The text that follows is a statement from the Drew family on the passing of Robert L. Drew, the father of American cinéma vérité.

Documentary filmmaker Robert L. Drew, the father of American cinéma vérité, died today at his home in Sharon, Connecticut. He was 90 years old.

Drew and his associates pioneered a new kind of reality filmmaking in the early 1960s that is now a staple of the documentary form. Drew made more than 100 films over his 50-plus-year career, many on social issues, politics, and the arts.

Drew’s entire collection is being preserved by the archives of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, of which he was a member. Two of Drew’s films are in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. His list of honors includes the Cannes Film Festival Special Jury Prize, blue ribbons from the New York Film festival, the International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award, an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, First Prizes in the Venice Film Festival, 19 Cine Golden Eagles, the Flaherty Award, and the Dupont-Columbia Best Documentary award.

Drew was a Life Magazine correspondent and editor, as well as a former WWII fighter pilot, when he formed Drew Associates in 1960 to produce his kind of films. He hired a team of filmmakers who would later become well known, among them Ricky Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, and Albert Maysles.

Drew’s films pioneered a strict journalistic code that allowed no directing of subjects, no set-up shots, no on-camera narrator. The candid footage was edited into a dramatic narrative that gave the feeling of what it was like to be there as events occurred. His technique became known as cinéma vérité or direct cinema, though he liked to call it reality filmmaking.

To accomplish this, Drew and his associates re-engineered a motion picture camera and sound recorder so they could move freely and in sync with a subject. This allowed them the mobility to capture real life as it unfolded before the lens, as documented in the documentary Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment.

For their first film with their new equipment, Drew convinced a young senator from Massachusetts who was running for President to be his first subject: John F. Kennedy. Drew and his team recorded Kennedy as he campaigned for the 1960 Democratic Presidential nomination in Wisconsin. The resulting film, Primary, was the first film made where the sync sound camera could move freely to capture events as they were actually happening.

Primary, along with the famous 1963 film about Kennedy’s decision to back racial equality as a moral issue and force the integration of the University of Alabama –Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment – won numerous awards and have been named to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry as works of enduring importance to American culture. Crisis includes candid scenes from inside the Oval Office, the only time a U.S. president has allowed independent cameras to film actual White House deliberations.

Drew refined his early ideas about documentaries with dramatic logic in a 1954-55 Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, where he studied storytelling in order to craft documentaries that used narrative and what he called “picture logic” rather than following “word logic,” or a lecture format. When he returned to Life Magazine, Drew made several experimental films.

Drew explained in a 1962 interview that he envisioned a documentary form that would be “a theater without actors; it would be plays without playwrights; it would be reporting without summary and opinion; it would be the ability to look in on people’s lives at crucial times from which you could deduce certain things and see a kind of truth that can only be gotten from personal experience.” See resources below for a link to that interview.

Drew formed Drew Associates and made several films under contract for Time, Inc., which owned a handful of television stations and sometimes teamed with ABC and commercial sponsors to broadcast the independent films. In addition to Primary and Crisis, these included some of the recognized seminal works of early cinéma vérité: Yanki No! (1960) about Latin America’s rising anger at its northern neighbor; On the Pole, (1960 and 1961), which follows top driver Eddie Sachs at two Indianapolis 500s; Mooney vs. Fowle (1961), an inside-the-locker room story of a high school football state championship game; The Chair (1962), in which a crusading lawyer saves a man from the electric chair; and Jane (1962), about Jane Fonda’s debut as the lead in what turned out to be a Broadway flop. Each of the films won major awards at film festivals in the U.S. and Europe.

Drew’s contract with Time, Inc., ended in 1964, and from then on Drew Associates functioned as an independent producer. Drew won an Emmy Award in 1969 for Man Who Dances, which depicts the grinding physical stress on New York City Ballet’s then-premier dancer, Edward Villella. That film was edited by a filmmaker who would soon become Drew’s second wife and filmmaking partner, Anne Gilbert Drew. The two were inseparable personally and professionally until Anne’s death in April, 2012, from lung cancer.

Drew won the Dupont-Columbia Best Documentary award in 1986 for For Auction: An American Hero, the story of a rural auctioneer and the family whose farm is put up for sale when their debts become overwhelming.

