Fear-Free Fundraising

Do ask, do tell

By Holly Million

I’ve been raising money for 20 years. During my career, I have asked people for all kinds of money for all kinds of reasons. However, whether I’m asking for $1,000 or $100,000, I have found that there are some key concepts that rule.

These are my Hella Hot Tips for how to ask people for money. The good news is that this isn’t brain surgery. It’s common sense. If you take these key concepts and use them as your guide for individual donor fundraising, you, too, will raise money.

topics: authors, bay area, diy, funding

The 6th Screen

Chat It Up: Livestream, UStream and Justin.tv

By Hannah Eaves

Just over a year ago we witnessed an historic event when President Barack Obama took office. But in the virtual world another—albeit less monumental—breakthrough was happening. CNN took the event live online, alongside a Facebook Live Stream Box, allowing viewers to chat with friends and strangers, their conversation appearing next to the video. CNN reported 21.3 million streams by mid-afternoon, breaking all records. To Facebook, 600,000 updates were posted, with 4,000 updates per minute during the broadcast. Several months later the Jonas brothers came along and utterly shattered that record: 23,000 posts per minute. Long ago we dismissed chat rooms as dark holes filled with unpleasant people and noise. But with live steaming services surviving and event-based communication growing, has this become a case of, The Chat Room is Dead, Long Live the Chat Room?

topics: digital filmmaking, diy, internet

Beyond Words

Shhh: the use of silence in

By Lisa Rosenberg

Even in the Bay Area, the quiet weeks of January remind us of the gifts of winter: a stillness, pause, and time of secret, subterranean growth. Similarly, silence and stillness can amplify the hidden dramatic qualities of your story on film. You can use them to capture your audience and draw them closer, anticipating something yet unseen. They can solicit a deeper focus on a character’s internal state. Silence can also establish a quality of place or an emotional tone.

topics: actors, authors, bay area, screenwriting

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Turning talking heads into storytellers

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: I have interviewees, talking heads that are making the story dull. I was told that in today’s market I’ll be better off with characters. Any way I can morph one into the other or is it too late?

Doc Doctor: Yes, you might fare better in today’s market if you have a character-driven story. In years of consulting and seeing how those films did in the market, I learned that if you don’t have characters, having people with any story function can be just as good. In documentaries people become characters when they participate in a dramatic arc or are explored in a multilayered fashion: hosts when they lead the narrative, interviewees when they convey information in a consistent form, and vox populi (or “man on the street”) when they make a short, random and often anonymous appearance to share their opinion. Other living and non-living forms can be characters too, from penguins to water, but I have yet to see them as interviewees. Being the complex living forms that we are, and since our speech is highly developed, it’s hard to distinguish absolutely between characters and interviewees.

Fear-Free Fundraising

Road-tested rules for bang-up fundraising events

By Holly Million

Seems like lately, all the filmmakers I know are ready to party! They’re all throwing fundraising events to raise cash for their films. While I applaud their resourcefulness and dedication to a fundraising tactic of relying upon individual, not foundation, money, I confess that I tremble at the thought of what they are getting themselves into. So many babes in the party-planning woods! They are about to find out how much time, energy, resources, and focus it takes to host a successful fundraising event. How can they ensure the biggest bang for their buck and avoid getting burned?

topics: authors, bay area, directors, diy, funding, producers

Avoiding Disaster

What's in a name?

By George Rush

Usually, in the afternoons, I go to the Walgreens near my office to pick up a Red Bull, and I’m often amused by the jumble bin of $5 DVDs near the checkout counter. Most of them are ridiculous action movies with washed up B-listers. I remember a couple of years ago, when Snakes on a Plane was out in theaters, I looked into the DVD jumble bin and saw a title called Snakes on a Train. It looked like a ridiculous, opportunistic ripoff. Such an opportunistic rip off, I bought it!

topics: diy, film history, hollywood, legal issues

Ask the Documentary Doctor

The upside of downtime

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: It seems ages since I started this film. The topic is still relevant but I don’t know whether the time passed in production helps the film or not.

Doc Doctor: It most likely does!

Time-related issues are a constant worry and topic of discussion in consultations—first and foremost because film is a time-bound art, like music and theater. Many of the concerns turn on the issue of how to arrange story elements in time and over time–as opposed to how to arrange elements in space, as in painting or sculpture. Yet the time that gives documentary filmmakers the biggest anguish is the time that happens outside the film: time-management in production and the time taken between creative moments—from shoot to shoot, from first cut to second cut. Even though both of these time concerns can be seen as production hurdles, they both have a strong impact on storytelling.

topics: directors, diy, documentary, how-to

The Edit Room

Best practices for naming sequences

By Karen Everett

I began hunting for a systematic way to organize sequences soon after I began teaching in the documentary program at UC Berkeley. I noticed that many students were labeling their sequences “final." The problem with that nomenclature is that there was inevitably one more or more “final final," creating havoc when I attempted to grade or the class tried to assemble a show. One student labeled his sequences “Final Uno," “Final Duo,” “Final Tres," etc., to help me out.

