Loren Baxter (Head of Acquisitions), Stefanie Fischer (MD of Sales) & Leila Monks (Head of Commissioning) joined me for a revealing Off the Fence webinar at Sunny Side’s Global Pitch. My key questions: What is your key focus in Sales, Acquisitions and Commissions? What is Off the Fence working on? How do you work together …
Meet Chris Schmidt and Julia Cort, Executive Producers of NOVA, and Melanie Wallace, Senior Series Producer. They joined me at this year’s Sunny Side of the Doc for a revealing MEET THE EXECUTIVE presentation, including clips of program highlights. Watch the NOVA / Sunny Side video here: And don’t miss my detailed coverage of NOVA …
Twelve documentary buyers and producers reveal what drives their decisions. Each commissioner is driven by a particular strategy, pipeline and budget ‘sweet spot’. Each producer describes a unique path from concept through funding and production to distribution. Since 2010, the mission of my Documentary Business newsletter has been to reveal how these individual production pathways …
Mandy Chang, commissioning editor BBC-STORYVILLE recently joined my panel at Taiwan’s virtual CCDF-CNEX Documentary Conference. In this post, we recap Mandy’s valuable insights into the legendary STORYVILLE stand, and the impact of COVID on the BBC’s documentary commissioning process. Our fellow expert panelists were: Hong Kong-based, Phoenix TV exec Haibo Huang And from Washington DC, veteran …
Netflix is steadily expanding its programming appetites in the feature documentary, popular Factual and Reality Formats. Follow recent reports from the field, and in my new and expanded guide NETFLIX 2021: What You Need To Know Now! True Crime: Netflix is launching the original True Crime documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door. The feature …
Virtual documentary festivals and markets are here to stay! Online offerings won’t replace LIVE events after Covid. But virtual formats and features will enrich live programs and can dramatically extend their reach. Two Different Documentary Events: Distribution consultant Peter Broderick has written the definitive special report on CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen-based documentary festival. I helped with …
Dr John Morse likens the consumer’s COVID experience to living thru an episode of “The Twilight Zone”. He analyzes U.S. lifestyle and media usage trends during the pandemic in a PACT (UK Producers) webinar/podcast hosted by Dawn McCarthy-Simpson. John takes us on a deep dive into the data, highlighting the Big Trends: Viewing has become …
Here is the audio / podcast of the webinar moderated by PACT‘s Dawn McCarthy-Simpson with veterans — programming exec Dan Salerno and prolific producer Michael Hoff. We explored the COVID-disrupted condition of the production and programming pipeline for U.S. Factual networks. The big question: Are we heading into a “Content Desert?” Listen to the May …