Around the Block: Doug Block's Doc Blog

What I've Been Up To This Past Year

Hard to believe it's been almost a year since my last post.  It's not just a matter of being up to my ears in new projects.  Between Facebook, Twitter and The D-Word, I tend to feel like I'm getting word out.  Or at least whatever word seems necessary to get out when one's in the thick of production, which means not very much word at all.

But every so often I realize, oh, piss!, I have this blog that's growing weeds out there in cyberspace.  So, for those who haven't been following, let me get out my shears and prune.  In a nutshell, here's what I've been up to: 

112 WEDDINGS is a feature doc that I've been shooting the past year, although I could argue it's been in production for almost 20 years.  The title refers to the number of weddings I've shot over that period as a means of augmenting my, ahem, documentary income.  Last year I began revisiting some of my more memorable wedding couples to satisfy my undying curiousity about how their marriages turned out.  The results, as you might imagine, are totally fascinating. 

I've never ever experienced so much advance interest in one of my films.  HBO, BBC and other broadcasters are already on board, and Dogwoof Global has taken it on for world sales.  My editor from THE KIDS GROW UP, the wonderous Maeve O'Boyle, began looking at all the footage with me about 5 weeks ago, and now Maeve is beginning the daunting task of whittling it all down to feature length.  Look for something pretty special to emerge from our creative bubble some time next summer.

THE CHILDREN NEXT DOOR is a powerful 36-minute short I was hired to shoot and direct by the Childhood Domestic Violence Foundation.  On October 13, 2006, in the hills of Tennessee, Brad Waldroup brutally attacked his wife Penny with a gun and machete and murdered her best friend, all in front of their four children. THE CHILDREN NEXT DOOR opens five-and-a-half years later with Penny and her children still struggling to overcome the deep psychic wounds that both shaped and shattered their lives. Their story takes a startling turn when the oldest, Chelsea, who still idolizes her father, presses her mother for the only gift she wants for her sixteenth birthday: to visit her dad in prison.

The film premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival two weeks ago, and next screens at the Starz Denver and Doc NYC festivals.  I don't tend to make documentaries that are, front and center, about social issues, and this is at its heart a mother/daughter relationship story with a dramatic arc.  But childhood domestic violence is a critical problem, far more pervasive than I ever imagined, and I think the film illustrates the consequences of it well.  I'm not the producer (that would be Lynda Hansen) so I'm not dealing with distribution, but I hope it gets out wide and far. 

WHAT ELSE?  Well, I'm hoping to start in soon on another feature doc that would mean shooting periodically over the next three or four years.  It's an exciting story that requires total access from the two main characters, something that's tricky but I'm optimistic can be worked out. 

Meanwhile, (hint hint!) I'm totally open to being a director for hire, something I loved doing on THE CHILDREN NEXT DOOR.  Yep, I like getting paid well just fine, thank you very much.  Along those lines, I'm continuing to consult with other doc filmmakers on their films, something I've done more and more in recent years. 

The D-Word, now in its' 13th year, continues to hum along.

The family continues to hum along, too.

Life is good.

This Week on The D-Word - Crowdfunding with Jennifer Fox and Katherine Nolfi

Earlier this year, when a broadcast pre-sale fell through at the last moment, acclaimed filmmaker Jennifer Fox suddenly needed to raise $50,000 for her newest documentary feature, MY REINCARNATION.  She and her team, led by associate producer Katherine Nolfi, turned to Kickstarter and ended up raising $150,456, more than any other completed film in the history of the crowdfunding platform.

Starting today on The D-Word, Jennifer and Katherine will talk about some hard-earned lessons they learned from their campaign, as well as share fundraising insights and tips, in general, in a special 5-day topic on Crowdfunding.  The discussion is already underway, feel free to leap right in.

The story behind their extraordinary Kickstarter campaign makes for essential reading, so you may want to check it out in advance of the online conference.

MY REINCARNATION opens in U.S. theaters this Friday, October 28.  For more information about the film and the filmmakers, and for more background on their extraordinary Kickstarter campaign, go to: www.myreincarnationfilm.com.

Producing 201 - Werner Herzog: "Be the hornet that stings"

 Filmmaker Marcelo de Oliverira has been posting at length about his experiences at the Werner Herzog Rogue Film School on the invaluable Scottish Doc Institute blog, and it makes for great reading.  Here are some of my favorite takeaways:

Sound is critical: "He continued over the course of the morning to delve into the importance of a director paying attention to sound, how important collecting wild tracks is and how important it is to build up a catalogue of sounds."