Then, during a tour of Current TV’s production studios in San Francisco, I encountered a brilliant method for naming sequences and projects that I have since adopted and would like to pass on. Current TV’s post-production supervisor needed a way to keep track of multiple versions of Final Cut Pro projects and sequences that passed his desk. He showed us his simple, brilliant method. Warning: this method involves putting the date first, in a way that you are probably not used to. It’s not the American style, it’s not the European style, it’s a logical style!

topics: authors, bay area, digital filmmaking, diy

The 6th Screen

Coming around to "convergence"

By Hannah Eaves

There is something in the very thought of AV cables that fills most people with dread, and a small few others with child-like joy. A few beers into Thanksgiving I looked over to see my cousin Tom pointing excitedly around his home entertainment system, and when he stepped aside I saw a Dell computer shoved in there on its side. Tom does not work in technology—he’s a specialized registered nurse. And he’s not alone, as more and more people make the connection that TVs and projectors are, in their most basic form, just really big computer monitors. While set top box, Bluray and TV manufacturers are now offering a closed set of web enabled applications in an attempt to make themselves the gateway drug to getting internet on your TV, many others out there are doing it Tom’s way. That is, by just buying a couple of cables. The industry calls it convergence . But why do so many people have trouble with it?

topics: bay area, digital distribution, digital filmmaking, diy, internet, tv

Beyond Words

Carmen Madden on watching people, writing characters

By Lisa Rosenberg

Writer-director Carmen Madden, whose highly accomplished first feature, Everyday Black Man, won the Best Feature Film award at the Peachtree Village International Film Festival in Atlanta in September, and is now on the festival circuit, calls screenwriters “the first builders of the set” —of that unique world of their story. Her screenplays reflect just how intimately she comes to see and know that world and the characters that inhabit it.

topics: authors, bay area, screenwriting

Avoiding Disaster

A challenge to filmmakers

By George Rush

Usually I use this column to address specific legal problems that come up when producing a film. I’m not going to address a legal concern this time, but instead, speak to a larger issue that I feel is rarely discussed: the lack of quality independent filmmaking today.

topics: authors, bay area, distributors, diy, film festivals, filmmakers, independent film, legal issues

Fear-Free Fundraising

How to entice potential donors

By Holly Million

So you’re drafting a fundraising prospect list for your indie film. Looks like it’s shaping up to be the most extensive list of individual donor prospects known to mankind. Good job! It covers your personal connections (everyone from Uncle Ernie to your former Econ 101 professor), people your personal connections can introduce you to who care about the same issues your film covers and known suspects in the community who just love film. You have really done your homework and you even know how much you plan to ask each one of these prospects for. So what’s the problem? Well, I’ll bet you know what you want from them. But do you have any clue what they want from you?

topics: authors, bay area, diy, funding

The 6th Screen

TechCrunch 50: Clicker and AnyClip—two new film sites to watch

By Hannah Eaves

TechCrunch, the blog dedicated to all things Internet, has developed a reputation for pushing out breaking news so fast and hard, it occasionally snaps. Earlier this month, Facebook took advantage of the blog’s tendency to jump quickly on stories by posting a fake feature that only TechCrunch could see—"fax this photo"—and waiting for their unverified announcement, which was forthcoming. Earlier in the year Last.fm rankled when a story was published about the site providing the RIAA with user information which proved to be much more complex than originally stated. Even the NY Times quotes information from TechCrunch’s enterprising, muckraking posts that are often sourced anonymously.

topics: bay area, digital distribution, directors, diy, internet

The Edit Room

Organizing your bins effectively

By Karen Everett

The majority of non-linear editing systems employ a bin or folder method to help editors organize their footage. This article displays screenshots of the Final Cut Pro Studio Browser window, but it is easy to duplicate this strategy in other software programs. Planning your organizational strategy before you start ingesting footage is critical, and for the anal, left-brained editing geeks among us, myself included, this will be fun. For the rest of you, remember that having a clear structural hierarchy for your clips will save you time and money in the editing process, particularly if you have to change editors midway through post.

topics: authors, bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, diy, documentary film

Avoiding Disaster

Fine points on festivals

By George Rush

If you’re an independent filmmaker, odds are your plan is to submit to a major film festival in the hope of getting discovered. Festivals are a good way to have your film discovered by distributors, to build buzz and to build an audience. But as all filmmakers know, you’re probably going to get rejected from more festivals than not.

topics: directors, distribution, distributors, diy, film festivals, how-to, legal issues, sundance

The 6th Screen

Free and open: video's Cambrian explosion

"Where is it written that everyone who participates in the creative arts should be able to quit their day job?….My daughter has already figured out how she’s going to spend the money from the tour in the band that she hasn’t yet created because none of the band members have learned how to play instruments….The fantasy that your creativity is a career is a fantasy we all indulge in right up until we hit the real world."
Chris Anderson, at a recent presentation on his latest book, Free.

