The Documentary Life

Crowdfunding, nowadays, is one of the most common funding options out there for the documentary filmmaker. However, the crowdfunding playing field has evolved considerably since the early days of Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Take for instance, Seed & Spark.

A multitude of crowdfunding platforms now do different things, depending on your needs. And while the list of a doc filmmaker’s needs seems never-ending, it’s things like building an audience for your film, increasing your social media followers, and distribution options for your film, that are right at the top of any doc filmmaker’s list.

Which is what makes a crowdfunding platform like Seed & Spark such an attractive option. It has all of those things and more. It has been developed by industry leaders and is specifically geared to the independent filmmaker. And for today’s episode, we’ve brought on Seed & Spark founder and CEO, Emily Best, to talk about it.

• how & why Seed & Spark was created to put the independent back in independent filmmaking
• how a platform like Seed & Spark runs a unique educational program to ensure success before you run a campaign through their platform
• how Seed & Spark rewards are all about gaining followers for your crowdfund
• Seed & Spark has an astonishing 80+ percent success rate with their crowdfund campaigns
• Seed & Spark has distro platform that pays the highest royalty rate of any digital distribution platform

As referenced in the podcast episode, #DocLifer, Josh Davidsburg, is running a crowdfunding campaign for his film, Queen of the Capital, through Seed & Spark. Check out the trailer for his doc, then see what he did for his S & S campaign here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7G128nlbzA

Free Music Archive – Special Thank You to recording artist, Dlay who supplied music for this week’s episode of TDL. You too can download his music or other artist’s music by going to Free Music Archive today!

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It’s no secret that one of the bigger hurdles that we are often faced with as documentary filmmakers is that of funding. It is my intention with this episode to hopefully make things a little lighter for you, when it comes to finding funds for your documentary film.

There is a good chance that Carole Lee Dean is a name that either you know or you at least recognize. And for good reason. She has been embodying the independent film spirit and helping indie filmmakers – especially the doc makers who she has a particular affinity for – ever since she began running her non-profit organization, From the Heart Productions.

For years, From the Heart Productions has been helping documentary filmmakers get film funding through their Roy W. Dean Grant, Fiscal Sponsorship Program and the Intentional Filmmaking Class.

Carole is also the author of one of my fave books on film funding out there, The Art of Film Funding as well as the host of The Art of Film Funding podcast!

So you can imagine how excited I was to sit down with her and have a one-on-one about all-things funding for the documentary filmmaker!

• the pretty cool story behind her father being the impetus behind the Roy W. Dean Grant
• some best practices for approaching grant funding organizations, like the RWD Grant
• various film funding techniques discussed in the book
• how and why someone should apply for a fiscal sponsorship through FTH Productions

As promised in the episode, here are the 5 common funding options for the documentary filmmaker discussed in this epsiode

• individual donations
• grants and foundations
• businesses and corporations
• crowdfunding
• fundraising events

For a much more thorough examination of some of the film funding topics that we discussed on the episode, you can purchase Carole’s book, The Art of Film Funding.

The Roy W. Dean Grant is a wonderful opportunity for you, #DocLifer, to apply for some funding and incredible in-kind services for your film. And it just so happens that the next deadline is only a couple of weeks away… April 30th!! So check out this handy video that provides some great insight & tips for applying for the grant!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUvfk9t9iWw

The D.C.A.P. is where we highly recommend beginning your documentary grant proposal writing, as many funding organisations either use this core template or something close to it!

Free Music Archive – Special Thank You to recording artist, Dlay who supplied music for this week’s episode of TDL. You too can download his music or other artist’s music by going to Free Music Archive today!

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

Maclain and Chapman Way have recently directed, edited, produced one of the most talked about Netflix docuseries of the year, Wild Wild Country. They have become one of the hottest, most sought after doc filmmaking duos around.

