How many of us documentary filmmakers have shelves or closets stacked with interviews or portions of interviews that never made it into our films? Or miles of footage that took thousands of dollars and months or years to gather? Or hours of material that had to be shaved down to a few minutes because of that one-hour television programming standard? Some of our footage has been around for years, possibly decades. Why don't we have the heart to dump those many boxes? Because that footage is still precious to us. I've been a full-time independent filmmaker for 14 years, and in that time I have
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It has taken a few years, but digital versatile disc (DVD), technology has matured. If you count the DVD drives in desktop computers, there are over 54 million DVD players worldwide. Electronics manufactures sold about 71 million DVD players worldwide last year and are expected to ship between 80 and 90 million units in 2003 and 95 million units in 2004. Clearly, the audience for content is there. To fill that gap, every major film is released in DVD. According to the International Recording Media Association, there were 1,740 million DVD videos produced worldwide in 2002 and a projected 2,415
A review of Alan Rosenthal's 'Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films and Videos' (Third Edition)
What would happen if technology stopped in its tracks? If filmmaking's tools of tomorrow were the same as today? It's slightly ironic in the midst of the Tribeca Film Festival—a festival itself with one leg in silver oxide and the other in hi-def digital projection—that this debate took center stage. The question was somewhat rhetorical, since all of the people on stage at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center acknowledged that the tools that make film are evolving in a dramatic and explosive evolution. But not everyone was willing to agree that all this change is good for documentary. The forum
Editor's note: James Miller, the producer/DP of Beneath the Veil and director/DP of Unholy War , was killed in the Gaza Strip (Occupioed Palestinian Territory) by Israeli troops while covering a documentary for HBO about the lives of children in Palestine. Saira Shah, who co-produced and reported in both Beneath the Veil and Unholy War , was with Miller when he has killed. Her tribute originally appeared in the London-based Observer . James once told me that if he'd lived in the Second World War, he'd have been one of those officers who led his men over the top, simply because it would have
The DVD industry is driven by an ever-growing roster of companies that embrace this format and are consolidating the key components of making this business work—acquisitions, filmmaker relations, post-production, distribution and marketing—under one roof. International Documentary spoke to three players in the industry about the keys to growth and survival Docurama New York-based Docurama ( www.docurama.com), a division of New Video, specializes exclusively in documentaries. Among its many titles are A Decade Under the Influence (Richard LaGravenese, Ted Demme), Lost in La Mancha (Louis Pepe
I am not a filmmaker. I don't even play one on TV. Last year, however, I did write direct and edit a three-minute film as part of a project called Funtown. Even better, I managed to talk ten friends into making films too. No restrictions on style or format. No budget. And a two-week time limit. We put the eclectic results on an enhanced CD with some music and released the package through a local record label. An amusing little experiment. At the end of March, I received an email letting me know Funtown would be shown as part of the Primer Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre (aka The first
In the journey from idea to premiere screening or airing, a lot happens to both the filmmaker and the film. Regardless of the combination of talent, money, time or quality/importance of the documentary, some filmmakers weather the trek with grace, while some question its very worth. Others simply give up. As a story consultant, I am fascinated with this phenomenon. And it all comes down to a deceptively simple question: "Why do you want to make this documentary?" It may stem from a personal fascination for a subject; it may be out of a need to share an issue of urgency. Your answer may help
American Splendor, a feature film written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, is based on the award-winning autobiographical comic book of the same name by writer Harvey Pekar who, until his retirement in 2001, was a full-time file clerk at the Cleveland VA Hospital. Pekar's comic book, first published in 1976, was illustrated by many different artists, notably R. Crumb, and dealt with everyday scenes from Pekar's life. "Ordinary life," comments Pekar, "is pretty complex stuff." Producer Ted Hope, a big fan of Pekar's comic book, proposed a film to Berman and Pulcini, who