on Terrorists all were caused by many factors and were easily a decade in the making. It follows then that the massive economic changes that have taken place in documentary production can be traced to a series of technological, entrepreneurial, business and regulatory innovations that came together over time and conveniently overlaps the first 10 years of the International Documentary Association’s 25 year history. A coincidence to be sure, but one can say the last 25 years for independent documentary filmmakers to paraphrase, has been “the best and worst of times.”

Some of the good:

● Technology has shifted the power of video making to the individual who can now make and distribute works globally with gear that would fit into a backpack and cost less than $10,000.

● The same technology allows individuals to market and distribute their works within a virtual world-wide theater without the use of traditional distributors.

● Global as well as local capital markets can provide funds to filmmakers and one can make a modest living being a filmmaking with this new technology if one has a low overhead.

● We’re going to see the first billion dollar grossing documentary work in the next few years.

● New interpretations of “Fair Use” make it easier than ever before to make films using archival or other peoples’ footage, images, music, etc.

Following our metaphor, this business model has had many significant and surprising negative effects:

● Many middle level filmmaker are being driven out of the field since it will not support them or their overheads. Backpack video making is not labor or capital intensive. Thousands of people are making films “for nothing” and filmmakers who make film for a living have problems competing.

● There is almost no way a single documentary work can cover a budget with home video/DVD sales—unless it was made for almost nothing. Wholesale DVD prices are lower than ever and video-on-demand fees will approach pennies per screening. How can a $100 thousand or $1 million plus investment be recouped?

● While theatrical releases can be done in video formats reducing the high cost of prints, it is difficult to get theaters and even more difficult and costly to pull audiences into theaters.

● More broadcast and cable entities mean more product is needed to fill time but they draw smaller audiences and pay smaller fees.

● High definition works have become the standard format and it is expensive to make “real” high definition works. This provides a competitive disadvantage for a backpack producer.

● The other side of the new approach to “Fair Use” is that independent filmmakers work can be used without compensation. In the end, this will hurt independents more than the big aggregators of stock or archival footage.

Let’s look at these three period in terms of four interrelated strands:

● Technology: The shift from film to video. Development of backpack filmmaking. Changes and developments in personal computing.

● Finance and Funding: Changes in funding for production; in the public sector and in the private sector. Venture capital, studios, networks and filmmakers.

● Consumption: Changes in broadcast and cable programming. Million dollar (plus) theatrical releases of documentaries. The shift from sale of boxes and disks to VOD and the decline of the perceived value of personal copies.

● Gaining Respect: Awards, growth of the monster festival as a marketing and sales tool and the documentary agent, rep, lawyer.

Part 1: 1980s – The Shift from Film to Video or Station Wagon to Backpack

Film/Video

Technology
The shift from film (both 16mm and 35mm), the chemical based method of creating moving image media, to video really started in the 1980s. By 1982, companies begin to standardize the 8mm consumer videotape recorder format. The technology developed at the end of the Nineteenth Century that gave birth to the movie business was about to shift. The chemical media party was over. A struggling Microsoft releases MS-DOS 1.1 to IBM for the IBM PC. In 1983, the Betamax decision was still 2 years from being decided by the Supreme Court. This allowed the personal use of video machines to record broadcast television programs for later viewing (which constituted fair use) and that manufacturers of home video recording machines could not be liable for contributory copyright infringement for the potential uses by its purchasers, because they were sold for legitimate purposes and had substantial non-infringing uses. In 1984, Apple Computers introduced the first Macintosh computer, listing for $2,495, having a built in 400-kilobyte floppy disk, 128K of RAM and no small internal disk drive. It was inconceivable at this moment in time the significance this computer would play in video history.

Finance and Funding

The Media Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts initiates the regional fellowship project. Video and film fellowship programs were launched by the NEA and the American Film Institute and there were now numerous grants for film and video artists. PBS and CPB were funding and the NEH and the NEA were supporting high levels of independent production. It felt like a great time to be an “independent filmmaker.”

HBO showed its first original movie (a docudrama based on the Terry Fox story) and was just beginning to produce original documentaries. PBS was still allowing independent filmmakers to keep backend rights to their works. Emmy Awards went to “Body Human: The Living Code”, which aired on CBS and PBS’ “Great Performances: Dance in America” Jac Venza, producer was nominated but did not win. There were no traditional theatrical documentary box office hits like “Woodstock” (1970), which is estimated to have had a $50 million gross. The IMAX (large format) business was booming: this theatrical business model allowed the documentary film to make a hundred million dollar gross.

