Some states will subsidize your film – if they approve it
The Times has a piece this week about state film subsidies, and the fact that many, such as Pennsylvania, reserve the right to deny the subsidy if the film does not put the state in a favorable light.
While that relates generally to big-budget Hollywood fare, and the article specifically to a film called “The Woman,” which portrays graphic cannibalism, one wonders if documentary films could be denied tax credits if it seemed to put a government or place in negative light, as journalism sometimes does.
Most notably of late, Michael Moore did a film attacking capitalism, but made sure he got his Michigan Tax Credit, which is no less ironic than anything about Moore, the wealthy filmmaker who dresses like the poor man he isn’t. The Mackinac Center For Public Policy had an interesting position statement on the matter back in January:
It is baffling to see the state offer Michigan filmmaker Michael Moore a refundable tax credit for his documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story.” This subsidy should be rejected by Moore on principle alone.
Moore isn’t just any filmmaker. He is a current member of the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council, a state organ created to advise the Michigan Film Office, which is responsible for approving applications for Michigan’s film incentive program. I do not believe it strains credulity to suggest that Moore’s very presence on the council may have led to the film office approving special tax treatment for his work.
Money in hand, Moore was able to continue to attack a system for being filled with insider deals and special interests.
There examples in the past few years of documentarians making use of state tax incentives – in Maine, in Virginia, in New Mexico and others. So far, there’s little news of anyone having trouble with this approval process, but as money becomes tighter, we wonder whether states may see the films they want to give money to being ones that serve as a promotion for the state giving the incentives.
Still shooters finding their way to documentary work through DSLRs
Back in the early 1980s, when 2-time Pulitzer-winning news photographer Stanley Forman left the Boston Herald to become a videographer for Boston’s WCVB Channel 5, many of his journalistic peers were mystified. TV video was, to most a step down; the sanctity of the still image was unquestioned, and TV footage tended to be cheap-looking and utilitarian. Documentary still photographers such as Eugene Richards or Sebastiao Salgado told complex, meaningful stories in a succession of stills.
Even decades later, photojournalists resisted the videocam, both in terms of using videocams for framegrabbing, as advocated by David Leeson (another Pulitzer winner from the Dallas Morning News) or in their employers’ urging to shoot video on assignment – it was too much like their supposed second-rate TV peers.
But it seems that the DSLR is changing that. It provides still shooters a tool that feels familiar in their hands, and produces footage as crisp and clean as the stills they shoot. The fuzzy TV footage of their memory is gone.
So it’s interesting to look at shooters such as Rii Schroer at the UK’s Daily/Sunday Telegraph and The Times, who is posting on her move into documentary-style work. In a post at DSLR News Shooter, she says,
(I) took my first steps into DSLR-video shooting when the Canon 5DmkII came out. I started with a “shut up and shoot” approach and an interest in short pieces I felt were better captured with video than pictures only, such as 16 Teeth, capturing Cumbria’s last traditional rakemakers.
16 TEETH – Cumbria’s last traditional rakemakers from Rii Schroer on Vimeo.
Simple, visually appealing and skillfully shot, the piece shows the worth of these tools.
In short-film making every sequence needs as much planning as possible, and the intensity of the visual side produces the discipline of looking at the shoot in-depth from as many different views as possible. It is about getting to grips with how to achieve certain shots technically and looking into what equipment can be useful in creating those shots.
Old School!: Trailer for 1958 Picasso documentary
Battery University: Knowledge is Good
For docmakers in the field, the question of how to make the most of batteries is worth considering.
Slate is running a piece on battery conservation for laptops and cell phones, and they cite BatteryUniversity.com as a resource.
The Battery University site talks about proper charging to get the most from your batteries, and has a specific discussion about the pro-con of nickel cadmium vs. lithium ion for camcorders.
To wit:
Nickel-cadmium batteries continue to power a large percentage of professional cameras. This battery provided reliable service and performs well at low temperature. nickel-cadmium is one of the most enduring batteries in terms of service life but has only moderate energy density and needs a periodic full discharge.
The need for longer runtimes is causing a switch to nickel-metal-hydride. This battery offers up to 50% more energy than nickel-cadmium. However, the high current spikes drawn by digital cameras have a negative affect and the nickel-metal-hydride battery suffers from short service life.
There is a trend towards lithium-ion. Among rechargeables, this chemistry has the highest energy density and is lightweight. A steep price tag and the inability to provide high currents are negatives.
There are other resources as well.
Videomaker has this piece on camcorder battery care.
Streetdirectory has this one on managing your battery.
Does the new L3C funding model hold any promise for documentary filmmakers?
As newspapers make their fitful shift from print to online, with the revenue problems that go with it, hope has shifted to a new business model that may incidentally benefit people making documentary films.