Robert Lincoln Drew was born in Toledo, Ohio, in February, 1924, the eldest of four children. His family soon moved to Ft. Thomas, Kentucky, where his father ran a seaplane base on the Ohio River and taught his son to fly. Drew remembered his father taking a dollar from a customer for a seaplane ride and quietly slipping it to his son to run down to buy the fuel needed to gas up the plane.

Drew left high school shortly before graduation to enlist as a cadet in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After flight training school, Drew was posted to a combat squadron near Naples, Italy, and flew 31 missions before being shot down behind enemy lines on January 31, 1944, 16 days before his 20th birthday. Drew survived for three and a half months eluding German troops in the mountains near the town of Fondi, Italy, before finding his way through the approaching battle lines to return to his squadron.

Drew returned to the States and enrolled in a military engineering school so he could qualify to join the first squadron of jet fighter pilots, a posting he was finally granted only after he impressed the squadron leader with a highly visible, illegal dog fight in the air over a military base against two Navy airplanes. He was still in training when the war ended. When Life Magazine came to his base to do a story on jet fighters, Drew wrote a first-person essay for Life about what it was like to fly the plane. That essay eventually landed him a job as a Life correspondent. That was when he found himself asking the question “Why are documentaries so boring?”

Drew is survived by his three children: Thatcher Drew, Lisa W. Drew, and Derek Drew; and three grandchildren: Jonathan Drew, Kimberly Drew and Seth Drew. He is also survived by his first wife, Ruth Faris Drew, his brother Frank M. Drew, brigadier general, U.S. Air Force, retired; and a sister, Mary Way Drew Greer.

Jill Drew, his daughter-in-law, is General Manager of Drew Associates, which is active in distributing the company’s library of films.

A celebration of Drew’s life will be held on August 3 in Sharon, Connecticut. A memorial service will also be held in New York City at a later date.

Read our article about the 10-DVD boxed set of Drew's work, released in 2013: This We Know is Drew: A Box Set of American Vérité

Los Angeles has never been much of a hockey town, so the convergence of the LA Kings’ Stanley Cup Championship match with the third day of the 20th Los Angeles Film Festival brought an unexpected flood to Downtown LA. My attempt to navigate from IDA’s offices in Koreatown on Friday the 13th to the Regal Cinemas at LA Live was fraught with traffic jams and last-minute parking changeups. So, I missed the 4:45 p.m. screening of The Great Museum, opting instead for the easier option: throwing up my hands in defeat and heading home. My colleague Thomas White was wiser than I in forgoing the Fest that evening altogether, instead enjoying the Kings’ victory from the comfort of his couch. You win this round, Mr. White.

Thanks to generally smooth parking protocol for the other eight days of LAFF (important in a city where the car is king), I was able to catch 13 feature-length documentary films, including six of the eight in competition. Thomas Miller’s Limited Partnership and blair dorosh-walther’s Out in the Night offered a strong representation for LGBT stories alongside a heavy focus on observational filmmaking in Àgnes Sòs’s Stream of Love. (See Thomas White’s report for some of the more meditative and powerful vérité selections from the fest.) Wildly entertaining character docs came in the form of The Battered Bastards of Baseball and Adam Rifkin’s Giuseppe Makes a Movie, an offering that will either shock you silent or laugh you onto the floor (spoiler alert: I experienced the latter reaction). The selection of music documentaries was rather weak compared to previous years, with Billy Mize and the Bakersfield Sound offering a somewhat exhausting history of a forgotten West Coast country singer.

When a filmmaker is a direct descendant of his main subject, a viewer tends to keep the eyes peeled for overly tender treatment of the material. In the case of Billy Mize, filmmaker William J. Saunders, Mize’s grandson, handles his main subject with kid gloves. That’s not to say that the story’s subject matter doesn’t warrant sensitivity: the handsome country crooner with a face made for television lost two children and suffered a stroke in his mid-60s that rendered him unable to sing. It seems trivial to lament the would-be success of a man who insisted on placing family before career, especially a man who hosted several wildly popular country music television programs.

Billy Mize is not a household name, so it’s understandable that Saunders is interested in putting his grandfather on the map. But what is the crux of his story? The filmmaker struggles with the arc of his narrative, setting up tragedy after tragedy to be confronted and belabored in a jerky rollercoaster of emotions. The one force that separates the film from a straightforward biodoc is the anticipation of Billy’s performance at his 80th birthday: Now that his stroke has made speech so difficult, will he be able to sing? Unfortunately, the answer to the film’s driving question left me cold.

