Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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How (and When) to Hire a Documentary Editor: What I Learned Making My First Short Doc
It’s six months after my first-ever film shoot on my first-ever film, the short documentary Sole Doctor. And yes, I’m still working on that documentary! After grappling with self-doubt and fretting about the narrative arc, I feel both confident in my vision and totally confused about how to shape the story. In other words, it’s time to find a good editor! But first, a little refresher about the project: Sole Doctor is a short observational-style documentary about George, a 78-year-old African-American shoe cobbler who has owned a business in Portland for over 50 years. Preparing to retire and pass the business on to […]
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Tribeca 2017: Alon Benari on the VR Thriller, Broken Night
Currently running at the Tribeca Film Festival’s Virtual Arcade, Broken Night is a psychological thriller featuring a quarrelling couple (Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola), an intruder and a handgun. Distilling these elements into 11 taut minutes, the piece throws viewers not just into the action but into the unsteady point-of-view of the short’s protagonist, the wife played by Mortimer, who is trying to reconstruct the events of one violent evening for an investigating police detective. Using a VR headset and browser-based player, Broken Night allows viewers to slip in and out of the wife’s POV, making for her character the […]
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Grass Roots Marketing, Speaking Fees for Filmmakers, Publicity Tips and the Release of I Am Not Your Negro at DOC NYC’s Marketing Bootcamp
This is the third and final part of coverage of DOC NYC’s Marketing Boot Camp. (Read parts one and two here at the links.) Christie Marchese of Picture Motion, a marketing and advocacy firm for issue-driven films (Leonardo DiCaprio’s Before the Flood, Ava DuVernay’s 13TH, and Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next), gave a presentation on developing social action and grassroots marketing campaigns. She made the point that grassroots marketing and impact campaigns are two different things: grassroots marketing targets audiences who are pre-disposed to be interested in your film. Impact campaigns are geared toward those who aren’t organically interested. […]
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28 Tips on Crowdfunding and Promoting Your Film via Social Media from DOC NYC’s Marketing Bootcamp
Continuing my coverage of DOC NYC’s Marketing Boot Camp (read part one here), this installment focuses on two information-packed presentations dealing with crowdfunding and promoting on social media. First up was Liz Cook, Director of Documentary Film at Kickstarter, who talked about the marketing and audience building and engagement aspects of crowdfunding. First, some basics. Most people know that Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing fundraising platform: if you reach your goal, you’ll receive all the money raised, minus fees. If you don’t, nothing will be charged to those who pledged, and you’ll get no money. Cook also relayed some interesting stats: […]
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Tribeca ’17: Five Questions with Water Warriors Director Michael Premo
I saw Water Warriors in February, just a month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, during its world premiere at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana. The short film and multimedia photo exhibition provided an element of much-needed hope at a time when the environment is increasingly imperiled by big business interests. But rather than focusing on dire statistics and predictions about climate change, Water Warriors highlights a rare success story of ordinary citizens — including members of the Mi’kmaq Elsipogtog First Nation, French-speaking Acadians and white, English-speaking families in New Brunswick, Canada — who fight to protect their water from the oil […]
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How To Cut a Trailer, “Audiencing” as a Verb, and Branded Content: A Report from DOC NYC’s Marketing Bootcamp
On Thursday April 13, DOC NYC PRO put on an all-day conference they dubbed the “Documentary Marketing Bootcamp.” It was a densely programmed event promising filmmakers insight into audience building for non-fiction films as well as career development. The various speakers indeed had much insight to share to share on these topics, and my takeaways are below. Following an intro by DOC NYC Artistic Director Thom Powers, who promised a cocktail reception after the long day (well played!), there was keynote speaker Morgan Spurlock, who kicked things off with a roundup of his work. Like Alex Gibney, Spurlock is as […]
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Anatahan, Woman of the Year, Baby Boom and La La Land: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations of the Week
Director Josef von Sternberg’s last film, Anatahan (1953), represents one of those rare cases where a director got to go out on the absolute perfect note: it sums up many of his philosophical and aesthetic preoccupations while also starkly departing from the kinds of lavish Hollywood productions that made him famous. Loosely based on a true story, it follows ten Japanese soldiers who are stranded on an island during World War II and remain there for years, reduced to their primal instincts by their surroundings as well as the lone woman they discover inhabiting the island. Von Sternberg shot the […]
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Oregon Doc Camp Now Accepting Applications
Now in its fourth year, Oregon Doc Camp invites experienced documentary filmmakers to a four-day documentary retreat May 18-21, 2017 at Silver Falls State Park in central Oregon. Developed by Women in Film Portland, Oregon Doc Camp gives working documentary filmmakers an opportunity to gather in an informal setting, learn from each other and build community in an ever-changing industry. This year, Kate Amend, editor of the Academy Award-winning documentaries Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport and The Long Way Home, as well as The Case Against 8, and many other films, will present the keynote speech. Currently on the faculty […]
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“She Knew Then That She was Going to Die of Her Femininity”: The Making of the Ayahuasca Drama Icaros: A Vision
In November 2012 Leonor Caraballo travelled to a healing center in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, with her friend and fellow artist Matteo Norzi. At the center Caraballo and Norzi drank ayahuasca together in ceremonies led by a shaman from the local Shipibo-Conibo people. During the first night’s ceremony, under the influence of the hallucinogen Caraballo had a dream vision that she later recounted to Norzi. It was a memory from her adolescence of horse riding with her uncle on a beach in Argentina. At some point during the vision she found herself laying belly down on the beach trying […]
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“The Future of Content”
[The following guest post is from director John Wilson. Click here to watch his short film Escape from Park City.] I was recently editing a commercial for a popular footwear company and my client kept referring to “the future of content” to his colleague. I had a hard time telling if this was just another bit of ad jargon or a sinister prophecy about the future of media. When I finally asked him what he thought “the future of content” was, he delivered a flippant “you are!” and asked me to reposition their logo. The advertiser’s role in culture reminds me […]