Of course, their success didn’t happen overnight. From taking some calculated, but brazen risks with their first doc, The Battered Bastards of Baseball to taking two separate trips to Switzerland to woo the critical character of Ma Anand Sheela for Wild Wild Country to convincing the people over to Netflix that they had a great new idea for a docuseries, the Way brothers will inspire you to live and lead your doc lives in ways you probably haven’t yet thought of.

Which is why, after hearing our conversation with Mac & Chap, you will be left with the feeling that they are truly #doclifers, just like you and I.

• the importance of taking risks, of investing in yourself
• how their sizzle reel landed them a Netflix deal for Wild Wild Country
• tips for approaching a major digital distribution platform like Netflix
• how working with Netflix editorially was a positive and beneficial experience
• the importance of making your doc an immersive, instead of simply informational experience

° Watch the trailer for Wild Wild Country

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBLS_OM6Puk

° Watch the trailer for The Battered Bastards of Baseball

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA76b5Hhvxg

Free Music Archive – Special Thank You to recording artist, Dlay who supplied music for this week’s episode of TDL. You too can download his music or other artist’s music by going to Free Music Archive today!

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

In this episode we are joined by someone who is well-acquainted with making personal documentaries, or as he refers to them, as spiritual documentaries.

Michael Wiese has been making documentary films for 40+ years and is also the founder/owner of the world’s biggest publisher of filmmaking books, Michael Wiese Productions.

He joins us to discuss the inspiring ways in which he has been living his #doclife, his memoir Onward & Updward: Reflections of a Joyful Life, how Parkinson’s has positively affected his approach to filmmaking and living his #doclife, and his own experiences as a filmmaker learning about the world and his connection to it, through his films and books.

This is a conversation that will resonate deeply with any doc filmmaker who has made the craft of filmmaking & storytelling a deep priority in their life.

Often times as doc filmmakers, we will choose subjects that are near and dear to our hearts. And usually we will have quite personal connections to these subjects. So it’s only natural when we choose to make what is known as the personal documentary.

While some of the more powerful stories in documentary can be of a very personal nature, there are things that any doc filmmaker must consider before embarking on the personal documentary journey. We discuss 5 Tips for Making the Personal Documentary, which include:

• Have way to film yourself
• Decide how personal you’re willing to be
• Choose a topic you’re passionate about
• Can you be comfortable in front of the camera?
• Don’t over-explain

° Watch the trailer for The Shaman & Ayahuascua:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFhnm12znDI

° Watch the teaser for Michael’s memoir, Onward & Upward: Reflections of a Joyful Life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiSfjCeJ64Y

If you are interested in watching TDL host, Chris G. Parkhurst’s personal documentary, you can check out Journey to Kathmandu, a film that follows the once-in-a-lifetime journey that goats make from their farmland lives of goats in Tibet to their sacrificial deaths in Kathmandu, during the Nepalese holiday, Dashain.

Purchase of the Deluxe Director’s & Goat’s Edition comes loaded with behind-the-scenes footage, director’s commentary, shorts, and deleted scenes. Regardless if you’re simply looking for more info on the making of J2K’or you’re a budding independent filmmaker (or just a fan of goats!), this is a must-have for anyone who enjoys gaining insight into what goes into the making of an independent documentary in a developing country.

Free Music Archive – Special Thank You to recording artist, Dlay who supplied music for this week’s episode of TDL. You too can download his music or other artist’s music by going to Free Music Archive today!

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

We welcome CPA, Professor of Accountancy, fraud expert, and documentary filmmaker, Kelly Richmond Pope to the programme. Kelly comes highly recommended by other Kartemquin alum, and once you’ve heard this frank and open conversation about how she lives her doc life, you will surely understand why!

