Mikael Opstrup writes: Dear Louise, Thanks a lot for your thoughts on the future for documentary. I think you are pointing out the right issues, I will try to address a few of them.

For me this debate started with the question about independent feature film docs and the decreasing TV financing that the filmmakers meet when pitching at the many sessions around Europe and abroad.

It’s been easy to see that over the last 5 years it has become much more difficult and this of course causes frustration. Frustration can be very negative but it can also be the starting point of new ideas and necessary changes. I think this is key issue. Think back, the technical changes have always changed art and the production conditions. And that’s where we are, digitalization and the web is changing almost everything: TV, production, distribution etc.

What is hasn’t changed is storytelling, the need for strong stories is eternal. So – still focusing on documentary and TV – I think we need to see it like this:

Storytelling, no problem. The technical development offers a variety of newshooting and distribution formats, in fact it’s much richer than the existing slot-length tyranny. TV programming, where the film is available online, needs no length limitations. The web, mobiles, VOD etc. opens to all kinds of formats. Where it will take us is extremely difficult to predict and I think we will have to live with the financing-limbo for some years but at a longer perspective I think the development offers more opportunities than restrictions.

Feature length ‘creative documentary’, the format we know today, will have a smaller place in the television of tomorrow. So in terms of financing I think we need to think differently. Of course the national or regional funding will have to

be strengthened. Whether it’s realistic (I’m not thinking of the current financial crisis but beyond this) I’m not sure but it’s for sure necessary. But also other ‘non-media’ funding is important and I could imagine that the sales agent will play a bigger role here – the professionals who know the increasingly fragmented market. We see more and more players who are mediators in finding funding that relates to the subject or the format and I think that today’s sales agents need to go down this road as well.

And again I would like to raise the question of future cinema, which will be totally digital. The cinema is THE place for many creative documentaries but audience wise it’s always been for fiction. Of course the cost reduction from 35mm to bits is one thing but it will probably also open the cinema to sports events, concerts etc, and this could break down the fiction-tradition of this temple and pave the way for documentary.

Enough for now, it’s getting dark in Riga, Latvia where the Baltic Sea Forum in its 15^th year one again holds a variety of wonderful projects that will be pitched in 2 days – and for quite a few of they face some financial difficulties! Yesterday I saw the strong film “Give up Tomorrow” (photo) by Michael Collins and Marty Syjuco – stresses the importance of the documentary genre go and see it!

Let’s keep up discussion …

Mikael Opstrup was a producer of international documentaries since the 90’s. He worked as production Adviser at The Danish Film Institute 1998-2002 and was from 2002 – 2008 co-owner of Final Cut Productions in Copenhagen. He is currently Head of Studies at EDN (European Documentary Network).

Louise Rosen, who started this Doc Discussion writes: Dear Mikael (Opstrup), Reading the posts is uncomfortable – the humiliation and frustration of the filmmakers, the sense from the CEs/funders of being overwhelmed and likewise frustrated. I feel both sets of experiences – as a consequence of representing filmmakers and being approached by filmmakers to represent them. Everyone’s trying to find their way in a profoundly changed and changing world. Right now it’s futile to speculate on the financial potential, or lack thereof, in digital distribution. In any event, there’s nothing to suggest thus far that the digital world will be a robust source of widespread production funding.

What can be done to improve matters – in the near and long term? We share a framework for considering the issues as the documentary form encompasses a broad range of formats and styles. Doc series, and single docs that fit into existing formatted series on TV are doing quite well these days. But for the sake of discussion here, let’s assume we are focused on single, longform films of an hour or feature length and filmmakers whose goal is to reach as wide an audience as possible.

So, what can filmmakers do? What can funders and CEs do? How can we collectively make a more effective case for the value of documentaries?

Demonstrating the power of docs

Are there data and metrics that can be compiled to make a more compelling case for feature docs – to networks, funders and investors? How can making an anthology strand/home for single docs on a network prove or improve their ratings potential? What can be learned about marketing, promotion and branding by all parties?  

