MAKE YOUR DOCUMENTARY FILM

Twenty some odd years ago, Jilann and I made a film about Native American Elders called 'Bless Me With A Good Life'. Since this film was about an elderly population, we received a great deal of support from AARP. So now that we are fundraising for another film on old folks, I thought maybe we could go back to them. Maybe we could come full circle with this project and partner up with AARP again.

When looking for funding from a foundation or granting organization, one of the first things I try to do is get a contact person. This can save me time in the long run, because once I get a live person on the phone, I can run the idea by them to see if they are at all interested. If they are not, well too bad, but I have also saved myself a lot of time by not having to fill out a potentially colossal grant application. But sometimes just getting to that live person can be the hardest part—its an exercise in persistence and perhaps a little cleverness.

How the heck are you supposed to know what your film is going to cost before you even begin shooting it? I am working on a budget right now for the film that we want to shoot this summer, STILL DREAMING, and it’s a bit like dreaming up your treatment when you don’t know how your film is going to play out. It’s a series of creative and educated guesses that can dramatically impact your film. (catch our free Budget Q&A call on Thursday March 25th - Register now!)

Here's a guest blog from our DOC TALKS expert interview for March 18th, Karen Everett of NewDocEditing.com.

Advice to Filmmakers: Reverse Engineer Your Psychobabble

I had the pleasure of having a former psychotherapist in my recent weekend seminar, "Structuring the Character Driven Documentary". When we began our story focusing exercises, he was picked to be the guinea pig. One of the documentary story exercises involves filling out three simple sentences, which provide the skeletal backbone for acts one, two and three.