• how a separate profession can lend itself very directly to your documentary life and films
• importance of creating your own splash when it comes to festivals and distribution
• how it’s actually more important to overestimate in your film budget proposals
• definition of success is not what you thought it was as a doc filmmaker
• using your film topic to align yourself with sponsors who will pay for your community screenings

In our episode, Kelly Richmond Pope talks about how she teaches accounting through the lens of film and fraud. Below you can watch a recent TedX where Kelly discusses why we hate the whistleblower.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1OoFvcTess&t=417s

° Watch a trailer for Kelly Richmond Pope’s All the Queen’s Horses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q57ZKn-C-To

Check out Kelly’s brand new podcast, Nothing But the Truth:

Nothing But The Truth is a podcast that investigates fraud from the inside out. Taking us on a journey through fascinating stories of corruption and whistle-blowing told straight from the source, co-hosts forensic accounting professor Kelly Pope and conscious millennial sound editor Tim Edson challenge us to rethink what we “know” about victims and perps. In each episode, listeners grapple with the question: could you commit this crime, or tell on someone who does?

In the episode I talked about receiving an email from a 16 year old Luther Clayton who has been inspired by TDL to go out and create his own adventure doc series, The Adventure Diaries. Watch his mission video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=jl-JHo5LKJM

Free Music Archive – Special Thank You to recording artist, Dlay who supplied music for this week’s episode of TDL. You too can download his music or other artist’s music by going to Free Music Archive today!

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

In our first 64 episodes of this podcast we have touched upon a host of documentary-related topics and spoken with a variety of guests. However, until now, we’d never spoken with someone who has been on the other side of the documentary camera. And what better documentary subject to have this conversation with than an Up Series alum, who has been on all eight installments of the documentary film series.

William Nicholas Hitchon, or Nick, as he’s known in the Up Series, comes on the show to talk directly to the very people – us #doclifers! – who are making the films about documentary subjects.

• the responsibility of the doc filmmaker in portraying their subject
• reality tv vs documentary series
• awareness of culture you’re shooting in as well as culture where it will be presented
• importance of sensitivity to how a film can impact the subject’s lives, often in ways neer anticipated
• how Nick was first cast in the landmark Up Series

So many documentary films have been shot employing a verite style. But there can be a misconception that verite might be an easy or worse, lazy, way of shooting.

On the contrary, verite must be given the proper thought and attention as any other way of shooting a film. And the following list of ways in which to do so will be helpful to you as you move forward with your verite doc:

• Have a plan
• Roll on everything
• Be ready to go
• Anticipate conversations
• Use a deep depth of field

Documentary Filmmakers & Films of Verite

View the first installment of the Up Series in its entirety:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LQZpiSfESE&index=1&list=PLIGJJ9cTc6TXcusb4CcEzucoRRe-79qny

You can read this great IDA article about the Up Series

Read more about Nick Hitchon’s experience with the series, check out an article run in Independent

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

No other guest that we’ve yet had on the show exemplifies what we’ve been defining over the past 21 months here on TDL as living and leading a documentary life, quite as well as Raising Bertie filmmaker, Margaret Byrne.

Margaret went from working for MTV Networks in the US and then setting up the first MTV Network in Africa, working with Mary J. Blige and her production company, to eventually deciding to leave the New York life behind, moving to Chicago and starting making her own documentary films.

Her story of how and why she decided to this, her story of seven years working on the Kartemquin co-produced award-winning doc, Raising Bertie, is one of the most real and accessible conversations that I’ve ever had with someone on the show.

Find out why and how Margaret Byrne is truly leading a documentary life.

• life considerations + sacrifices made to be a documentary filmmaker
• how + why it took seven years to make Raising Bertie
• how the original story for Raising Bertie
• why she has chosen to stay close with her subjects long after filming
• life as a single mom #DocLifer

° Watch the trailer for Raising Bertie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbhiPQXGb4c

° Watch Margaret discuss Raising during the Atlanta Film Festival.

(Thanks to fellow #DocLifer and HeartFireFilm’s Rich Gedney for the piece!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNiSaFMIr2A

Free Music Archive – Special Thank You to recording artist, Dlay who supplied music for this week’s episode of TDL. You too can download his music or other artist’s music by going to Free Music Archive today!

