You dream of a unique opening shot for your documentary—say, an elephant giving birth in a safari park. Initially it sounds great, but then reality sets in: How possible is it to have a film crew on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for maybe two months—on any budget? That’s the challenge Allison Argo, producer of The Urban Elephant, had to face. She eventually decided to shoot the birth scene on Mini-DV and the rest of the doc on Super-16mm film. Mixing media, as it has come to be known, has become a regular practice in documentary-making and is successfully used by science producers
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At the 9th annual World Congress of Science Producers, held in Washington, DC in October, some 315 delegates from 20 countries attended panels whose subjects ranged from programs for kids to productions for the education market. Keynote speaker Nathan Myhrvold, the Microsoft cyberscience guru-turned-science adventurer, also extolled the role of popular science in inspiring future scientists. In the context of the congress, the term “science” covered such topics as health, wildlife, space, archeology and engineering—as well as bioterrorism. The annual convocation began in 1984 when TV Ontario’s
Although I have produced three live action shorts and two feature films, this is my first documentary, and my first project as a director. Like many first-time documentary filmmakers, I became involved because it was a project that cried out for documentation. The Art of Remembering began as an exhibition of hand-carved memorials set in the historic gardens of Blickling Hall, a Jacobean palace in Norfolk, England, now owned by Britain’s National Trust. In the 17th century it was the home of the Boleyn family, and it is said that Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second queen, was born there. The Art
A film festival that celebrates the funders of a film or video? That’s what the annual Council on Foundations Film and Video Festival does. An association of private foundations, it showcases a dozen selections of recent films and videos at several of the conferences it holds each year. The festival debuts at the annual conference, then travels to smaller COF conferences targeted at corporate, community and family foundations. It evidences foundations’ growing awareness of the importance of media in a wide range of action agendas, and their increasing interest in funding outreach, as well as
If you’re thinking now about how to spend your summer, consider the DoubleTake Documentary Summer Institute. When I read the line-up of luminaries for the 2001 Institute, I knew I had to get there. These were some of my heroes—Frederick Wiseman, Ken Burns, Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson, among others. Not only would they hold master classes on the stories behind storytelling, but I could actually ask them questions one-on-one. As a documentary filmmaker for public television, I wanted answers to the typical queries: “What’s your budget?” “How much time did you spend in edting?” But this was
In 1991, as the new executive director of IDA, I received a telephone call from Hot Springs, Arkansas, seeking advice on starting a documentary film festival. I had no notion of the long-lasting and far-reaching impact this idea would have. Since it was my job to promote documentaries, I was not going to inform the business leaders of Hot Springs that such a festival was not likely to bring tens of thousands of cultural and tourist dollars into their community (I was ultimately wrong about that.). It was my job to do everything possible to help get films seen. Since then, the IDA and the
When I first started making documentaries in the ’60s, it was in the midst of the Direct Cinema revolution in America. Suddenly, it had become possible for two people to enter a dimly lit room with an Eclair and Nagra and record “life as it was happening” at 24 frames per second. The prevailing myth at the time was that if you hung around long enough, the “truth” would surely be revealed, and always while you had a full magazine of film to capture it. “Just pretend we’re not here,” we’d tell our subjects, as if those magic words would really make us invisible. Then one day I saw Chronicle of a
Dear IDA Members, The annual membership meeting in December, while far from a quorum, generated a lively discussion as to where IDA should head during the coming year. There was a general consensus that the “International” in International Documentary Association should be emphasized and that growth for the IDA should come through the establishment of chapters in various cities. The board members who attended supported the initiatives, but a formal vote was tabled until the first meeting of the new board of directors. Our target cities are New York, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Amsterdam and
Post-September 11, we have trained our senses on other corners of the world, and on ourselves. In “ Short Takes” this month, we cite two initiatives, 9.11 Moments, producing by Independent Television Service (ITVS) and War & Peace, a project of the D-Word Community, as examples of how our community is responding. In addition, New York-based collectives Third World Newsreel, Paper Tiger Television and Independent Media Center are all producing media works that examine the schism between how Americans really see themselves and how the America mainstream media and government would like us to be
Entertainment companies reeled in films and canceled dramatic shows that might remind people of the horrors of September 11, while channels that primarily broadcast documentaries clamored for programming that could explain the tragic events of that day. Documentary buyers, producers and distributors began grappling with this shift at last fall’s television market, MIPCOM, in Cannes, France, the day American bombs started to fall on Afghanistan. “A new reality has set in,” according to documentary production executive Ron Devillier. “We don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s there.” Even