In the next few months Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit entries, will start allowing visitors to add videos to articles. Users will be able to click on that edit button and add some demonstrative video to illustrate the point at hand, and then any other user will likewise be able to delete it. But then there’s a Wikipedia twist: anyone will also be able to edit that video, or create it from scratch using in-browser video editing, and any other user will then be able to say, that sucks, and re-edit it however they like. Don’t like that title card? Bam! Gone!

topics: digital distribution, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, diy

The Edit Room

How a story consultant saved me

By Karen Everett

When I was editing Women in Love, my fifth documentary, I found myself 18 months into the editing process staring at the computer screen, wondering if I needed another shot of caffeine. I felt tired, having culled 240 hours of footage that I was in love with down to about 20 hours of sequences. Although I had won awards for my films in the past, this film about the chaotic love lives of seven thirty-something lesbians was testing the limits of my ability to a craft a cohesive narrative arc. On top of that, it was a personal documentary. As I recut scene after scene, the little voice inside dictated, “You’re dragging your butt!” I knew the right thing to do was to turn the project over to an editor. Ego-wise, I was ready to do that. The problem was that I didn’t have the $45,000 a good editor would require. What to do?

topics: directors, distributors, diy, documentary

Fear-Free Fundraising

Are your “friends” worthless?

By Holly Million

There’s a lot of buzz swirling around Web 2.0 and how it’s going to change—well, everything. Indie filmmakers, too, are embracing blogs, tweets, and social-networking, experimenting with how these tools can help them cast, market, distribute, and, yes, raise money for their films.

topics: authors, bay area, directors, diy, filmmakers, funding

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Finding the real deal

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: So many people offer all kinds of deals and services. How do I choose the right crew for my story?

Doc Doctor: In a business that is not regulated by bars or residencies or even degrees, your concern is very valid. It’s astonishing how some filmmakers would spend hours online checking customer reports to decide on a camera, yet they would hire the first person they find in some random way without checking references or track record. Quite a paradox considering it’s much easier to return equipment and get reimbursed the full amount than it is to severe a relationship that is not working and never see a penny back.

topics: digital filmmaking, directors, diy, documentary

The Edit Room

Documentary story structures that funders love

By Karen Everett

We all know an editor who needs to get out of the edit room more often. (I just have to look in the mirror.) I recently had the delightful and heady experience of being on the other side of the fundraising table, giving the thumbs up or down to a slew of documentary directors seeking money for their works-in-progress. Granted it was a mock exercise, part of Holly Million’s popular “How To Ask People For Money” class at the San Francisco Film Society. But as I wielded the power of yea or nay along with my fellow make-believe funding execs, I learned something very interesting.

topics: diy, documentary, funding

Beyond Words

Comedy that sticks

By Lisa Rosenberg

Another summer, another cavalcade of summer comedies to grab us up, spin us around, rush the world backward and leave us tottering at the end of the ride. The best of these will graze the source of great comedy, leaving a lasting glow. But most will, by August, have slid from consciousness like so many candy wrappers trampled underfoot. So: What’s the key to comedy that sticks with us, despite perhaps an overblown story line or how lost and low-down the characters seem at the time?

topics: actors, authors, bay area, comedy, screenwriting, sex

Avoiding Disaster

Facing the music (rights)

By George Rush

Awesome music is almost always a hallmark of a really great film. It can evoke the tone of a scene – high drama, nostalgia, alienation, warm fuzzies – in seconds. A lot of the filmmakers I work with become very attached to having a particular song in their film. I read a lot of scripts that have a very specific and expensive song written into a pivotal scene (e.g., THE ARTIST: I’m going to fight this cancer, stay in art school…and I love you!! They embrace as Lionel Richie’s “Stuck on You” begins.) The filmmaker is usually totally crushed when they realize that they can’t use the song without paying a lot of money.

topics: bay area, diy, legal issues, music

The Edit Room

Crafting an elegant essay doc

By Karen Everett

The essay or topic-based documentary is the second most popular art form dominating today’s independent documentary landscape. Although it shares in the festival accolades and box office commercial success of the character-driven documentary, structurally the essay doc is a different beast entirely, usually organized around a central idea rather than a protagonist on a quest. It looks different too, often employing talking heads, text, statistics, man-on-the-street interviews, educational graphics and slide shows to make its points. Popular examples include An Inconvenient Truth, Religulous, Bowling for Columbine, and The Corporation. Other essay films, such as Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World and Jean Marie Teno’s currently released (and recently playing the SF International Film Festival) Sacred Places (edited by Christiane Badgley), are more introspective tomes or poetic profiles than quantitative or data-heavy docs.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, diy, how-to, san francisco, sundance film festival

