It was standing-room-only at the East Village premiere that I attended for The Woman Who Loves Giraffes. The Q&A that followed resembled a celebrity speaking tour: the star in the spotlight was the sparkling 87-year old, Anne Innis Dagg. This Canadian feature combines several of my favorite genres: Archive-based History Wildlife Science Plus a bit …
The impact on the documentary economy of cancelled markets and events due to Coronavirus precautions is serious. A helpful approach to understanding this loss is to recap what’s involved in the distribution of fine, one-off documentaries in a typical season. This process was captured in my very useful post with Windrose‘s Pauline Mazenod. Read: How …
A Sundance campaign is a license to lose money. Lots of it! Here’s why: Let’s assume that the average production cost of all 1,774 Sundance submissions for 2020 is $500,000. Actual budgets range from around $200,000 up to $5+ million. $500K is a conservative average for a feature, according to D-Word‘s Doug Block. Production Cost: 1,725 …
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: 1,774 Documentary Features were submitted to the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, which opens on January 23: 840 were from the U.S. …
How is non-fiction storytelling evolving in the age of Netflix? I talk with Ed Hersh of consultancy StoryCentric about his work with producers and channels. His focus is on how Netflix and a host of new Direct-to-Consumer subscription platforms are challenging the storytelling conventions that once dominated in the Linear/Cable/Satellite era. You’ll hear about: Program …
Happy New Year to all my friends, colleagues, clients, subscribers, readers, contributors and more! I’ve really enjoyed this year, using my industry knowledge and contacts to provide you with valuable information and context through my weekly newsletter, regular ‘pod-versations’ with experts, producing panels at major industry events like MIPDoc, and consultations with producers, platforms, nonprofits …
Here are our top stories for December ’19, curated with our friends at Sunny Side of the Doc. Losing Yves Jeanneau: Read a selection of tributes to Yves Jeanneau, Sunny Side of the Doc co-founder, executive director and our friend, who passed away on November 14 // Sunny Side’s Official Announcement // Peter Hamilton // Realscreen // TV France International // Telerama and many more. Development …
STEVE BURNS has enjoyed senior management roles at Nat Geo, Discovery Networks and CuriosityStream. Our podcast topic: HOW THE DOCUMENTARY LANDSCAPE HAS CHANGED SINCE THE ‘EIGHTIES. First, Steve shares his shock and loss on hearing that Sunny Side’s Yves Jeanneau had passed away. We discuss the rise of big budget international co-productions, “Occu-soaps”, character-led Reality, and …