DearReaders, William Faulkner once wrote, “The past is not dead. It’s not even past” to underscore the ineluctability of history and the looming presence of the past. We might arguably say the same about our art form—how we capture what unfolds before us, how we turn that raw material into a story, then history, and how we can keep it all alive for future generations to behold. The Young and the Dead, the new film by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini that premieres on HBO on May 12, profiles the Hollywood Forever Cemetary, where an enterprising young team of cemeterians has fashioned a
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Dear Readers, Monthly publications such as ours are often encumbered by long lead times, and late breaking news can wreak havoc on the production schedule—and the editorial calendar. But sometimes news flashes and long-in-the-pipeline articles can strike a magical confluence, as with this issue, in which we take a look at the relationship between the cable industry and the documentary filmmaking community. The news of Discovery Communications’ proposed policy to eliminate end-roll credits from broadcasts of newly commissioned documentaries arrived in time for IDA President Michael Donaldson to
What becomes a Hollywood legend most? In producer Robert Evans’ circumstances, it was the combination of a storied professional life at Paramount Pictures in the ’60s and ’70s and his personal life, populated by beautiful women and famous friends. It was also his spectacular and very public fall from grace—“a dive deeper than any Johnny Weissmuller ever took,” according to the producer. Starting as a New York-based fashion industry executive, then Hollywood actor, then studio executive, then producer, Evans has been a photogenic favorite of newspapers and television since the mid-50s. He’s
Marina Goldovskaya, who heads the documentary studies department at University of California at Los Angeles, has been working on her “Oral History Project” since the mid-1980s. In her words, the project is quite simply “the history of documentary film.” The Oral History Project is an attempt to preserve on tape (and paper) the words and ideas of the great living documentarians. The concept is simple: seminal documentary filmmakers are interviewed about their lives and their work. Each will have his or her own tape, which will consist of 30 minutes to three hours of lightly edited interviews.
The IDA wants YOU! The IDA is embarking upon an exciting and valuable new program to document the lives and careers of documentary filmmakers—an oral history project. We in the documentary community know well the importance of documenting the lives of both the famous and the overlooked. In the same way that our films are in danger of deteriorating and fading away, the knowledge and experiences of documentary filmmakers will also be lost to future generations unless we move to record them now. Your thoughts and ideas should become part of the historical record, not only as a supplement to your
The outlook for program sales at the 39th annual National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) conference this January in Las Vegas looked grim. The consolidation of TV outlets meant fewer buyers would attend. This, combined with the sluggish economy and the uncertainty among programmers in the post–September 11 world, prompted the organizers to brace for a bumpy ride. Before the doors opened on January 21, it was clear that this year’s convention would be rough. Citing the need to reign in costs, most of the big domestic syndication companies, long the mainstay of this confab
The parties and the hallway conversations were as productive as the sessions at RealScreen Summit, held in Washington, DC this past February. The conference on the “business of factual programming” drew nearly 700 delegates from around the world, but preponderantly from the US and Canada. The group included some 400 producers and distributors, 250 representatives from TV channels and 44 representatives of production services. “This gets us independent producers out of the splendid isolation that we also need,” said IDA member Robert Frye, who after decades as a broadcaster is producing on his
Apple Computers, along with a host of other tech companies--including Sun Microsystems, Ericsson, NNT DoCoMo and Sigma Designs--presented new capabilities and possibilities for delivering content quickly and inexpensively at the QuickTime Live Conference in Los Angeles February 12. Whether you’re a investigative documentarian who focuses on time-sensitive news coverage, an industrial filmmaker producing for corporate clients or an independent documentary filmmaker, QuickTime, and the recent technological announcements made at the conference, can help you deliver and get your footage seen on
I first encountered IDA Founder Linda Buzzell's “baby” shortly after it was born. I had recently returned to Los Angeles after 14 years in New York learning my life’s work, mostly at CBS. Through a transplanted East Coast friend I was granted the privilege of a small office at the legendary Production Center at Third Street and La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. In this wonderful madhouse of independent producers and production facilities, I discovered a newly formed organization called the International Documentary Association. It was an ambitious title for a handful of LA documentary
Dear IDA Members: Our Oscars® reception in March was our most successful ever, and thanks are due to Nancy Willen, Michael Rose, Richard Trank, Ann Hassett, Lynne Littman, Kathryn Galan, Jan Peppler, Richard Propper, the staff and all the volunteers. Thanks also to the Sundance Documentary Channel, the sponsor of the evening and of DocuDay. With the Academy Awards® fresh in our memory, we’re already looking ahead to next year—and this fall, since the deadline for submission of prints to the Academy for Oscar® consideration has been moved up to October 1. This means that DOCtober™, our annual