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

Storytelling is always at the heart of any kind of documentary journey. And for today’s episode of the podcast, we will explore 5 Ways to Tell Someone’s Story, followed by a shared conversation with, Stephen Most, who has been working in documentary for 40+ years and he has had a hand in the writing and/or producing of four documentary films that were nominated for an Academy Award. Stephen has just released his new book, Stories Make the World: Reflections on Storytelling and the Art of the Documentary.

• how & why storytelling is an essential part of the human experience
• how doc filmmaking gives extraordinary access to the world’s most intimate stories
• importance of truly listening to our subjects + their stories during the interview
• why interviewing with a sound recorder might sometimes work better than on-camera

Some of the ways, as we discuss in this episode, in which you can tell someone’s story in your documentary film:

• archival photos/footage
• testimonials
• find the details
• become the explorer
• silence is okay

Watch the trailers for Stephen Most’s documentary films:

° Nature’s Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdqBUXyZPF4

° River of Renewal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq7kYfkaQ10

° Oil on Ice

https://vimeo.com/43694943

Watch the trailer for Stephen Most’s book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJqlsqnykSs

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

So what exactly does one say to one of the most respected documentary filmmakers of our time?

What does one say to the man who literally inspired countless future doc filmmakers when his film Hoop Dreams took the world by storm in 1994?

What do you say to the man who has made a career out of telling some of the most human, humane, and heart wrenching stories about some of the neglected and forgotten and misunderstood amongst us?

And what do you say to the man who was just nominated for a 2018 Best Documentary Oscar for his film Abacus: Small Enough to Jail?

Well, I suppose that’s why you’ve tuned in to this very special episode of The Documentary Life, an episode where we sit down for a heart-to-heart, one doc filmmaker to another conversation with documentary legend, Steve James.

• keys to longevity as a doc filmmaker
• the filmmaker’s responsibilities after being nominated for an Academy Award
• how Steve started out working as a Production Assistant, and how he nearly quit
• importance of being paid for your time in your grant proposal budgets
• whether or not it’s necessary to build your story around a conflict

Watch for free: Abacus: Small Enough To Jail

Watch the Film Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH4OMyYzjZ0

Episode #62 is brought to you with support from BlackBox Global, creators of one of the easiest way to turn your filmmaking skills into passive income!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=BAGp0j57LNE

Go to BlackBox, Create a Free Account, and start selling your footage today!

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!

Filming in extreme environments as a doc filmmaker can be a challenging thing. Shooting in Antarctica? A whole other ballgame. Just ask Anthony Powell, who has been working on the continent for over a decade, and has recently released the award-winning doc Antarctica: A Year on Ice. He has taken what started out as a hobby shooting timelapses of the Antarctica skies and terrain, and turned it into a fulfilling career as a preeminent Director of Photography and doc filmmaker on the continent.

We had the pleasure of holding conversation with Anthony (or Antz, as he’s known to his friends and colleagues) for this week’s episode of the podcast.

• shooting in extreme cold environs
• how the cold affects your camera gear
• how to shoot better timelapses
• how to live and work in Antarctica for a full calendar year

While I don’t necessarily have much experience in the colder extremes of the world, I do have plenty of experience working in the opposite spectrum of the thermometer. So in our opening segment I lay out 5 Tips for Shooting in Hot Environments & Harsh Sunlight.

1. Don’t shoot in middle of the day
2. Keep your camera cool
3. Wear appropriate clothing
4. Wear sunscreen
5. Bring a photo reflector

Anthony Powell’s timelapses and other videos:

https://vimeo.com/136179939

https://vimeo.com/93102009

https://vimeo.com/38416148

If you have found value in this podcast please leave a review so it can become more visible to others. Simply click the link and then click on the Ratings and Reviews tab to make your entry. Thank you for your support!