Beyond Words

Character, stripped to the bone

By Lisa Rosenberg

For the writer, traditional, instantly recognizable heroes, such as the everyman in Wall-E or the underdog in Slumdog Millionaire, are both easier to create and predictably satisfying for both creator and audience. We see the mountain dead ahead for these characters. The obstacles—and summoned courage and wit to overcome them—line up like so many hurdles on a track.

topics: authors, bay area, diy, screenwriting

Avoiding Disaster

Risky (film) business and securities law

By George Rush

If you are reading this, and you want to make a narrative feature, I am going to make a bold prediction about you: You are seeking a wealthy fellow to become your patron and finance your dream. Find the wealthy fellow, and then your vision becomes a reality! But where to find this coveted person? I often have people ask me if there is a list of rich people who invest in films. The answer is yes, but not for independent film. Independent film is an incredibly high risk and speculative investment. Statistically, it is highly likely that the investor will lose all of his investment. Everyone thinks their film is the exception, but I also always think the Lotto ticket I buy will be the exception (note: I have yet to win the Lotto). There are certain steps you can take to mitigate that risk, such as getting a known cast that will work for scale, getting your crew to work for very little pay, having a budget that reflects the independent film marketplace, etc., but even then, your film is still a very risky endeavor.

topics: bay area, diy, independent film

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Repeating yourself?

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: I’m getting feedback that my documentary is repetitive. I’m just trying to reinforce important information in a complex, multi-layered film. Shall I get rid of some scenes as I’m told?

Doc Doctor: The distinction between reinforcement and repetition is always hard to grasp and often subjective. This type of conundrum doesn’t discriminate. It can appear in any storyline, whether primary or secondary, whether with a character or more often background information.

topics: digital filmmaking, diy, documentary

The 6th Screen

Augmented Reality at SXSWi

By Hannah Eaves

Imagine you and your friend have smartphones, and are standing at a table facing each other. You hold up your phones’ cameras, and can see each other in the luxurious (if small) screen. Your friend walks to the left, you can see him/her walk to the left in your phone screen. Now imagine, looking into your phone, that there is another layer of reality there. A ping pong table. And when you move to the left your phone can hit a virtual ball, and you both see it bounce on the table in your screen and your friend moves to the right and hits it back. Welcome to aug-mented reality, cellphone style. Watch it here.

topics: digital distribution, diy, how-to, internet

The Edit Room

How to rate your doc’s story potential

By Karen Everett

“We’ll fix it in post,” may work fine when you forgot to white balance or turn off a noisy air conditioner, but if you forgot to vet your story potential, constructing a narrative arc in the edit room may prove a bit challenging.

topics: bay area, diy, documentary, independent film

Fear-Free Fundraising

On foundations and finesse

By Holly Million

Often, the difference between filmmakers who succeed at securing foundation and government grants and those who don’t is that a light bulb goes off in the heads of the successful fundraisers: They look at it as a game, with rules both written and unwritten, that need to be understood, followed and, in some cases, worked around with finesse.

topics: authors, bay area, diy, funding, independent film

Avoiding Disaster

"Medicine for Melancholy" and the art of DIY legal agreements

By George Rush

For many narrative filmmakers, hiring a lawyer is either an afterthought or not a financial reality. But moving forward with a film without considering legal is a huge mistake. I’ve seen this unfortunate occurrence first-hand. Someone sees me with their finished film and there are no agreements for anything. No rights cleared, no crew and cast agreements. This usually means that your film has no future except as a mantelpiece. Big mistake. But what to do when you are making a micro-budget feature and you just can’t afford a lawyer? There are some good books out there that have some basic forms that are better than nothing. If you are a savvy and resourceful producer, move forward knowing that every single person that has anything to do with your film (cast and crew) needs an agreement and every piece of intellectual property (music, artwork, locations) that you do not own needs to be cleared and licensed. If you are organized and persistent, you can do it. This is dry, thankless work, probably not what you think of when you think of filmmaking, but it absolutely needs to get done.

topics: actors, african american cinema, bay area, digital filmmaking, distribution, distributors, diy, genre films, independent film, san francisco international film festival

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Sound advice

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: Wouldn’t it be wrong to do sound design on a documentary, given that a documentary is supposedly about what’s already there?

Doc Doctor: The range of what’s acceptable in a documentary is as varied as the types of filmmakers that populate our planet. There is no absolute of what to do and what not to do—much as we’re told the contrary—but, rather, a long scale of possibilities that goes from purist verité to hard-core experimental or docudrama.

topics: digital filmmaking, documentary, independent film, music

First-person

Ten Commandments, or helpful hints, before diving into digital delivery

By Larry Daressa

[SF360.org editor’s note: These remarks by Larry Daressa were delivered at the SFFS Film Arts Forum February 9, 2009.]