The short Canadian film, produced by The National Film Board of Canada and directed by Terry Nash “If You Love this Planet” and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Just Another Missing Kid” produced by John Zaritsky won the Documentary Oscars.

A good case study can be found by looking at Direct Cinema, enormous hit, “If You Love This Planet.” When the US Justice Department labeled the film; “Political Propaganda” and we refused to turn over lists of individuals who paid to see the film or rented it sales shot up to a massive level. Educational users were buying 16mm copies of this work for $495 a copy. A great many 16mm copies were sold and rented, we were making money. With the assistance of the ACLU, Senator Robert Kennedy and the American Library Association, the case went to the Supreme Court, creating more press and more sales. It’s politics caused it to win the short film Oscar that year (The film consisted of an illustrated filmed speech of Dr. Helen Caldicott, predating the next huge environmental film both in terms of style and performance, “An Inconvenient Truth” by 24 years.) Many educational companies and independent filmmakers were enjoying sales never before anticipated of films for classrooms and libraries. But this golden age of educational sales ended almost at it was starting because of the growth of home video, cheap copies of Hollywood films and the ability to copy works. Within the decade, this market would forever change.

Consumption:

Starting with the 1988 release of “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth” and continuing with the 1990 release of Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” which like “Campbell” aired on Public Television the million plus unit selling studio film educational version was the multi-boxed video set. “Campbell” and “Civil War” would become multi-million dollar hits in VHS video. “Civilization,” “BBC’s Shakespeare,” “Eyes on the Prize” and “Roots” are examples of other early broadcasts turned into multi-titled sets. The boxed VHS video series set was born. Broadcasters saw the income stream from the back ends and within the next decade they would all be demanding this income as part of their deal for funding works. The “sharecropper” filmmaker life would become commonplace. “Another day older and deeper in debt,” was the new business model. “All rights now known or hereafter devised” became the litany of the contract between the filmmaker and the funder.

Respect

The last 25 years of the documentary business would see electronic technology end the 100 year monopoly of chemically produced images, consumed either as projected images from physical film prints or as over-the-air broadcasts to television viewers, and the ability of individuals and businesses to amass vast libraries of individual moving image works inexpensively as electronic data for their personal or business use. For the first time in history, individuals could inexpensively create, manipulate, edit, and distribute moving image works on a global basis almost instantaneously. It would allow the creation of many new businesses, one called YouTube, which offers these images for free would be acquired a few years after it was created for more than the 1983 market capitalization of each of the six major studios: Disney, Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20^th Century-Fox, Universal and MGM/United Artists. This same technology, with the expansion of the “Fair Use” doctrine and changing nature of Copyright, decimates the documentary educational film business and devalued the worth of non-fiction films. An independent filmmaker’s business model based on selling a few hundred copies of a work in film proved to be inelastic as prices tumbled to less than $10 a copy from $15 to $20 a minute. In 2003, the Motion Picture Academy would permit documentaries to qualify in digital cinema formats.

Part 2: 1990s – The Shoot It, Tape It, Edit It, Collect It “Revolution”

Technology:

The 1990s marks the bulking up of technology. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, coined what is now called “Moore's Law”, it states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every two years. It would still take a few more cycles for the computer to handle media files with speed but it was clear that technology was changing quickly. The Macintosh portable computer, introduced in 1989 is selling for $6,500, a year later the Video Toaster ships and the Internet by 1990 includes 5,000 networks in over three dozen countries, serving over 700,000 host computers used by over 4,000,000 people and in 1991 Gopher is released at the U of Minnesota. The portable professional video camera still is a heavy, over the shoulder device priced out of the reach of independent filmmakers. Equipment size and complexity is improving and this decade will make the broadcast and theatrical release of small format videos possible. The time for the graduates of film programs or for that matter anyone with a little money to go out and make a documentary is here.

Finance and Funding:

Public television creates ITVS in 1991 to channel funds into independent documentaries. The response to its initiatives is dramatic. The number of entries to festivals like Sundance surges. While theatrical documentary for much of the 1990s, outside of IMAX is not setting the records that will inspire the venture capitalist or the studios to invest much into creating new product.

