David Attenborough is featured on BBC1 this week diving in a Triton submarine to capture magical sequences on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This story flags several questions about the direction of the Wildlife genre: Kit Wars? Will costly kit like the Triton edge out the legendary patience and expertise of the wildlife cinematographer as the key success factor for …
Beginning with Ruby Chen on the dock, following are insightful delegate interviews captured by Madelyn Most in compatible La Rochelle. Ruby Chen is co-Founder and CEO of CNEX Foundation based in Beijing China which is dediated to supporting artistic documentaries about contemporary Chinese life. Marie Ange Billot-Thebaud is a writer, director, producer of Jatropha Films Productions based in …
My newsletter features detailed Case Studies that reveal the life cycles of documentary films, factual television specials and reality series. We tell the inside story of each project, from development through funding, production and distribution. And we usually have the numbers: budgets, copro deals, box office, license fees and more. Why Case Studies? In my consulting practice, clients …
This week: two video snapshots of cofinancing trends after our lively panel at MIPDoc. Off The Fence Managing Director Distribution Bo Stehmeier (above) explains why there is a trend towards presales and away from copro’s. Context The further context to this structural shift is that the cab/sat channel sector has reached maturity and is tending to shed viewers rather than …
What is the level of government funding for public broadcasters worldwide? How important are commercial revenue streams in the mix? These questions matter at a time when public television faces fierce cutbacks from ideologically-driven governments. That’s certainly the situation in Australia, where the governing Coalition announced a $254 mn cutback for the ABC, and proposed a doubling …
Sunnyside was recently under threat when Sheffield Doc / Fest rescheduled its prestigious event from the autumn to early June. Many buyers were obliged to choose between South Yorkshire or the French seaside. The ‘Anglo-Saxons’ mostly opted for Sheffield. The ‘Franco-phones’ stayed at a diminished SSD. La Rochelle is a historic city dominated by medieval siege …
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Next week’s visit to New York by Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott got me thinking about the state of documentary funding in my homeland. The headline is that in its first budget, the conservative Abbott government took the razor to the key documentary funders: Screen Australia. ABC. SBS. And after the razor comes the machete! …