Low-profit Limited Liability Corporations, or L3Cs, only exist or are about to exist in four states – Vermont, Michigan, Utah and Wyoming. Illinois’s goes into effect Jan. 1. And there is movement in other states on it, and they’ve existed in Britain under the name “community interest corporations.”
In short, L3Cs are a hybrid of LLCs and nonprofits, allowing principals to have partners with a for-profit financial stake, but with the ability to raise charitable donations for which the donor can take a tax opportunity seek out gifts from donors. So, instead of the current model in which some documentary filmmakers are asking for such things as donation-for-film-credit, the LC3 opens the opportunity for significant funding by foundations.
Documentary organizations in the U.S. have most often been either LLCs or 503 (3) (c) tax-exempt nonprofit corporations. A good example of the latter is the Center for Independent Documentary, which raises funds from donors and collaborates with filmmakers on topics such as history or science. In a nonprofit, a board supervises and a paid staff is under its control, something many filmmakers would avoid.
In that way, the L3C is an interesting hybrid.
Jim Witkin, writing for TriplePundit, assessed it this way:
The goal of the L3C form is to bring together a mix of investment money from a variety of sources. This process starts with investments from Foundations known as Program Related Investments (PRIs). Foundations are required to spend at least five percent of their assets in a given fiscal year in order to maintain their tax-exempt status. They have two basic options for spending their money: they can make grants, where there is no financial return on the money, or they can make program-related investments (PRIs) investing in for-profit ventures and potentially earn a return. But to qualify as a PRI, the investment must relate to the Foundation’s mission and the risk/reward ratio must exceed that of a standard market-driven investment (ie, the risk must be higher, and the return lower). Surprisingly, the use of PRIs by Foundations is limited even with the potential to earn a small return. Because of burdensome and costly IRS requirements to verify PRIs, many foundations shy away from investing in for-profit ventures due to the uncertainty of whether they would qualify as PRIs.
The newly-formed Chicago News Cooperative is an example of an L3C in the making. It actually goes to that status Jan. 1, when L3C’s become legal in Illinois. Think of the CNC model as one that would suit organizations doing news-oriented docs.
Not all documentary filmmakers will benefit, especially in the current era of documentary filmmaking. The requirements of LC3s include these provisos:
1. The company must “significantly further the accomplishment of one or more charitable or educational purposes,” and would not have been formed but for its relationship to the accomplishment of such purpose(s);
2. “No significant purpose of the company is the production of income or the appreciation of property” (though the company is permitted to earn a profit); and
3. The company must not be organized “to accomplish any political or legislative purposes.”
So, the politically driven docs that have become such a fixture would not work for an L3C. The more typical L3C will be a production company devised to carry out a range of educational efforts, and be willing to acknowledge there won’t be massive profit. But that’s the problem: While most documentary films don’t make back their production costs, there are enough breakthrough documentaries, sometimes only one every few years, that hit the jackpot and allow documentary to dream of bigger things.
There’s confusion about the new model. Writing for Crain’s Detroit, Sherri Begin Welch says that the Michigan efforts to open up the L3C model often takes some understanding.
They are intended to create a low rate of return so that they can attract both foundation and for-profit investors to fund their socially beneficial purpose.
But already there are concerns that early L3Cs forming in a handful of states that have legalized them may not have a truly socially beneficial cause or a business model that will attract both nonprofit and for-profit investors, said Rob Collier, president of the Grand Haven-based Council of Michigan Foundations.
“There’s concern at the state and federal level about the fact that people don’t quite understand what an L3C is,” Collier said.
Makeup for documentary work
On a small documentary shoot, makeup is one of the elements that goes lowest on the priority list, but it’s worth considering if possible.
A few good suggestions include this one from Larry Jordan, who advocates Lancome Powder Gel for simple touch-up.
Jordan notes,
Also, most of the shoots I go on don’t have the budget for a hair and makeup person. Which means I need to do the makeup myself. We now have the worst of all situations: a very, very nervous amateur being made up by another guy. Sigh… The things I do for my craft.
This article by Carolyn Miller talks about makeup and wardrobe for interviews (but it’s worth noting that people often dress up for interviews in fibers such as raw silk and synthetic fibers that wreak havoc on lavalier mike placements.
Miller writes,
Even if you intend to shoot your subjects in all their raw, unblemished uniqueness, disregarding these “vanity” concerns can turn your searingly honest piece into an unintentional comedy. Do you really want your audience distracted by a bald head that gleams like a light beacon, by patterns on shirts that take on an animated life of their own, or by clanky jewelry, jarring color schemes, or faces that look like floating heads? If not, then you’re going to have to devote some time to makeup and ‘wardrobe.
And, finally, if you’re really into it, VideoMaker has a video tutorial that gets beyond some of the basics, as does WonderHowTo.