Where Billy Mize is mired by the filmmaker's relationship with its subject, directors and brothers Chapman and Maclain Way are able to set aide the relationship with their grandfather/subject to produce a film so engaging that the climax elicited wild cheers from the audience. The Battered Bastards of Baseball, which premiered at Sundance and is now available for streaming on Netflix, offers a history of one independent baseball team and the vibrant man who served as its manager. Sports documentaries often fall victim to excessive jargon and inside baseball (ahem!), but Bastards invites the audience into the story of manager Bing Russell and the Portland Mavericks, at the time the only independent team in the Class A Northwest League. The Way Brothers unfurl their grandfather Bing Russell’s transition from minor league ball player to what his son Kurt (yes, that Kurt Russell) describes as “a plumber actor” cast in hundreds of television Westerns before landing the role of Deputy Clem Foster on Bonanza. After the cancellation of this second-longest-running television Western in 1973, Bing turned back to his first love.

Through interviews with sports journalists and former members of the now-defunct team and well-aged archival footage, the filmmakers recreate the excitement that was palpable in the Portland stadium when the rough-and-tumble Mavs would take the field. Game footage showcases their speed and their chances, especially the risky frequency of their base stealing. Even as the intricacies of Bing’s management style and the Major League backlash it incurred unfold, the Way brothers never lose sight of what makes the Mavericks such an entertaining team to watch and discuss. Exposing their beer bellies in the locker room and sporting some of the most iconic (and definitely outside of MLB regulation) '70s hairstyles you’ve ever seen, the Mavericks’ motivating force was the pursuit of fun. The narrative doesn’t dwell in the team’s dissolution, but rather celebrates this rare moment in history when an independent team dared to take on the major leaguers—and actually came out victorious.

Adam Rifkin’s Giuseppe Makes a Movie offers a delightful look at one of the most prolific filmmakers you’ve never heard of. You might recognize Giuseppe Andrews from the iconic '90s films Detroit Rock City (also directed by Rifkin) and Independence Day, but odds are you won’t – his years living an electively transient lifestyle have visibly weathered his face and his body. Giuseppe is a true auteur who, after spending enough time in Hollywood, just wants to make movies his way: improvised shock and exploitation flicks void of continuity and staged without rehearsal. Rifkin’s doc is a lively, behind-the-scenes look at the making of Garbanzo Gas, Giuseppe’s then-latest story of a cow who receives an all-expenses-paid vacation from the slaughterhouse—to a motel room.

The doc follows Giuseppe through the entire process of developing, casting and shooting this latest feature which, unlike his previous films,Touch Me in the Morning, Trailer Town and Who Flung Poo?, will be shot in two days instead of three. He is a whirlwind force of encouragement and idealism for his projects and his collaborators, and provides an engaging guide through his offbeat, breakneck creative process. Those easily offended should steer clear of Rifkin’s flick, but those with a stomach for the lurid exploitation genre will delight in the 82 minutes you spend with one of its most prolific artists. If you like Pink Flamingos, you’ll fall in love with Giuseppe Andrews.

While the idea of octogenarians openly discussing their sex lives might sound like a premise ripped from Giuseppe’s ribald filmography, the tone of Àgnes Sòs’ Stream of Love is more a contemplative portrait of a rural Romanian village and its vibrant inhabitants. Sure, the film is replete with racy remarks about sex and self-pleasure. But there’s nothing exploitative about Sòs’ camera, a testament to the trust she gained from her senior citizen subjects over the two years she spent with them. The Hungarian film contains traditional interviews intercut with vérité footage, but its standout feature, to be sure, is its humor and humility. Women openly speak about their intimate experiences while preparing communal meals, laughing while reflecting on the folly of their youth. The film ends with a group of the women taking great joy as they roll down the grassy hill that looks down on their village, drenched in sunlight and laughing like teenagers.

