Sunday, October 31, 2010

Crowd-Funding your Doc

Recently I responded with a donation to a fundraising project on Kickstarter. The project was an independent film based on the book Blue Like Jazz. It was the first time I'd heard about this relatively new fund raising platform but I was immediately taken with its potential to help budding filmmakers connect with potential donors. If you've got a great idea for a film, documentary or otherwise, and need some startup cash to get you to the next level, Kickstarter may be just the thing you need.
A search for "documentary" returns more than 300 projects currently underway or recently funded by Kickstarter. Go ahead and visit the link above to see some of the projects, and to screen short promotional clips. You'll notice that varying levels of participation earn increasing levels of rewards for "investors" who  commit to contributing funds if the goal is reached by a predetermined deadline. This protects contributors and creators from unnecessary risk.
Independent filmmaker Nathaniel Hansen has a Vimeo channel where you can see his Kickstarter promo clip, and several teasers for his upcoming documentary The Elders.
The DocumentaryTech website has some interesting thoughts about raising funds in this age of social media. Another great article, from a UK perspective, can be found here. Also, Distribution U, "a one-day crash course on the new rules of crowd funding, audience building, and distribution" is being held this month in NY and LA. Tickets and more info is available at their website.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, I got a T-shirt, poster, a call from the director, and a few other items related to the film, including an Associate Producer credit, for my contribution. I think I'll add that AP credit to my résumé now!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Race to Space will be Televised

If you are interested in space travel, or thinking about spending a cool $200K to make the trip yourself, you may want to watch the Nat Geo listing for upcoming docs about the Virgin Galactic project. See the NYT for more info.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Frederick Wiseman awarded Lifetime Achievement Award

The National Academy for Television Arts & Sciences awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award to Frederick Wiseman, one of the great pioneers of direct cinema and director of such notable films as Titlcut Follies, High School, Aspen, and Primate. Frederick Wiseman has produced, directed and edited 38 films on a wide range of topics. With shooting ratios that have exceeded 100:1, Wiseman gained entrance into institutions and organizations that, at first, merely tolerated his presence. But the longer he stayed, his hosts grew to see him as one of their own...thus providing an opportunity for Wiseman to film life as it happened. Wiseman has described his films as “biased, prejudiced, condensed, but fair.” Wiseman did not tolerate narration, interviews, or reenactments. Because of this his films can feel rather raw and unpolished, but that is also their beauty.
According to the National Academy for Television Arts & Sciences,
While Wiseman’s documentaries are based on completely un-staged events and contain no interviews or voiceover narration, they are less an objective portrait of reality than an accurate portrayal of the filmmaker’s interpretation of the subject, tempered by a deeply held obligation to be fair to the people who pass before his camera. Wiseman typically does little research before shooting, describing the shooting as the research and the finished film as a report on what he has learned. In between lies up to a year of rigorous and painstaking editing, resulting in documentaries that are equal to the best fiction films.
 Wiseman's first film, Titicut Follies, is about a hospital for the criminally insane. Banned for decades by a Massachusetts court citing concerns about patients' privacy and dignity, the film was finally allowed a national airing on PBS in the early 1990s.
According to Wiseman's website, his latest project, Boxing Gym, is scheduled for release later this month.