Hot fun in the summertime—get ready for the Summer 2014 issue of Documentary! Out of school...fish are jumpin'...the time is right for dancin' in the streets...we're on safari to stay...and the Summer 2014 issue of Documentary is the beach-reading of choice for discerning perusers everywhere! This edition, we offer you a glimpse at New Online and Cable Venues for Docs The digital space is the volatile frontier, with stakeholders large and small jockeying for a piece of it. We look at a few of the newer players who are staking their claim, including Al Jazeera America, which in less than a year
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'Korengal' opens May 30 in New York City through Goldcrest Films.
It was the mid- 1950s and my sociology professor announced to our class one day that he was about to show us a documentary film. Students began to groan. Documentaries to many of us—unless they were about sex education—meant B-O-R-I-N-G. The film our professor had selected was The River by Pare Lorentz. Lorentz had made the film in 1937-38, during the Great Depression, a time when the Midwest had become a giant dust bowl as a result of drought, soil erosion and deforestation. The River was designed to show how industrialization had ravaged the beauty and richness of the land, through erosion
A review of Sheila Curran Bernard's 'Documentary Storytelling for Film and Videomakers'
Last week, the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic continued its advocacy efforts on behalf of documentary and independent filmmakers seeking reform on the issue of orphan works, copyrighted works for which the original rights holder cannot be identified or located. Many documentary filmmakers use existing copyrighted works when editing together their films, typically in the form of archival material. Sometimes a filmmaker may rely on fair use, but often he or she needs to obtain a license. When a work is orphaned, obtaining a license is impossible: how do you get a license
Ultimate Explorer correspondent Lisa Ling, (right) on assignment with smokejumpers in Nepal. Photo: Mark Thiessen/National Geographic Television and Film." src="http://www.documentary.org/images/magazine/2003/UltimateExplorer_Dez2003.jpg" style="width: 647px; height: 411px;"> One of the longest running series on cable television, National Geographic's Ultimate Explorer, debuted in 1985 as Explorer, just as cable was starting to explode. The series has bounced from channel to channel, but has always managed to stay alive in the television jungle. Explorer first found a home on Nickelodeon. A
It's April, and the political season is in full swing as Americans explore the ideas, ethics and vision of a field of presidential hopefuls. For those of us who pride ourselves in making documentaries that are important and engaging, politics can be alluring subject matter. Fast-paced and dramatic, the medium has the impact to shape the world around us in a way that few others can. But there is a problem. Documentaries are, in their purest form, a slow and careful enterprise. News programs—the hyperactive cousin of the observational documentary—are in many ways more suited to the high-speed
Dear Editor, I just read Melissa Hook's article ("The Real CSI: Are Crime Victims Being Re-Victimized by Filmmakers?") in the February-March 2004 International Documentary. I was interviewed for this piece and was glad to participate, given the importance of the topic. Unfortunately, while I cannot speak for the entire article, the section where she quotes me is both erroneous and shortsighted. Her first mistake is a misreading of my and Liz Garbus' film, The Farm. Contrary to Hook's stated assumption, the unjust conviction of a rapist is not a theme in the film. The main themes are about how
Nominees: 19 th Annual IDA DISTINGUISHED DOCUMENTARY ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 2003 Feature Documentaries BalserosMaria Jose Solera, Tom Roca, Loris Omedes, Carlos Bosch, Josep M. DomenechHBO/Cinemax Documentary Films, Seventh Art Releasing, Televisio Catalunya, Bausan Films Berga: Soldiers of Another WarCharles Guggenheim, Grace GuggenheimPBS Home Video, CS Associates, Guggenheim Productions Inc., Thirteen/WNET New York Capturing the FriedmansAndrew Jarecki, Marc Smerling, Jennifer RogenMagnolia Pictures, HBO Documentary Films Das Leben Geht Weiter (Life Goes On)Carl Schmit, Mark CairnsStarcrest
The Independent Film Project (IFP) Market, held in New York City in September, has reinvented itself. Gone are the circus-like antics to recruit viewers into screenings. Absent is the excess of projects diluting the overall quality. Today's IFP Market has changed: it's streamlined, more focused. And it's a better place than ever to bring your documentary, at whatever stage you are in. Veteran market buyer Stephen Kral of Seventh Art Releasing notes the changes this way: "For years the market has been a good place to bring your doc; now it's an excellent place. Docs are getting better all the