1. The first commandment is that there are no commandments. Each film demands and deserves its own distribution strategy, including no digital distribution strategy. Any strategy should begin with a clear—and realistic—assessment of the target audience. Find your niche. It’s more important to do a thorough job reaching motivated buyers than wasting your time and money trying to lure the mass market. In making this decision, you need to decide whether your bottom line is exposure or the bottom line; the two aren’t always synonymous. These ten commandments address the bottom line—how best to “monetize your content” today.

topics: digital distribution, digital filmmaking, distribution, distributors, diy, documentary, features, independent film

Fear-Free Fundraising

Lightening your fundraising load

By Holly Million

When Tennessee Ernie Ford sang, “You load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt,” he may have been referring to coalminers’ back-breaking labor. Or, he may have been singing about the life of an indie filmmaker. How much did those grant proposals weigh?

If you’ve followed my columns lately, you may have noticed that in this economic nosedive, I’ve been pushing the idea of asking individual donors you might be able to sway with a personal pitch over trying to get the attention of foundations feeling the financial pinch. Here are five fairly sure-fire ways to make approaching individual donors for funding that much easier.

topics: digital filmmaking, directors, documentary film, funding, independent film

Beyond Words

The alchemy of adaptation

By Lisa Rosenberg

Common wisdom tells us that the book is always better than the film. A movie based on a true story can never give us all of the layered complexity of real life.

But the object of adaptation is never just a faithful retelling. It’s instead a selective re-imagining of the tale, which brings into sharp focus essential truths about the characters and their world. It chooses not every chapter or speech, but just those elements that can distill the story’s special power and importance.

topics: authors, awards, bay area, drama, dramatic films, how-to

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Growing a good story--naturally

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: I’m applying structure models from what I read in screenwriting books but my documentary film is still not working. If my doc doesn’t follow a fiction three-act model, will it fail in the market?

Doc Doctor: Rarely will it fail on all accounts. It’s understandable you might want to apply the model that is abundant and predominant in our culture, namely the three-act structure. However, not all documentaries have a conflict-driven story, the opposition of two or more equal forces. More often than not, documentaries have characters with goals and a series of obstacles, or characters on a quest to unravel or expose some issue. Some are the unfairly vilified essay or topic films, with or without a star expert.

topics: awards, directors, documentary film, environmental films, hollywood, independent film

Funder as supplicant

By John R. Killacky

As a program officer at The San Francisco Foundation, I say “No” to artists and arts organizations daily. I try to soften the blow, detailing the reality of limited resources and an overabundance of projects, seldom discussing quality or appropriateness, thinking I am kinder in vagueness.

I also write personal essays and make films. Last year, a dream project, three years in the making, was realized when I produced and co-directed a concert documentary, Janis Ian: Live From Grand Center, with KETC/PBS in St. Louis. The program features the legendary Grammy Award-winning artist performing 15 songs from her 40-year career—augmented with archival footage, including Leonard Bernstein introducing her at age 15 to a national audience singing "Society’s Child" and a 1975 performance of "At Seventeen."

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, documentary film, performance, public

The 6th Screen

Unresolutions of 2009

By Hannah Eaves

End-of-year lists, top ten films and new resolutions have now come and gone. But what about all the messy things we haven’t resolved? Certain questions in 2008 endlessly plagued us, leading to outlandish predictions, flame-war mayhem and an outbreak of opinionated public speaking. In case you missed it, a few were: "Is the ‘profitable indie film’ dead?" and "Will the last film critic please turn out the lights?" (I’m referring to Mark Gill’s June speech at the Los Angeles Film Festival entitled Yes, the Sky is Falling. and a critic-crisis neatly summarized here, as well as the ques-tion of optimism concerning new-tech distribution strategies from Peter Broder-ick and Scott Kirsner). For more on those lingering issues, I leave you to Google. In the meantime, The Sixth Screen issues opinions on a few remaining unresolved technology issues below.

topics: cinephiles, critics, digital filmmaking, directors, independent film, technology

Beyond Words

Case studies in screenwriting: Pam Gray

By Lisa Rosenberg

Sebastopol-based screenwriter Pamela Gray’s approach to screenwriting is the literary equivalent of the slow food movement: she takes the time she needs to find her story, nurture it along, coax her characters into life, and find deep truths that don’t emerge through a formulaic approach.

Best known for A Walk on the Moon, a ’60s era drama, and Music of the Heart, the inspiring tale of a violin instructor in East Harlem, Gray writes real stories about ordinary people who experience transformative moments in their lives. Her upcoming film, Betty Anne Waters, based on the true story of a high school dropout and single mother who put herself through law school to defend her imprisoned brother who she believed was innocent, will begin shooting in January.
Over time, Gray has developed a potent mix of creative habits that guide her raw ideas to rise and take shape as finished screenplays. Her writing process has much to tell us about how to grow a story, how to access character subtleties, the importance of staying tuned to the power of the visual, and when to step in to impose necessary structural elements.

topics: bay area, features, hollywood, independent film, screenwriting

Fear-Free Fundraising

From gauche to great: How donor cultivation makes you a successful film fundraiser

By Holly Million

“I’m going to a party for a nonprofit organization specifically to meet people who might be interested in donating to my documentary," a friend writes. "I’m not (yet) a member of this organization. My question: is it appropriate to be asking for donations at the party, even though I’ve never met anyone from this group before? Any thoughts?”