One of the more serious and poignant docs in competition was Out in the Night, the story of four gay African-American women who were assaulted on the streets of New York City by a male aggressor. Because the women defended themselves with a weapon, Venice Brown, Terrain Dandridge, Renata Hill and Patreese Johnson were all sentenced to at least three years in jail, with Patreese receiving an 11-year sentence. The film actualizes the trials and convictions of these four women, placing blame squarely on a media that dares to label them “a gang of killer lesbians,” and “a seething Sapphic septet.”

In the trial testimony, the male assailant claims that he reacted because one of the women “was disrespecting [him] as a man,” which made my hair stand on end: the same misogynistic privilege and expectations were echoed in the Isla Vista killings not more than a two weeks prior to this film’s screening. After we see all four women convicted while the male assailant walks free, a civil rights advocate is interviewed, proclaiming, “male supremacy hurts everybody.” If there’s one timely take-away from blair dorosh-walther’s film, it should be this.

Another resilient LGBT narrative comes from Thomas Miller’s Limited Partnership, which proved to be one of the more emotional offerings of this year’s selections. In a festival season that left everyone talking about The Case Against 8, Miller’s film reminds us that while the fight for marriage equality has certainly come to a head in the last decade, this battle actually began in 1975, when a Colorado clerk issued the first same-sex marriage license. Following the lives of bi-national, same-sex couple Tony Sullivan (an Australian native) and Richard Adams (an American), Limited Partnership depicts their struggle to make a life in a country that refuses to recognize their union, and thus criminalizes Sullivan for what is considered a visa violation. The couple’s story plays out through family photos, clips from an extensive interview with Tony and Richard from 2002, and more present-day footage, following the couple through a decades-long struggle to live openly and without fear. In a Q&A following the Los Angeles premiere, attorney Lavi Soloway reminded the audience that the 40-year evolution of same-sex partnerships is one of the quickest revolutions in modern history. Limited Partnership shines a light on some of the early fighters in this struggle, reminding us that the fight for our civil liberties is all part of an evolution.

Katharine Relth is the Digital Communications Manager for the International Documentary Association.

The distribution landscape is constantly evolving. We already gave you 10 Keys to Successful Theatrical Distribution for Your Doc and the most important 5 Digital Distribution Tips for Filmmakers. Now, here are some of the most oft-used terms and their definitions to help you figure out how best to get your doc out into the world.

Theatrical Releases:

Wide release: a film is shown nationwide simultaneously in hundreds of theaters.

Limited release: a film is released in a select several theaters across the country. This release style is frequently used for documentaries, art films, and independent films.

Platform release: a strategy included under the umbrella of the limited release that utilizes word of mouth to gain momentum. Usually shown in very few select theaters in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.

Semi-Theatrical Release: A one-time special event screening that can take place in a movie theater, museum, college campus, art center, etc.

DIY Release: Filmmakers make deals with individual theaters to screen their films. Filmmakers usually either pay the theater a fixed sum upfront and take on the risk and potential profits, or, if the theater believes the film will be successful, share both the risk and profits with the theater. Includes online platforms like Tugg and Gathr to crowdsource theatrical screenings.

Video on Demand

Video-on-Demand (VOD) is an interactive system that allows users to select and watch video content in real time or download content whenever they choose in lieu of watching at specific broadcast times. Users can stream and/or download video content. For streaming, the content plays as it downloads; for downloaded content, the file must be completely downloaded before it will play.

Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) allows users unlimited access to a bundled set of content for a fixed fee during a specific time period (typically one month). SVOD providers include Netflix and Hulu Plus.

Advertising-supported Video on Demand (AVOD) offers access to video and audio content with ads to users, often for free, since the platforms rely on selling ads to generate revenue. One AVOD provider is Hulu.

Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD) allows customers to pay a single price for individual VOD content or set of viewed programs. TVOD includes download-to-buy options like iTunes and Amazon as well as Internet VOD (IVOD) like Vudu rentals.

Free Video on Demand (FVOD) is demand programming that is available as part of a basic content package, to which subscribers can have unlimited access for a specific time period.

Direct and Retail

Direct sales
The purchasing of goods from manufacturers or distributors in person. An example of this is the purchasing of a DVD at a film screening.

Retail
When consumers go directly to a retail outlet or store with multiple products on display in order to make a purchase. Direct selling can also counts as retail.

Digital Distribution
A distribution method in which media content, such as video, is delivered without the use of physical media, typically by downloading from the internet straight to a consumer's home. Examples include: filmmakers’ own websites, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and iTunes.

