A Sundance Film Festival award lags only behind an Oscar nomination as a measure of success for documentarians. But what are the odds that a U.S. or international documentary will earn a slot on the program? Submissions 2,649 Documentary Features were submitted to the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, which opens on January 24: 767 were from the …
Surviving R. Kelly is a timely reminder that a well-told docuseries can ignite a popular conversation, even if its not on Netflix. The three-night, six-hour Lifetime series features multiple women who say they were sexually abused by the singer. Many of them were minors when they met the “Pied Piper of R&B”. Trailer: Audience Surviving R. …
Today’s podcast guest from Munich is DR REINER MORITZ. Our topic: Trends in the Arts Category, including Performances and Documentaries about the Arts. Reiner Moritz is a highly-regarded industry veteran. Dimitri Shostakovitch, Ann Sophie Mutter, Peter Brook, Herbert von Karajan, Robert Hughes… He has been a friend and associate with more great artists, orchestras, broadcasters …
Here are my key Takeaways for 2018. It was the year in which Netflix accelerated its challenge to the entire film and television eco-system, with the Amazon behemoth adding to the disruptive force of online video. 1.Channels Under Threat. Factual commissions boomed since the mid-Eighties. A tiny documentary market exploded into the global Unscripted industry …
Dear Friends & Colleagues, It’s been a fascinating year to report on the online video tsunami that is restructuring our industry. As the New Year approaches, we often feel that Netflix and Amazon Prime in particular are changing everything, and at an accelerating rate… I hope that my analysis of the emerging ecosystem for documentary and unscripted programs helps you …
Ludo Dufour is the Managing Director, Sales & Co-Productions for OFF THE FENCE, the leading independent non-fiction specialist based in Amsterdam. We connected last June in Durban at NEWF, that super-exciting African conference linking Conservation and Filmmaking. I was taken by Ludo’s presentation on the nuts and bolts of financing and distributing quality documentaries and unscripted programs. …
The 2019 Sweet Spots Study is out now! The Study is an invaluable guide to cost benchmarks for network commissions. What do 31 U.S. channels pay for original programs? For documentaries and specials? And for reality series? Does my pitch fall in the budget “Sweet Spot” for my target network? My interviews with executives and …
Netflix and Amazon Prime famously don’t disclose their viewing data. We don’t know how many subscribers are watching documentary and unscripted programs. Or how their audience breaks down, for example by gender, age, education and income. And how do the hit, binge-watched scripted series compare with the unscripted audience on the OTT/Netflix platforms? The lack of …