What my friend is wondering is when is the right time to ask an individual for a contribution for his film. He is worried that if he isn’t bold enough, he will show up at the event to press the flesh only to miss what he sees as his fleeting chance to ask people who care about an issue — one that also happens to be the topic of his documentary — for their support. That hors d’oeuvre tray won’t be the only thing passing by, he thinks. He’s worried that his chance to fundraise will be disappearing faster than those bacon-wrapped meatballs.

topics: bay area, directors, funding, independent film, san francisco film society

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Audience of one?

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: I cringe when watching my film with an audience. Is there a practical reason to attend all screenings?

Doc Doctor: To be or not to be there. That’s not the question. What matters most is why should anybody be subject to such drudgery. Filmmakers are confronted with having to sit through a screening of their own film with an audience –-an uncomfortable task no matter the type of chair–- on two distinct occasions: when doing a rough-cut test screening and when finished and in distribution. In the first case, most filmmakers choose to stay; in the second, most run out the door the minute lights are dimmed to only return when the credits are rolling.

The 6th Screen

Greenscreen envy

By Hannah Eaves

For anyone working in the Internet video industry, walking into the Revision 3 studio is a little like stumbling into Xanadu (Khubla Khan’s, not Robert Greenwald’s). Live switching in a control room that sports a massive mounted flatscreen HD monitor alongside a row of compositing systems, multicam teleprompter-assisted shoots in a spacious greenscreen studio, and a fridge full of beer?

Senior Director of Marketing and Product Management and iFanboy producer and co-host Ron Richards tries to tell me that it’s all on the cheap—the monitor replaces the traditional window into the studio and was a sweet deal, small prosumer HD cameras are mounted on low-tech wheelie dollies. But coming in from a traditional production environment where we’re still shooting on BetaSP and trying to dress an old studio, this looks like paradise. And these guys aren’t even going out to traditional TV broadcast. Instead they’re part of a new generation of pioneering Internet broadcasters.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, technology, the web, tv

Fear-Free Fundraising

What Crisis? Fundraising during an economic meltdown

By Holly Million

When the going gets tough, the tough supposedly get going. The real question is, where exactly do they go? Well, if they are indie filmmakers looking to raise money for their films, they had better go to individual donors. And when they go, they had better do so strategically, that is, armed with a thoughtful, well-crafted plan of action.

Foundations keep their assets in stocks. When the stock market plunges, those assets shrink, and that means foundations have less money to give. Less money means fewer grants. As we head toward the darkest days of the years, filmmakers will be tempted to look toward the light that potential grants seem to offer. You may be one of them, but don’t let your fundraising stop there.

The 6th Screen

Greenscreen envy

By Hannah Eaves

For anyone working in the Internet video industry, walking into the Revision 3 studio is a little like stumbling into Xanadu (Khubla Khan’s, not Robert Greenwald’s). Live switching in a control room that sports a massive mounted flatscreen HD monitor alongside a row of compositing systems, multicam teleprompter-assisted shoots in a spacious greenscreen studio, and a fridge full of beer?

Senior Director of Marketing and Product Management and iFanboy producer and co-host Ron Richards tries to tell me that it’s all on the cheap—the monitor replaces the traditional window into the studio and was a sweet deal, small prosumer HD cameras are mounted on low-tech wheelie dollies. But coming in from a traditional production environment where we’re still shooting on BetaSP and trying to dress an old studio, this looks like paradise. And these guys aren’t even going out to traditional TV broadcast. Instead they’re part of a new generation of pioneering Internet broadcasters.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, technology, the web, tv

Avoiding Disaster

Let’s make a documentary—then kill each other

By George Rush

I work with both documentarians and narrative filmmakers, and they are very different in their approaches. With narrative filmmakers, you need all your money raised before you enter into an intense multi-week production phase. It’s a long process of fundraising before you even touch a camera. Documentary filmmakers, on the other hand, just need a camera and a subject to get the ball rolling. Run out of money—that’s OK. Put the camera away until you get some more money—and then do some more shooting. This process can go on for years. Documentarians have a slow burn of their funds as they start and stop their shoot. Usually it’s not about that—it’s about a subject that they are extremely passionate about. It is hard to shoot alone, however, and it is very common that another person who has the same passion for the subject may join forces. When there is collaboration such as this, there is a great deal of good faith and trust as both of you are working hard to get this important story about this thing you’re passionate about out into the world.

