Abby Sun, Director of Artist Programs and Editor of Documentary Magazine
Dear Readers,
On Monday, IDA hosted the first member meetup in NYC since the pandemic. It was great to see so many of you there. Interestingly enough, I had several conversations about early Internet distribution—streaming acquisitions in the 2000s and early 2010s—during which I realized that those days were interesting for several reasons: 1. There were lots of outlets, meaning that pitches could be taken from place to place in a relatively quick fashion, 2. No exclusivity clauses, so a single piece could be licensed several times over a couple of years, generating additional audience interest and small fees, and 3. The focus on short-form videos, made inexpensively, created a lot of opportunities for budding filmmakers. Those three qualities—choice, flexibility, and affordability—are also hallmarks of a diverse and healthy media ecosystem.
This world seems impossible now, and it was also never perfect before. For one, the licensing fees were tiny (but not much lower than what prestige journalistic outlets currently pay for their short doc acquisitions!). But what if it were possible to bring the parts that worked back?
There are many reasons why the early golden age of micro-docs no longer exists. The media entities that funded them (albeit at very low cost)—Conde Nast publications, CNN—quickly dropped buying short docs for free and ad-supported VOD in favor of creating IP for longer-form works hosted on subscription-based platforms. I’m also unfamiliar with viewership metrics, but I suspect that the glut of new platforms didn’t help engagement. By now, social media is where the ultra-short-form lives, anyway. At the IDA member happy hour, several other filmmakers, like me, realized that we earned our stripes at this time. We got to quickly collaborate with each other and work with a commissioning editor for the first time. Budding filmmakers listened on in envy.
These questions are some of what I’m thinking about in my fall semester at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy. I’ll share my findings in the spring 2025 issue of Documentary.
In the last month of Documentary’s digital publication, the most important piece we published is a collaboratively written opinion from the filmmakers behind The Ride Ahead, “A Bump in the Road on Our Ride Ahead.” Taking a considered but honest approach to ablest screening conditions at a festival stop, Samuel and Dan Habib, Sara Bolder, and Jim LeBrecht detail what went wrong with the screening—and concrete steps on how other event and screening organizers can avoid the same pitfalls. We strongly recommend that you read the piece, and then share it with colleagues.
The rest of this newsletter contains copious links to the many interviews, festival recaps, and Summer/Fall 2024 print issue pieces that we also published this month.
Drop us a line at magazine@documentary.org if you have suggestions, notes, pitches, questions, jokes, feedback, or kind words. Everything is appreciated.
Thanks for your continued readership and support.
Until the next newsletter,
Abby Sun
Editor, Documentary