Documentaries are feature films in disguise: Says Herzog: 'We should not be the fly on the wall. We should be the hornet that stings. Seize the opportunity to be a filmmaker. You are not a slave to be fact based. We are filmmakers. We shape the film. We are not slaves to the material. We are directors. Go absolutely and completely wild.’

Dismiss pre-conceived ideas in a documentary: "Werner underlined that he does not believe in writing scripts for documentaries.’ This only creates dead films as seen on TV’, he said."

Herzog on being a character in his own films: 'The joy of storytelling is throwing yourself in it.  It is healthy to look at yourself with a sense of irony. Think the unthinkable, go anywhere when making a film.’

Producing 201 - Producing is About Agreement

I never went to film school, so when I started making my first film (The Heck With Hollywood!) I kind of made things up as I went along.  It's called learning by trial and error, while doing everything possible to avoid the error part.

It soon became apparent that much of producing boils down to a few simple things.  Treat others with respect.  Do your homework.  It's a marathon, not a sprint.  Eat your vegetables.

Less obviously, I also found producing is about making agreements.  In my list of biggest producing mistakes, I wrote about the importance of getting signed releases.  But I'm talking way beyond just getting signatures on paper. 

It goes without saying that you believe your film is worthy of funding, worthy of working on and worthy of getting out into the world in the widest possible way.  Producing is getting the world to agree with you.

Producing is negotiating, persuading, coddling, arguing, sweet-talking and convincing.  All to get people to agree that your film is worth supporting, working on (even for a lesser fee), telling their friends about, spending their hard-earned money to see in a theater. 

Producing is doing all the work you wish you had the money to pay a lawyer to do for you.  Or a publicist.  Or an assistant.  Or another producer - a real producer.

If I want you to do something for me, I sure as hell better be thinking about what I, or my film, can be doing for you.  Or for the world. 

And finding a way we can come to agreement about it.

Producing 201 – The Five Biggest Mistakes a Producer Can Make (#5)

The last on my list of big-time mistakes is geared to documentary filmmakers.  I'll just say, going on a shoot without these is simply a recipe for disaster...

Mistake #5 - Not bringing release forms.  Or bringing them and not getting them signed.

The first part is simple and should be drilled into your brain.  When you pack for a shoot, always take a bunch of release forms with you. 

The second part is pretty simple, too, though inexperienced filmmakers often have a hard time with it.  Make sure your subjects sign the releases before you leave. 

I always have my subjects sign after the first shoot, just as I'm packing up to leave.  (Never before I shoot - I don't want to make them any more self-conscious than they already feel.)  I try to make it sound as matter-of-fact as possible.  "Oh, sorry, I gotta get your autograph on this or we can't show it anywhere."  I've never had anyone refuse me, either.  Not even my immediate family.

The only time I've ever had a problem was when I didn't bring them.  It can become a huge pain getting their signature later.  They've had time to think about the footage that you shot with them, and fret about how awful they must have come across.  They're more likely to want to know how you're going to use the footage in the film.  Or maybe even say they want to see the footage before signing.

So pack those suckers, and don't forget to get them signed before you leave.

Producing 201 – The Five Biggest Mistakes a Producer Can Make (#4)

This mistake costs friendships.  It certainly cost me one, so lesson learned the hard way.

Mistake #4:  Not getting clear, signed agreements with your key partners.

This is especially important for producing partnerships on low-budget films.  And even more important if you're producing with a friend. 

People bring different assumptions and expectations to a film.  They have different ideas about when deferrals should be paid, when a film is in profit, what credits they're owed.  So it all needs to be spelled out in advance in a very clear-cut way that anticipates all that can possibly go wrong.

What happens if one partner leaves the production early?  Or if one winds up doing the lion's share of the work?  How might that impact credit and profit share?  In what order does personal money loaned or deferred to the production get reimbursed?  What happens if an investor comes aboard?  Who gets paid back first?  Who owns the film?

Written agreements are important across the board.  But the mistake so many people make when producing with friends is thinking that a written agreement somehow shows a lack of faith or trust in the friendship.  I'm not saying this agreement needs to be run by lawyers, though it's probably a good idea.  But if you truly value the friendship, you'll spell things out clearly in black and white.  Then type it up, print it out and sign it. 

Producing 201 - Sage Advice From Marjan Safinia

I'm briefly interrupting my list of five biggest producing mistakes to post a short interview with my friend, The D-Word co-host and producer extraordinaire Marjan Safinia.  Marj packs more good doc filmmaking advice into 4 minutes than I previously thought humanly possible.

A mini-master class and great stuff!

