Any day that features ice cream is a good day in my book. It was great to join with WIFV Members and SilverDocs registrants to celebrate the first anniversary of The Scoop podcast at Ben & Jerry’s. If you couldn’t make it, please get your own bowl of ice cream and subscribe at
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-scoop/id318645653. Great interviews, helpful suggestions, and all about women and media! Thanks to Human Factor, LLC for coordinating this monthly podcast.

Spent the bulk of my day at the Good Pitch sessions. Organized by Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, Good Pitch is generously supported by the Fledgling Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, The Tides Foundation, Impact Partners and anonymous donors, with campaign support for filmmakers provided by Working Films. Eight filmmakers pitched their films to panels of potential funders and outreach partners. Jess Search, Chief Executive of the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation moderated the projects. Some of the resources discussed that may be of special interest to WIFV Members: Reel Progress program at the Center for American Progress; The Search for Common Ground is establishing a donor network; LinkTV is working with the Gates Foundation on international development issue projects. www.ViewChange.org.

Had some fantastic meetings with filmmakers and enablers from a variety of funding and outreach organizations that will be more involved with WIFV in the coming year.

Some upcoming SilverDocs programs that don’t require advance registration, are free and should be of interest to you:

Friday, June 25th

•10:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. ANNOUNCING THE PUBLIC MEDIA CORPS: BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
• A provocative discussion led by best-selling author, social critic and radio host Michael Eric Dyson, and featuring a live taping of his radio show. Who defines public media? What is the future of public broadcasting as a relevant form of engagement for communities of color? How can various technologies and broader trends in social media be used to increase public media’s community impact? In collaboration with the National Black Programming Consortium, WEAA-FM and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.

•2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. WHO KILLED BLACK HISTORY MONTH? Teaching, Learning, and Celebrating African American History in the Digital Age
•Join Filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman for a sneak peek of his documentary feature MORE THAN A MONTH and a preview of the film’s mobile application More Than A Map(p), a collaborative history mapping project. http://www.morethanamonth.org >

Free parking is available at the parking garage at the Center on King Street from Georgia Ave.

For more information about the AFI-Silverdocs International Documentary Conference: http://silverdocs.com/event/idc/about/ and the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival: http://silverdocs.com/event/about-silverdocs/

Post by Melissa Houghton

Wendy Thompson, President and CEO of EVS Communications, did a great job moderating a panel of executives from Discovery Networks. The four panelists gave the clearest tips on how to craft your pitch and story to get their attention. Here’s some highlights, with a fuller outline after the conference.

Andy Weissberg, VP of Programming for Animal Planet, actually studied their previously succesful shows: all of them highlight the connections and interactions between the human world and the animal world.

Dexter Cole, VP of Programming for the Science Channel, said they were looking for peaks into “mysterious worlds” and the “subcultures of science.” The key was to convey the “childlike fascination” with the world around us.

Stephen Reverand, SVP of Production & Development at Discovery Channel, acknowledged that while Discovery was built on one-off features, the have shifted to preferring to program an entire series. The still do one-offs, as “tentpoles,” and are committed to doing four per year, with perhaps an additional four smaller tentpoles. All the other network execs agreed with him.

Ed Hersh, SVP of Strategic Planning at Investigation Discovery (I.D.), Military Channel, and HD Theater, pointed out the they are looking for how the program will be executed. “You don’t buy topics, you buy shows.” Sage advice.

http://silverdocs.bside.com/2010/films/insidediscoverymeetthenetworks_silverdocs2010

Post by Matthew Radcliff

Well the conference is off to a flying start! Fantastic conversations in and out of the sessions.

It was great seeing Women of Vision Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady as part of the opening night panel about “Freakonomics”! Even more fun to see other Women of Vision in the audience supporting the festival.

Today I concentrated on sessions about distribution. Tips will be shared as soon as I sort out all the comments from the sessions. Monetization remains elusive, but seems a little closer at hand with good stories, conscious marketing and audience development. Also more likely for true
self-productions. Not a shocker, but good to have some more concrete examples. Everyone wants more for less (“Ephemeralism” according to Buckminster Fuller)

Counting on WIFV members to share their comments about the films. When not in a session today, I was deep in conversation with filmmakers. Truly enjoyed getting caught up on projects, making introductions, and thinking about things with new insights.

Help us celebrate the one year anniversary of The Scoop podcast at Ben & Jerry’s on June 23 from 5:00 to 7:30 pm. The interiews and topics covered, thanks to Human Factor, are astounding. Listen, subscribe, get a single scoop ice cream cone on us! (Actually, you’ll get it on a cone.)

Breakfast on June 24 about how to develop audiences for doc tv is full. We’ll be taking notes and sharing what Peter Hamilton (documentarytelevision.com) and Stephen Harris (A&E) reveal.

Post by Melissa Houghton, Executive Director of WIFV - DC

4 things to remember when making a documentary about your family (Documentary Ethics Inside The Family):

Garnered from the filmmakers speaking at the Documentary Ethics Inside The Family panel at the International Documentary Conference.
There is a difference between the “personal” and the “private.” The personal is the part of the story that the audience can relate to in some way, a detail that brings out an element of universal truth. The private are the details that are self-indulgent for the filmmaker to include. Kaleo LaBelle, director of BEYOND THIS PLACE, highlighted the distinction.
Ethics are always a matter of what is not on the screen, either because it is off-camera, cut during the editing, or was never filmed to begin with. Words of wisdom from Ali Codina, director of MONICA AND DAVID.
You, the filmmaker (yes, you), need to be willing to share and reveal yourself as much as your characters. That gem was shared by the director of FAMILY AFFAIR, Chico Colvard.
Making your film should not be a substitute for therapy, for you or your family, even though it may be therapeutic. So offered Doug Block, the director of THE KIDS GROW UP

MONICA AND DAVID screens 6/25, 8pm, and 6/26, 11:30am

FAMILY AFFAIR screens 6/22, 11:30am, and 6/24, 7:45pm

THE KIDS GROW UP screens 6/22, 7pm, and 6/24, 2:30pm.

—Matthew Radcliff is the organizer of the WIFV Documentary Roundtable, and a member of the SilverDocs 2010 screening committee

It was a good night at SilverDocs, watching the opening night film of FREAKONOMICS. The audience was clearly in a good mood, ready to applaud at the first syllable of someone’s name. Even the first technical glitch of the festival didn’t dampen the spirits of the crowd, although the producer of FREAKONOMICS, Chad Troutwine, did a great job of entertaining the audience while the bugs got worked out.

FREAKONOMICS, based on the eponymous book, is an anthology film with several directors each taking a chapter. Morgan Spurlock (SUPERSIZE ME), Seth Gordon (THE KING OF KONG), and Eugene Jarecki (WHY WE FIGHT) were unable to attend, but there was a Q&A after the film with Alex Gibney (CASINO JACK) and the directing team of Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (JESUS CAMP). They were joined by Troutwine as they discussed how he got the film underway and why they chose their particular segments.

Take-home message: don’t trust statistics without knowing how the data was gathered, but don’t be afraid to use numbers to try to understand why humans act the way they do.

—Matthew Radcliff is the organizer of the WIFV Documentary Roundtable, and a member of the SilverDocs 2010 screening committee

more information at: http://bit.ly/afLPnZ