Particularly here in San Francisco, I find these collaborations have a sort of Burning Man ethos where it’s not about contracts and money and financial expectations—it’s about getting this story out into the world. The two of you nurture this thing for years, maxing out your credit cards but creating something wonderful. Then there’s a small disagreement.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, documentary, independent film

The 6th Screen

The basics of Web 3.0. Wait, Web 3.0?

By Hannah Eaves

What does “jaguar” mean to you? If you’re a fan of Bush’s tax cuts, it’s probably a brand of car. If you are a Mac user it might be an operating system, and if you’re hearing strange noises on the Mexico-Guatemala border, it might be a very big cat. But if you’re interested in the future of online technology, it is the evergreen example used to explain what’s called The Semantic Web.

Semantic web proponents argue several things pretty loudly, and one of them is that computers should be smart enough to understand the deep meaning of words by their context, just like hu-mans understand sentences. Computers should understand that when you ask “Are jaguars ex-tinct in Central America?” you are looking for an answer, and you mean the animal, not the car. They should also understand this automatically, without a user having to manually tag the con-tent where it lives (page or video) with the words “jaguar” and “mammal” and whatever hundred other keywords might make sense. Instead, it should be able to use its context, combined with the infinite informational pages on the web, and human interaction, to make its decision. This implies a level of artificial intelligence whereby computers are able to infer meaning from lan-guage—from the structure of a sentence, from the sentences on a page. Not “how frequently does this word appear” but “I get what you’re saying.”

topics: digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, technology, the web

Beyond Words

The dimensions of dialogue

By Lisa Rosenberg

To the novice screenwriter, dialogue is a maddening conundrum. It has to be spare but expressive, sound natural, fit the characters and allow for insights and revelations. The most skillful dialogue on film also achieves a structural dimension. It can shape the narrative just as surely as the plot does.

Dialogue can take any number of forms. It can become a map of the lead character’s emotional journey, a smokescreen for the plot to proceed behind or a storm cloud of oncoming disaster.

topics: bay area, filmmakers, how-to, screenwriting

Avoiding Disaster

Notes on digital distribution

By George Rush

November 1997—“Dear Mr. Rush, we regret to inform you that your film The Milkman has not been accepted to the Sundance Film Festival.” This had to be a mistake. I had just toiled for two years making a low budget feature narrative about a recent college grad who moves back home to San Francisco and tries to figure out what to do with his life (shockingly, that’s a pretty good description of myself in 1997). I even have a cameo, with the poetic line, “Man, that’s a lot of beer.” I actually called Sundance to inform them of their mistake, but they were resolute in their denial. The film was made for $16,000.00 and I remember almost crying when I told my investors (family and friends) that we were rejected. This conversation happened about 20 more times as festival after festival rejected the tour de force known as The Milkman. Even our own local festival in San Francisco said no. I pleaded with a programmer—"I’m from here, this is about San Franciscans, why would you show Truffaut over me?" The programmer politely told me that San Francisco residence or subject matter was not a factor in choosing films—it was quality. The final blow came when I showed the film to my family and the average anonymous score on a scale from one to ten was two. I was crushed.

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Trailer Talk

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: What’s the best way I can start my demo to make a strong impression—especially when submitting to a very competitive grant?

Doc Doctor: Far from offering a formula that can cripple your creativity, let’s discuss some principles that can help you put your efforts in the right place. For starters, you’re on the right path when acknowledging the need for a strong beginning for a fundraising trailer, especially when having to stand out among many at a grant evaluation.

The 6th Screen

SWAG: Free feature films on the web

By Hannah Eaves

Acronyms and abbreviations occupy an ever increasing part of our modern lives. Some of us spend at least a small amount of time pretending we understand them (IMHO) and feeling proud we can actually use them in crossword puzzles (IMHO, the New York Times, Sunday September 14). But this one—SWAG—goes way back. In fact, according to Wikipedia, it’s actually a backronym. Which means it existed as a real word first and then collectively we made up a series of words for the letters. Originally, it was defined as a small bundle of stuff, and really it still is: Stuff We All Get (of course, this is how the "S" is represented in polite circles).

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, documentary, dvd, web

The 6th Screen

To French Polynesia and back with Seesmic

By Hannah Eaves

As my ship cuts a sweet line through the South Pacific, it seems that nothing could be further from this distant spot, where there is no land in sight, than the intricacies of the Bay Area Internet industry. When you look at a globe, French Polynesia falls exactly at the point where all other land masses disappear around the curve, and, if you squint your eyes, there is exactly nothing but ocean around it, with maybe a hint of the Americas or Australia.