Educational Distribution
The selling of DVDs to high schools, universities, colleges, research institutes, non-profit organizations, libraries and other institutions that use film for educational purposes like research and as teaching tools.

The rapidly changing distribution landscape has brought with it a whole new vocabulary and a seemingly mind-boggling array of different options for delivering films to audiences (link takes you to our new Distribution Terminology Guide). But where do you, the filmmaker, fit in? Just like you needed to train yourself to make a film, you need to learn how to distribute one. Because this new digital world can at times be confusing and overwhelming, we gathered a diverse group of folks together for our May Doc U on digital distribution to help you sort out what’s what. Peter Broderick, who consults with filmmakers and has studied this arena extensively, moderated our panel that included filmmaker Jen Chaiken (Inequality for All, Afternoon Delight), Chris Horton (Sundance Institute), Melanie Miller (Gravitas Ventures), and Erick Opeka (Cinedigm Entertainment). We culled through the evening’s discussion to come up with our top five takeaways you need to know to help mount a successful and individualized distribution strategy.

1. Always Grow Your Audience

Our panelists highlighted numerous marketing strategies for audience development such as maintaining a strong online presence, crowdfunding, and building email lists. Email lists are key; they can become the core market for advertising films, selling merchandise, and making pre-sales to people who have indicated that they’re interested in what you’re producing. Some filmmakers offer free products on their documentaries’ websites and collect names and emails in exchange, which they can use in the future. Crowdfunding is another great tool. As Chris Horton said, crowdfunding is “less about raising money than building an audience.”

2. Retain Rights to Sell Directly

Regardless if you make a traditional or a hybrid deal for distribution, Peter Broderick recommended that filmmakers retain the rights to sell their documentaries directly from their websites, whether the copies are digital or on DVD. Not only does this allow you more versatility for distribution, but it also allows you to collect the names and emails of those who buy your film, which, as mentioned above, is extremely important for developing an audience. Hit-documentary Hungry for Change made over a million in sales by selling copies of the film and cookbooks from its website. While this isn’t the case for every documentary, having the right to sell directly is invaluable.

3. Timing is Everything

By all measures, getting your doc into Sundance is a great achievement. And, based on recent trends, chances are that your Sundance screening will lead to your film being acquired for distribution. However, Horton believes that there’s one small flaw in this picture. Getting picked up for distribution at a film festival creates a gulf between the premiere and the time the film gets to market, leaving many documentaries high and dry after the festival buzz has died down. It can take upward of 90 days to program a film’s delivery with a cable operator, so planning ahead can be a daunting (and expensive) task. However, both Melanie Miller and Opeka recommend finding distributors and making them part of the process early on; that way, your festival buzz will translate more effectively into growing your audience.

4. The Rules Aren’t Always Meant to be Broken

If you have a film with the potential to be sold to cable TV or with high profile broadcast and VOD release possibility, the more stringent the distribution rules are. Opeka believes if you’ve already released it online or rocked the boat when it comes to traditional distribution, you run the risk of your film being passed over by the biggest platforms in the business. (In which case, you may not be able to follow the lead of the Hungry for Change example cited above). If you fail to mention that your film is already online and the distributor finds out after a deal is made, you may jeopardize that deal. You may have a really innovative release strategy on paper, but do consult someone who really understands how to navigate the windows and split rights of the business so that you aren’t exempt from any big distribution opportunities down the road.

5. Research How to Monetize your Film and Navigate Windows

Understanding the ins-and-outs of distribution windows is necessary, because your distributor(s) need(s) an informed filmmaker to partner with in order to get the film out as efficiently as possible. This means understanding windows and how to break them: pre-theatrical, theatrical, post-theatrical. In Miller’s ideal world, a filmmaker’s documentary would go to VOD and drop on DVD on the same day. Understand how early your film can get on the VOD, cable, Hulu Prime, Netflix, Apple iTunes bandwagon. Understand tiers — meaning the pricing for your film — and be in contact with your distributor to tap into their expertise on pricing.

Read our 10 Keys to Successful Theatrical Distribution for Your Doc from our Doc U in April 2014

In a recent interview with TheWrap, IDA Executive Director Michael Lumpkin was asked to discuss the current boom in documentary filmmaking. Excerpts from his interview were published in the piece Is This the Death of the Big Screen Documentary?, in which filmmaker Joe Berlinger also weighs in on how technology and contemporary distribution methods have been both "a blessing and a curse."