A number of IMAX films gross far more the theatrical documentaries: “The Dream is Alive”, “To the Limit”, “The Living Sea”, “Everest”, “Mysteries of Egypt”, “Thrill Ride”, and “Galapagpos” to name a few, their combined box office is over $200 million dollars. Even with Michael Moore’s hit of “Roger and Me” (1989), all of the other documentaries in theatrical release this decade of the 1990s do under $100 million dollars in combined box-office. There is no “there” there yet for investors and studios. Thanks to the continued infusion of funds from HBO, European broadcasters, the National Film Board, some wealthy filmmakers and investors, high budget films (approaching a $1 million) were produced with some regularity. The big money and returns are in the non-theatrical and/or home video and broadcast/cable side of the business. Ken Burns continues to release both series and individual works, starting this decade with “The Civil War.” Adding “Baseball” to it in 1995 and ending it with “Not for Ourselves Alone.” A studio executive at Paramount who was offered Burns’ “Frank Lloyd Wright” documentary said (to this author), it could not go out theatrically since, “no one knew Wright” was.

In the 1990’s grants for filmmakers from the Endowments begin to become more difficult to obtain. With President Regan dominating the 1980 followed by George H. Bush and Congress dominated by conservatives over much of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the arts and humanities Public Television all take hits. Public Television wants more bang for it license fees—rights to sell the video and the DVD so a license fee is no longer just a license but a rights deal. This will take some of the backend from the filmmaker and shift income to PBS. PBS and Pacific Arts battled over the home video deal in 1993 when PBS pulls its films and moves them to Warner Home Video. In the end was won by Michael Nesmith, in 1999, the former “Monkey” who started Pacific Arts. PBS was ordered to pay damages of $14,625,000 and punitive damages of $29,250,000 to Pacific Arts, plus damages of $1 million and punitive damages of $2 million to Nesmith as an individual for their aggressive violation of Pacific Art’s deal. The network also lost its claims of unpaid royalties on the PBS logo. Warner Home Video took over PBS’ home video and with a steady stream of independent and station funded product, some of independent distributors began to consulate and do out of business.

This and similar positions at the commercial networks was the end of license fees for license rights and the start of license fees for all rights. Shifting the business model forever away from the filmmaker owning the backend, to having to share it as a condition of funding. Within ten years time this would affect the entire middle-range of professional documentary filmmakers and the brief “golden age” of the 1970s and 1980s was over. Technology allowed freshly minted college graduates or anyone with a video camera to make films for almost nothing and many documentary filmmakers with mortgages, families and overhead would be pushed out. The top filmmakers, high profile, with their awards, records of accomplishment, established businesses would be fine. They could do commissioned works, they would be sought out as directors for hire by the HBOs, the PBS strands like American Masters and Experience, they could maintain their companies. While the PBS strands paid flat fees to many of the filmmakers for their work on their shows or used the license fees to acquire backend controls they were moving to shows that would sell DVDs in the back rather than just shows within their mandate.

Consumption:

Theatrically documentaries in the early 1990s were not generating significant box office heat. While they were praised critically and many deals were done with the films in competition at Sundance, including “Berkeley in the Sixties” (1990), “Paris is Burning” (1991), “American Dream” (1991) “A Brief History of Time” (1992), “Hoop Dreams” (1994), “Crumb” (1995), “When We Were Kings” (1996). Other than “Hoop Dreams” none of the Sundance in-competition films of the 1990s generated significant theatrical grosses (over $10 mil.). Films in the fictional film part of the festival made the festivals reputation, Park City became the place to find hidden box office hits. As the decade ended, studio executives, agents and dealmakers all looking for the next big hit were mobbing Sundance. They would be rewarded with works like “Napoleon Dynamite” “The Cooler” “The Station Agent.” “Supersize Me” in 2004 was the only major documentary break out work that was in the competition part of the festival.

Gaining Respect:

Documentaries continue to gain respect. The US Film Festival, started by the Lory Smith (see “Party in a Box” a history of the festival), continued to grow and its importance to independent documentary filmmakers starts when Robert Redford who founded The Sundance Institute in 1981, takes it over in 1991. With the draw of a superstar, the selections of Tony Safford (it’s programmer), the festival became the major American independent festival. Sundance Institute was set up to actively engage aspiring filmmakers, with the festival becoming a forum for that newly unearthed talent and a reputation for championing independent titles. Steven Soderbergh and his 1989 entry “Sex, Lies And Videotape” was the hit that rocketed the festival. Interest in independent films grew exponentially and in the early 90's, the emergence of young filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith, and Robert Rodriguez were the new stars.