 

 

Producing 201 – The Five Biggest Mistakes a Producer Can Make (#3)

If you ask commissioning editors, grants panelists and other lucky blokes who get to sift through countless funding proposals for the most common mistake they come across, this one would probably top them all:

 

Not having a high enough budget. 

 

 Producers, particularly first-time ones, consistently undermine themselves by asking for too little money.  And usually far too little. 

 

Why?  Because they don't know what typical documentaries actually cost.  They underestimate the time involved and tend to vastly underpay themselves.  And because a high budget feels so scary to them, they assume it will surely scare off the funders.

 

In fact, the reverse is true.  Nothing sends funders scurrying away faster than producers who under-budget.  They see it as a sign that they have no experience and haven't done their homework.  They look at a line item like $30,000 (or less!) for a director/producer and wonder how this person will live for a couple of years (yes, they know how long films take) on that little pay.  They worry that the film will never get finished.  And that, even if it does, it'll be crap.

 

Drawing up a fair and accurate budget can be a huge psychological barrier to leap across.  But there are plenty of books and online resources to reference.  And, if you can afford it, I highly recommend attending a pitching forum like the one at Hot Docs as an observer.  Along with seeing a few dozen pitches by experienced producers, you get a booklet with a detailed synopsis and budget for each project.  You'll see that it's not uncommon for documentary features with international broadcast ambitions to have budgets that range from $500,000 to $800,000.  You'll come away with a far better grasp of the documentary marketplace. 

 

And maybe, just maybe, you'll stop undervaluing the contribution you're making to the world with your film.

Producing 201 – The Five Biggest Mistakes a Producer Can Make (#2)

Thanks to the affordability of digital camcorders, along with the sad fact that it often takes years for documentary filmmakers to scrape together their funding and shoot their stories, most end up accumulating hundreds of hours of footage along the way.  Which means you're inevitably in for a very long edit period. 

Which all-too-often leads to mistake #2: Hiring your editor before you've raised enough money to pay him or her through the entire edit.

Let's say you've been relatively economical and shot only 150 hours.  For argument sake, let's also say that the editor is screening it herself and can get through 5 hours of footage a day (personally, I screen all the footage with my editor and discuss it thoroughly as we go along, so we're lucky to get through 4 hours/day).  That still comes to 25 hours/wk, or 6 weeks in total, to slog through the material. 

Top NY and LA editors pretty much begin at $3,000/wk, but you have a fantastic project that will save the planet so you've managed to convince one to work at $2,500/wk.  So, in this somewhat conservative scenario, you're paying your editor $15,000 just to look at your footage!  (Let's not talk about the film I helped shoot and co-produce that dealt with well over 1,000 hours of tape.)

Here's where the mistake comes in.  Many producers charge ahead with only partial funding in the blind faith that they'll raise the rest once they have a great rough cut to show.  So they get to the cut, or maybe only a partial cut, run out of money, put things on hold and frantically go into fundraising mode. 

Do you think the editor is waiting around while they do that?  Nope.  Will she be available again should the producer actually raise enough money?  Possibly.  But if she's in demand the far greater likelihood is she soon goes off on another feature. 

Your options then are to wait until she's finished, which could be quite a while, or else hire another editor.  Who'll likely want to screen most, if not all, of the footage.  Which means you've not only lost your original editor and momentum, but you're unnecessarily spending another $15,000.

I'm not unsympathetic to the fact that it could take years to raise enough money to pay a top editor all the way through to the end.  That's why so many doc filmmakers wind up editing themselves, at least to begin with.  But if you have great ambitions for your film and want to work with the very best editor available, I highly recommend you wait before you leap.

Producing 201 – The Five Biggest Mistakes a Producer Can Make (#1)

Actually, there are dozens of mistakes I could label as “biggest” if I put my mind to it.  I began drawing up a list and here are the first five that came to me.  They’re certainly biggies.

1.  Submitting your film to an A-list festival before it’s ready.

Every year at this time, producers scramble to finish their films for the Sundance deadline.  I can’t begin to tell you how many consults I do with filmmakers that concludes with me telling them to take their time and urging them to wait.

Your world premiere is precious.  No festival, no matter how prestigious, is worth sacrificing the potential of your film for.  If you miss Sundance, there’s always Berlin, or SXSW, or Tribeca, or Toronto, or any number of other great festivals where new filmmakers get discovered or established directors get a career boost.

In the end, there’s only one thing that will sell your film and get you the kind of breakthrough results you’re hoping to achieve.  Making a great film.  Or, at the least, making the very best film you’re capable of.

And that comes from taking the time you need.  It's one thing when circumstances require you to rush (pressure from investors, funders, broadcasters, etc.).  It's another thing altogether when the pressure is self-induced.