A Filmmakers' Guide to Capitol Hill by Will Jenkins

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

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

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

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

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.

©2010 MWB All Rights Reserved

Tony Bill on Pitching

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

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]