Well-made works, such as: “A Great Day in Harlem”, “When We Were Kings”, “Four Little Girls” and “The Buena Vista Social Club”, “Crumb” receive Academy honors. “Hoop Dreams” and “Roger and Me” are theatrical stars, and shut out of the documentary Oscar along with works like “The Thin Blue Line”, “Paris is Burning” and “Crumb” because the Academy documentary committee either did not relate to the content or form, in the case of “Roger” just did not like the film and gave the Oscar to the Warner’s sister company HBO’s film “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt.” Documentary filmmakers used these omissions to demand change at the Academy and the committee was restructured and filled with members who were involved in documentaries. With new “conflict of interest rules,” working members of the Academy were now disqualified from the process and the average age of committee members dropped perhaps 15 years.

As the 1990s end we can see these changes:

Technology

● New technology forever changed the production model. Long live video.

Finance

● Producers reps and agents will now handle documentaries. The “deal” is covered in the trades and Harvey and Tony and other studio executives will knock on condo doors at midnight or make seven figure deals in theater lobbies.

● Networks/Cable/Studios will fund and acquire docs and filmmakers have a hard time holding on the rights.

Consumption

● The theatrical renaissance for the documentary feature is about to finally take place.

● Michael Moore becomes a celebrity and a brand name by using controversy and comedy to sell his political films. (Oddly comedian Sacha Cohen for a fiction film repeats this but few documentary filmmakers create cults for their works.)

● The “reality” show, a mix of fiction and non-fiction with some competition will edge out fiction shows and become huge mass market hits.

Gaining Respect

● The Oscar uses its clout to push for more and broader theatrical distribution of works which makes life more difficult for some independent filmmakers.

Part 3: 2000 and beyond.. – Digital Delights, HBO Support for Theatrical Films Pays Off, Academy Creates Doc Branch, “A Golden Age” and VOD

Technology:

The shift to high definition video continues as the technology moves from the lab to the field to the filmmaker. As American broadcasting shifts to hi-def, independent filmmakers will again have to deal with the high cost of technology that is reminiscent of the 35mm – 16mm production debates of the 1960s to the present. Full digital cinema will still require another decade or so, but for documentaries, few works other than IMAX productions are still being done in film. Avid and Final Cut Professional continue to compete for dominance. While the independent filmmaker works with Final Cut almost all of the other shows and Hollywood goes with Avid. Similar to the Windows and Apple debate filmmakers’ deal with the different software depending on their economic position. While Apple is “cool” the pros go with Avid. It is still unclear who will “win”.

Finance and Funding:

Theatrical exhibition of documentaries finally becomes a business in the new century. Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” (2004) goes on to gross $225,000,000 (which Miramax reportedly “gives away it share” under its deal with Disney), works such as an “Spellbound” (2003), “To Be and To Have” (2003), “Tupac Revolution” (2003), “The Corporation”(2004), “Touching the Void” (2004), “David Chappelle’s Block Party” (2006) “Inconvenient Truth”(2006), “Sicko” (2007) and numerous others gross millions of dollars. It is now the golden age of the theatrical documentary. The $100,000,000 grossing documentary in now a reality. With the success of animal pictures (Winged Migration” (2003), “The Story of the Weeping Camel (2004), “March of the Penguins” (2005), “Grizzly Man” (2005),) and the continuing IMAX animal and other pictures (“Bugs” (2003), “Aliens of the Deep” (2005) “Wild Safari 3-D” (2005), “Deep Blue” (2006)) funding is more available than ever. IMAX while difficult to fund continues to be $50 to $100 million dollar grosser.

Thanks to HBO and their visionary support of the independent documentary, the infrastructure is there to handle feature length works. HBO was the lone corporate money for over 20 years to fund an amazing array of personal, political, medical and other kinds of single documentary works. Interestingly they did not do many animal pictures despite their economic success but stuck to the vision of their long time head Sheila Nevins. With documentaries grosses setting historical records both in terms of number of theaters booked, grosses per theater and grosses per film it becomes easier to find funding. While two million dollars seems to be the cap for single titles it’s still a difficult gold ring to catch with budgets generally being in the $500 thousand to $1 million dollar range.

Documentary entries are pouring into festivals and seven figure deals are being made. An independent studio, run by an actor turned producer, director and mogul inexplicably chooses to fund my high concept program idea and its companion feature, CARRIER, putting multiple film crews on an aircraft carrier for a six-month mission to the Middle East. I get to stay home in Los Angeles and never get on the ship while the directors and crew struggle to follow the real stories of the crew and not get thrown off the ship with high definition cameras. Engaging and exciting television to be sure but like filming in the Antarctica, it is a hard life.