How much it matters is up to the filmmaker. A film on Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas aired on the Sundance Channel the other night; the cosmetics of the interviews, from lighting to makeup, were not particularly fancy; the question is whether it mattered. There’s a bit of shine on his head and nose; how distracting is it? On the right of the Koolhaas shot is an outtake from an Apple promotional video for Final Cut; the subject is the opposite, caked with powder to the point of looking unnatural. Makeup applied too thick can be as much of a distraction. 
Evan Donn on using the Canon EOS 5D for documentaries
Evan Donn has been using the Canon EOS 5D Mk II for his projects, a sample of one posted here recently. Evan studied film production and modern literature at the University of California Santa Cruz and has been working professionally in the video production field for the past ten years. In 2002 he completed the Multimedia graduate program at California State University-East Bay and now works on a variety of projects combining digital media production with web development using technologies such as Flash and PHP/MySQL.He teaches After Effects and Final Cut at The College of San Mateo. He wrote to tell us more about working on “Intrinsic Self,” a sample of which is here:
Intrinsic Self from It Donned On Me on Vimeo.
He wrote:
A little background for those who don’t click through to the Vimeo page: this is our third short doc – we’ve made 11 shorts overall in the past couple years and all of our videos were made during timed competitions (48 hour film project, etc). This particular one was part of a 7 day competition but due to unforeseen complications we put the initial film together in the final two days of the competition and then added a third day of work after the competition was over.
We switched over to the 5DmkII entirely this year and have used it for our last four films (prior to that we primarily used a Canon XHA1). It’s an incredible camera with a few shortcomings that can be worked around if necessary –
personally I find it worth the trouble. We run dual-system sound on a Zoom H4n, and the 12-minute limit on single takes is occasionally annoying during interviews but overall a minor inconvenience – you can tap the record button twice to start a new file with just a couple seconds lost. The small size and incredible low-light capabilities make it a great camera for shooting without drawing too much attention to yourself. In the hands of a skilled operator it’s a great tool for documentary filmmaking but it does require an investment of time in understanding how to use the camera itself as well as developing a proper post workflow.
We’re shooting our first project outside of competition next month – a short doc on a distance runner which will be the first of an ongoing series of similar short docs. We’re also in the early planning stages of putting together a feature-length doc on the fire performance community – we feel like we barely touched the surface of the subject with ‘Intrinsic Self’ and there are a lot of stories there that will appeal to an audience much broader than just the community itself.
You can see all of our previous films and keep up with our upcoming projects on our website – http://www.itdonnedonme.com.The other aspect of this that bears pointing out is the fact that even with new cameras you are getting better quality for less money with each successive generation. $2700 for my 5DmkII body was a bargain – it’s already paid for itself several times over this year with a series of short interviews I shot on it for a corporate client. A year after I bought that we’ve got the 7D which is only 2/3 the cost so the payback would be that much quicker. Since my 5D still works great though I can skip the 7D and upgrade next year to another camera that will probably outperform both at a similar or lower price point – if I need more than what the 5D can provide at that time. The point though is that if you do any commercial work at all with your equipment it’s getting easier each year to make it pay for itself.
“Girls on the Wall” trailer
The filmmakers say it will be showing at the Chicago Film Festival and will air on PBS in January.
GIRLS ON THE WALL Trailer from Heather Ross on Vimeo.
Snagfilms is another doc-distribution opportunity that uses quality web streaming
In July, Snagfilms, a Washington, DC – based company that streams documentary films on the web, surpassed one billion page views, about a year after it began, and that success is really showing the promise of online distribution.
SnagFilms’ Ted Leonsis is a former top executive at AOL and a majority owner in NHL’s Washington Capitals. He’s a supporter and celebrator of documentary film. He has an interesting blog that covers so-called”Filmanthropy” here.
This kind of distribution venue begs the question of whether audience or revenue is foremost in the filmmaker’s mind. At least for now.
Snagfilms is interesting and exciting because it limited itself only to the distribution of docs. I wonder if it’s because of the relative ease of making lower-cost docs, and how that might work toward an actually viable business model. They’re using some interesting devices, such as the Snagfilms widget that was made available last Friday for use on imdb.com. You can see the widget on the imdb page for “Kicking It,” a 2008 doc about the Homeless World Cup soccer tournament.
Snagfilms began by getting a deal with Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me,” and in the year since has mounted nearly 900 docs that can be viewed free. Snagfilms shares ad revenue 50/50 with the filmmakers, which is not much. But the success of companies like Snagfilms is based on the eventual convergence of computers and big-screen television, a threshold that has yet to be crossed in the typical American household.
There’s a piece by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Stephen Rea that further chronicles Snagfilms.
And a piece ran last Friday in IFC asking “Can Streaming Save Indie Film?“