Midway through Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol, I was sitting on the edge of my seat. My chin was in my hand and my mouth was slightly open. Also, I actually realized it. There was a moment during the film when I consciously thought, "How did I get in this position?" This film had hypnotized me. That was SilverDocs 2010. I was privileged enough to be at the film festival just to watch films. I spent a lot of that year going to festivals to study and prepare to cut my first feature doc. I'd been to school for documentary and I had the support of the university where I teach production. I was in a
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IDA sponsor and generous supporter of the documentary film community, FirstCom Music, has something new for documentary filmmakers - the BBC Orchestral Toolkit! Exclusively from FirstCom Music, the BBC Orchestral Toolkit is a new editing option that's for documentary score alternatives and beyond. It's an exciting scoring tool that is not delivering "stems" but something much more flexible and easier to use in many ways. Filmmakers can easily build a custom music score with a simple drag and drop of the audio files from the toolkit directly into your editing software alongside your visual edit
Dear Readers, Over the past decade and a half, an increasing number of American filmmakers have ventured abroad, often to dangerous and volatile regions, to seek out and follow stories that might not otherwise get told. Indeed, with the consolidation of the news media infrastructure and a concurrent scaling back of long-form, on-the-ground journalism over the past decade, documentary makers have worked hard to fill that void. With the advantage of cost-efficient equipment and skeletal crews of one or two people, docmakers can be both nimbler and less conspicuous, and more inclined to commit to
'The Case Against 8' is currently showing in theaters, and will air June 23 on HBO.
'112 Weddings' airs June 30 on HBO.
'Freedom Summer' airs June 24 on PBS' 'American Experience.'
Dear IDA Community: Thirty years ago, the International Documentary Association broke new ground by presenting the first IDA Awards for distinguished documentary achievement. The goal was to raise the profile of documentary film as an art form, and bring its greatest practitioners the recognition they deserved. IDA continues to pursue these goals today, though the times and the awards have definitely changed. The year 1985 saw the presentation of just seven awards: five for Distinguished Documentary Achievement, one for Preservation and Scholarship, and one for Career Achievement. That set the
Have you ever wished for a direct line to a funder? IDA is launching a new initiative called #FunderFriday that makes your wish come true. Our members contact us everyday with questions regarding the complexity and variation of the many grants available to documentary filmmakers. #FunderFriday taps into IDA's long-standing relationships with prominent granting organizations so you can ask them the questions that are important to you. We're excited to kick off this new initiative with NEH Senior Program Officer Jeff Hardwick. Our members asked Jeff questions via our Twitter feed using the
Jeff Blitz and Sean Welch created new fans for the National Spelling Bee with their thrilling documentary Spellbound, which now ranks fifth on the list of all-time documentary theatrical box office grosses. The filmmakers recently announced plans to form The Spellbound Foundation, which will provide educational scholarships to the students profiled in the film. A large part of the doc's success comes from the connection the audience feels with the eight spellers and their stories. The audience roots and cheers, holds its breath when a child gets a particularly challenging word and cringes when