"An individual can pretty easily and cheaply put their film online; whether anyone sees or finds it is another matter," Michael Lumpkin, executive director of the International Documentary Association, told TheWrap. "There are more opportunities over the last several years—there have been a constant parade of new platforms to watch movies online. But I think for filmmakers, not enough of those opportunities are actually financial opportunities."

Lumpkin noted that his organization has seen a continual uptick in the number of documentaries submitted for awards consideration, which is their best measurement of the number of films that come out in the genre each year.

Like so much in the docmaking profession, the future of documentaries on the big screen is murky. Recognizing this concern, the International Documentary Association and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has developed GETTING REAL, an unprecedented 3-day national conference for documentary filmmakers. GETTING REAL hopes to ignite what is desperately needed in the documentary community: a frank public conversation about the state of our industry that will lead to action and change. Held from September 30 to October 2, 2014 in Los Angeles, the conference will feature a curated selection of compelling topics including filmmaker pay, transparency, equity funding, ethics, and public media utilizing formats designed to be interactive, dynamic, and productive.

Learn more about the conference and register at GETTINGREAL2014.com

Read the full article on TheWrap.

As you may have read last week, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission has provided a generous grant enabling the IDA to recruit two promising undergraduate students for paid summer 2014 internships. During their time with us, these two bright individuals will gain expertise in event and educational program management.

Corinne Gaston has joined us this week as the new Conference and Educational Programs Intern. Corinne has one more semester to finish at the University of Southern California where she studies Creative Writing, Folklore, and Screenwriting. Originally from Pennsylvania, Corinne has fallen in love with California and has no plans of leaving the west coast any time soon. She is a published writer who co-founded and ran The Interloper, an alternative newspaper, at her school during her junior year. In the fall, she’ll join Neon Tommy at USC as an assistant opinion editor.

Corinne enjoys the unique forms that storytelling can take and believes in the power that documentaries have to shed light on social issues. She was deeply moved by The Invisible War by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, and, after learning the IDA supported this production, decided that she wanted to play a part in providing documentary filmmakers the tools and networks to help them tell their stories.

We're thrilled to kickoff this first week with a bright new addition to the IDA, and can't wait to see the incredible work we are sure she do with us this summer. Please join us in welcoming Corinne to the IDA community!

Learn about our other talented new intern made possible by the LACAC, Program and Events Intern Niala Charles.

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission has provided a generous grant enabling the IDA to recruit two promising undergraduate students for paid summer 2014 internships. During their time with us, these two bright individuals will gain expertise in event and educational program management.

The first to join the fold is Niala Charles, our new Program and Events Intern. Niala will be embarking on her senior year at Pepperdine University in the Fall, where she is studying Broadcast Journalism and Economics. Hailing from Temecula, California, Niala has traveled extensively throughout the UK and Europe and is currently flexing her journalism muscles as the Business Reporter on Pepperdine's news program News Waves.

Niala professes a love of documentaries and shares her wonder at their impact on society. "[Documentaries] have the power to influence change within society and increase awareness by showing audiences a life other than their own," she states. Niala loves Oprah's Master Class series, which features well-known figures telling never-before-heard stories, for this reason. She hopes that her work with the IDA will help to showcase the amazing talent that lies within the documentary industry.

We're excited to embark on this journey with this new addition to our team, and can't wait to see the incredible impact we are sure she will have on the IDA as an organization. Please join us in welcoming Niala to the IDA community!

Stay tuned next week to meet the new Conference and Educational Programs Intern Corinne Gaston

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.

See the BBC Production Music Toolkit in action here.

FirstCom Music is an online production music library source for licensing production music and sound effects for broadcast, film, multimedia and corporate productions. For licensing details and questions about the BBC Orchestral Toolkit, call 310.865.4437.

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 #FunderFriday hashtag, and Jeff has generously answered those questions in this blog post. A big thanks to Jeff and to you for joining us. Stay tuned for the next #FunderFriday, and don't forget that the NEH Bridging Cultures deadline is June 11th!