Making docs more cost effective/designing new business structures

Are there ways of making production and post-production more cost efficient,

approaches that will help reduce the cost of items such as clearances and insurance? What are new models of sustainability for indie prodcos?

Training

What can filmmakers, network execs and funders learn to do better, particularly in relationship to one another? Leadership skills, communication, talent and project development are among the areas we all need to be better at.

Transparency

The power of shared knowledge – participants can help create “terms of trade” even without official adoption of guidelines.

I want to believe it’s never too late for labor organizing 101 for culture workers (1). But, are we “whistling past the graveyard”? There are now so many aspiring filmmakers, the documentary ecology has been transformed. I’m a Luddite (2) in many respects yet I know there’s little point (and no comfort) in mourning the passing of the old ways. Let’s keep talking about the future.

(1) Means basic lessons (101 is the first year curriculum in any subject) in union-type political organizing. “Culture workers” is a term I first heard from Rudy Buttignol. That’s what we all are, right?

(2) A social movement of textile artisans in England in the early 19th century who tried to destroy the mechanical looms tthey saw were taking away their jobs. Has also come to mean someone who clings to old ways.

Photo: A film from the catalogue of Louise Rosen.

Louise Rosen is a media executive with over 25 years experience in all areas of the international television and film business. She runs an agency specializing in the financing and distribution of documentaries with particular focus on pre-sales and co-productions, and she has been invited to tutor and lecture all over the world.

Charlie Phillips writes: Tue has kindly given us an opportunity to respond to some critical comments about Sheffield Doc/Fest in the last few months on his blog.

We think this blog is brilliant, especially with the recent discussions over the direction of documentary, so we’re certainly not using this opportunity to complain about anyone’s right to express their opinions here. We love documentary for its democracy and its diversity of views – if anyone doesn’t feel we’re serving their needs as doc professionals, then that’s their welcome right. We’re just using our right to reply.

First, we want to respond to Tue’s comments on 7^th June that we were looking a bit provincial at the 2011 festival. There were 21 different countries represented in the film programme, of which the UK and US were just two, and the diversity of delegates attending numbers about 50 different countries.

We think we’re truly international, but regardless, festivals aren’t a numbers game. It’s about showing the best work, and though the process of reducing 2000 submissions to under 200 screened films probably does miss some treats and involves hard decisions, the greater evil would be a tokenistic geographical spread. Public funding for festivals especially involves a need for diversity and spread that doesn’t implicitly reflect quality. We’d be criticised for implementing a quota system – isn’t that the greater evil than a system that puts quality first ? Albeit of course subject to the idiosyncrasies of human programmers.

The other blog we’d like to respond to is Doug Aubrey’s of last week. Many of his criticisms of commissioning and the current risk-averse culture of some

doc funders are accurate and are opinions we sympathise with. But surely it’s not fair to blame us for that? Especially when events like MeetMarket and our year-round training and mentoring opportunities are attempts to support and showcase as many people and projects as possible that need personal attention and matchmade meetings rather than a remote closed one-size-fits-all attitude.

We think that what we do is the polar opposite of the ‘pole-dancing’ pitch scenario in that it’s focused around private meetings and consensual encounters. We try and give you what you want in a way that funders or resource-holders have a chance to understand and respond to consensually. If they show interest, it’s real interest, it’s not constructed by us for show. If they’re not interested, that’s a wider problem of taste that yes, perhaps all of us together need to discuss and combat. But we’re not the enemy in that scenario.

It’s worth stating for the record that all of us at Doc/Fest have a massive passion for documentary and documentary filmmakers, and that you  – the documentary-makers are our top priority. We’re not brand managers, we’re not profit makers, we’re running a festival we love for the benefit of all in the industry making brilliant work, or with the potential to make something beautiful. It’s that naïve and that uncynical.

We’re not perfect, but we are led by you – if you help us to be what you want us to be, then we can build something constructive together.

Charlie Phillips is Marketplace Director at Sheffield Doc/Fest