Consumption:

In television the “reality,” show pulls high ratings at low costs. These manipulated and often staged documentaries become another model. Even PBS runs the BBC reality series “1900” and then follows with three of their own set in America. The PBS strands continue producing high quality works with a new emphasis on music. From Richard Rodgers to Bob Dylan, knowing music sells DVDs the “Masters” program some of the key artists of the last century. Other than PBS and HBO and Cinemax few network and cable entities are programming a lot of individual documentary films by independent filmmakers but networks like Discovery, National Geographic, TMC, Showtime, CNN do program documentary works.

Gaining Respect:

The Academy Documentary Awards committee made up of members from all branches of the Academy since 1941 finally became its own branch on January 23 2001, with about 150 members, Arnold Schwartzman was its first chair. Giving documentary filmmakers their own branch gave documentary films a permanent home at the Academy and clout of three governors. With the large documentary peer sections at the LA and NY television Academies documentary, documentary filmmakers are finally getting a lot of respect, evidenced by their industry based associations and awards groups.

Concluding Thoughts

The box keeps changing as the economic forces change the business models for the documentary. We await Ken Burns’ epic series on the Second World War and know that more series will show up. The Academy will get a record number of documentaries this year and the committee will do the initial judging in DVD. This is a far cry from the clubby Documentary Committee lead by Norman Corwin (the subject of the HBO 2005 Oscar winning documentary short) screening all of the entries in the Academy’s small screening room twice a week in film. Then (horrors), talking about the films at a meeting, before they finally vote for the nominees, very different from the supposed non-interactive voting process today. The Television Academy screening committee members screen DVDs and then vote on the Emmys. We know that high definition television is here and soon the silver disks will have more data and the image will be richer, the color truer and we will have to consider what to do with our three-quarter inch, VHS and DVD collection of moving images.

We end our very abridged twenty-five economic history of documentaries neither sad or happy just wiser which is mostly a part of being older. We see history repeating itself as new formats struggle to establish themselves and Moore’s rule makes the gear smaller and cheaper. New filmmakers who don’t know their documentary film history. More college and university programs training more students but not very many good films are coming out. The AIVF, the New York based organization of independent filmmakers goes out of business, no awards show, but Linda Bizell’s (founder) IDA is going strong. One can expect a mob scene in Park City this January, more documentaries will be shown at Cannes and HBO will likely again be thanked on the Academy Awards.

As we move to 2008, we can observe the following trends and changes in our field:

Technology

● High definition is here to stay, now if only “they” can agree on the form. (VHS v Beta, again, history repeats itself.)

● Digital production and post production accelerates and film becomes a medium that is now mostly used in theatrical exhibition—while the theaters shift to digital projection. One can release a DVD theatrically and play a few hundred dates without ever making a film print.

● The cheaper digital technology causes far more documentaries to be made. Most are not good, never get distribution and sit on internet shelves with little or no promotion waiting to be downloaded.

Finance

● Attracting funding for works continues to be difficult because of competition from new back pack documentary filmmakers, more outlets for docs but lower fees for broadcast licenses (less eyeballs), more competition globally (with industries subsidized by governments) and fewer gatekeepers.

● Many new works are now using the new “Fair Use” guidelines to obtain footage for free, depriving filmmakers of their historic control of their work and the income they would derive from the sale of footage.

Consumption

● Michael Moore fails to reinvent his form and “Sicko” while well meaning and “important” fails to set box office records.

● Ken Burns apparent masterpiece “The War” at 14 hours with newly added material of Latino war participants shows the power of a small lobbying group and political correctness on a public network.

● Theatrical releases of documentaries continue to grow and the million dollar grosses are becoming common place.

● Reality shows remain popular, fast and cheap.

Gaining Respect

● The Academy continues to expand the theatrical requirements for documentaries to submit. Now 14 cities and 14 venues in addition to New York or Los Angeles.

● The International Documentary Association is using two venues in Los Angeles to qualify all of the documentaries.

● More documentaries are playing in theaters.

So who will make the first billion dollar-grossing documentary?

A Start

2007-11-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Docunomics is a blog dealing with the economics of documentary films.

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Yellow Pages for Filmmakers:

The Money, Markets and Business of Documentaries Since 1983

Part 1: 1980s – The Shift from Film to Video or Station Wagon to Backpack

Film/Video

Finance and Funding

Respect

Part 3: 2000 and beyond.. – Digital Delights, HBO Support for Theatrical Films Pays Off, Academy Creates Doc Branch, “A Golden Age” and VOD

Concluding Thoughts

Technology

Finance

Consumption

A Start

Filmmaker and station relations consultant Jennifer Owensby Sanza shares the advice she gathered from mentors and firsthand experience about how to secure public television broadcast.
March 21st, 2011 | Jennifer Owensby Sanza