Our first question came to us via email from IDA Fiscal Sponsorship Program participant Huriyyah Muhammad:

Is it necessary to have Humanities Scholars appear in the actual film, either on camera or in VO form?

No, the scholars (however photogenic they might be) do not have to appear in your film. You should rely on the scholarly advisers to provide context for a project and identify relevant humanities themes and ideas. Filmmakers usually convene a meeting of the scholarly advisers early in the process and then rely on advisers to read a script, watch rough cuts, or be available to answer questions. Additionally, you should bring together a broad group of advisers that bring different perspectives to the topic, and not rely on a single scholar’s work or opinions.

The next few came in through our #FunderFriday hashtag:

#FunderFriday What's the first place to start when you are raising money for a documentary that already has been 80% shot?

— nicole zwiren (@nicolr) May 21, 2014

Jeff Hardwick: For our film grants (either Media or Bridging Cultures through Film), NEH does not break out a distinct “finishing funds” category. So if you have any shooting, interviews, editing, or post-production work to do, then you should apply for a Production grant. Of course, your budget would reflect the more limited scope of work to be done during the grant period. You also can decide whether or not you want to submit pieces of that rough footage as a sample for your grant application or not (sometimes it helps an application immensely).

Do funders prefer a complete idea with little room for flexibility, or a project that they can help morph? #funderfriday

— Lauren Knapp (@LCKnapp) May 21, 2014

Jeff Hardwick: At NEH, we like to see the idea as fully fleshed out as possible. We want to see the script, be able to picture what will be on the screen, and clearly see the humanities ideas. Of course, we realize that documentaries might change during the shooting or editing, but we need to be confident that what’s proposed will more or less resemble the final product.

Hi Jeff! Thank you for taking our questions. What is the biggest mistake filmmakers make when applying for funding? #FunderFriday

— DesktopDocumentaries (@DesktopDocs) May 20, 2014

Jeff Hardwick: Ah, let me count the ways—just kidding. That’s a tough one, but I’d have to say that perhaps the easiest resource that filmmakers overlook when applying for a grant is contacting us. Program officers in the Division are here to help you with your application, will read drafts, or answer any questions.  Taking us up on the offer can help you avoid lots of mistakes and headaches. Similarly, looking over sample applications is very helpful. These samples will give you models that can help you compose your application. Narratives from successful applications are available on the program resource pages of the Media or Bridging Cultures through Film programs.

As for the grant application, the biggest mistake would be not explaining what the takeaway humanities content will be for the viewer. Applicants should articulate clearly their concept for the project and the humanities issues that the project reflects, even when the proposal is for a development grant. Some applicants think that it is obvious what their film will teach people about humanities topics, but that content really should be detailed and explained. Indeed, making it very clear what the humanities themes will be is crucial to success here.

Hot fun in the summertime—get ready for the Summer 2014 issue of Documentary!

Out of school...fish are jumpin'...the time is right for dancin' in the streets...we're on safari to stay...and the Summer 2014 issue of Documentary is the beach-reading of choice for discerning perusers everywhere! This edition, we offer you a glimpse at

New Online and Cable Venues for Docs

The digital space is the volatile frontier, with stakeholders large and small jockeying for a piece of it. We look at a few of the newer players who are staking their claim, including Al Jazeera America, which in less than a year since launching has garnered a passel of honors. We talk to Shannon High-Bassalik senior vice president for shows and documentaries, about Al Jazeera America's programmatic mission and goals.

As the print world rethinks its survival strategies, some of the old-timers have been busy over the years beefing up their online video efforts. We look at some of the innovations coming out of The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times.

Finally, one of the more interesting debuts over the past couple of years has been Storyhunter, a network for video news journalists and docmakers to pitch their stories to publishers and distributors looking for creative content. We talk with co-founder Jaron Gilinsky about the brief history of Storyhunter—its achievements, as well as the obstacles it's had to overcome.

Elsewhere in the issue, June is bustin' out all over with Summer Solstice, graduations, Father's Day—and weddings. We feature two nuptial-centric docs premiering on HBO: Ben Cotner andRyan White's The Case Against 8, about the long road to the landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Proposition 8, the California law that banned same-sex marriage; and Doug Block's 112 Weddings, in which the filmmaker, who moonlights as a wedding videographer, interviews some of his old clients about how their marriages turned out.

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