Manual of Self-Reliance

Re-distributing oneself

By Jonathan Marlow

Have you ever gone on holiday only to wish that you would never return to the place that you’d departed? I wished it. In a sense, I actually did it. If late-August/early-September is traditionally a time for changes, I’ve done this season in spades – married, ankled (in Variety-speak) one job and started another. Why, after writing and talking in the past about my faith in the concept of digital delivery as an ever-expanding and ever-evolving solution to our current film distribution woes, would I leave the Internet-to-TV realm? I haven’t changed. They have.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, dvd, experimental film

Manual of Self-Reliance

Not quite "quiet" desperation

By Jonathan Marlow

Desperate times require desperate measures. Or, as Guy Fawkes supposedly put it (regarding the Gunpowder Plot), "The desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy." For instance, when Thor Heyerdahl’s theory about the possible migration of folks from Peru to the islands of the South Pacific was repeatedly ridiculed, the Norwegian explorer and ethnographer built a raft and made the journey himself. Proved it could be done by sailing the Kon-Tiki toward Tahiti. Didn’t prove that it was done, though.

The minor kerfuffle that resulted from a pair of pieces that ran at the Daily (They didn’t build their sales model for you and An open reply) and the similar outpouring of naysayers that followed former Miramax President/current The Film Department CEO Mark Gill’s speech at the Los Angeles Film Festival (Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling) reinforces the notion of two overlapping realities—that, firstly, truth is critically needed but, secondly, such truths will nonetheless be systematically rejected by those who need them most.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, exhibitions

The 6th Screen

What's fair (use) is not foul

By Hannah Eaves

Earlier this month the Center for Social Media (CSM) and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) at American University released a report called Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video or, as it was immediately zeitgeisted by boingboing, "HOWTO Make online videos without getting sued." For techies in the online world, "fair use," Creative Commons and net neutrality occupy the same level of heaven as bizarre sea creatures, steampunk gadgets and cryptozoology. But the paper also makes a very handy tool for ordinary Joes experimenting in the new creative freak zone of User Generated Content.

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors

Avoiding Disaster

Are your duckies in a row? Securing the music and footage rights before the big fest premiere

By George Rush

After years of hard work on your independent film, finally some recognition and reward. You’ve been accepted into a film festival where audiences can fawn over your work and distributors can take out their checkbooks to acquire the rights. This is it—this is the dream! Start planning something dapper to wear to the premiere!

[SF360.org editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Film Arts magazine. Look for substantial portions of the digitized archive of Film Arts and Release Print, from 2004-08, at SFFS in the coming months.]

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Put down that camera and grab a calculator

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: How much money should I spend on a film festival?

Rather than thinking on a per festival basis, develop a comprehensive festival budget. Granted, this strategy may yield mere estimates or projections, closer in accuracy to street-fair fortune-telling than satellite weather-forecasting. Many unanswerable questions arise, such as how does one predict how many festivals a film will get into. Take heart, the task at hand is not clairvoyance but striking the right balance between wishful thinking and good common sense.

Once you’re in business mode, don’t be too quick to grab a calculator. Start by pondering the following variables, which will help you determine how much moolah to spend on partying around the globe, oops, I mean, promoting your film.

[SF360.org editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Film Arts magazine.]

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Fundraising and story development

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: My previous projects did very well, from the fundraising stage all the way to distribution. This new documentary is getting harder to make than all the other ones combined. Is this a sign that I should give it up? Shouldn’t it get easier over time to make a film?

It doesn’t get easier. It gets…different. During all my years working with mid-career and senior filmmakers, I never saw anyone sit back and with legs stretched out on the desk, exclaim, “Doc making, piece of cake!” And that’s a good thing. You don’t want a hunter of true stories to get too comfy and compliant.

[SF360.org editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Film Arts magazine.]

Ask the Documentary Doctor

Pitching to switch hitters: Strategies for giving investors what they want

By Fernanda Rossi

Dear Doc Doctor: Every time I pitch my film I’m told I should switch the beginning and the end. After rearranging it numerous times, I keep getting the same feedback. What am I doing wrong?

You are right to worry about having an engaging opening and equally powerful cliffhanger or hook. As with fundraising demos and treatments, the first and final impressions of a pitch are long-lasting and must be carefully crafted.

The pitch must include (not necessarily in this particular order) the premise, theme, genre, intended length, characters, main possible plot points (plot points are not always predictable in a documentary, especially if it’s vérité style or an ongoing developing story); as well as prospective audience and budget.

[SF360.org editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Film Arts magazine.]

Gearhead

The exhibitionist: Hal Rowland keeps the show on track

By Michael A. Behrens and John Dilley

Hal Rowland has been serving Bay Area film festivals for over twenty years. Having run projection and exhibitions at venues including the Castro Theatre and the Moscone Center, Rowland is now the technical director for the Mill Valley, San Francisco Jewish, and San Francisco International LGBT film festivals, and an exhibition consultant for just about everybody else.

We caught up with Hal recently during a brief respite between festivals to rap about the technical issues filmmakers should consider when preparing their work for a festival screening.

[SF360.org editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Film Arts magazine.]