Filmmakers have often told me that they find the scoring process to be one of the most daunting aspects of making movies. Even some seasoned directors admit everything from discomfort to panic when they try to explore ideas about music for their film. In the documentary world, these feelings can be even more pronounced, the fear being that musical accompaniment to real-life footage can be inappropriate or manipulative. But one need only look at such stellar examples as Aaron Copland's score for The River or Philip Glass' soundtrack for The Fog of War to realize how much the right music can enhance the power of a documentary. 

There is no reason a filmmaker should view the scoring process as any more of a challenge than other aspects of post-production. There are more similarities than differences between the editing process and scoring a film. In editing, you are developing a narrative through characters, voiceover, images and sound. I think of music as an emotional/non-verbal aspect of storytelling—a kind of punctuation to add layers, interpretation and/or accent to what is already coming from the screen. It starts with understanding the vision for the film as a whole, and then working toward that with every decision—whether it be choice of shot, narration, use of sound or the emotional tone set by music.

There is a tendency to work on sections of the film, going from cue to cue. But it's important to maintain an overview of the score throughout the film, just as you build your storyline throughout the editing process. You wouldn't want to repeat shots or skip portions of the story, making it hard to follow. If you consider music in this holistic way, you'll see that you can build the score by applying the same criteria you use to make editing decisions. Is music necessary? Will it enhance and/or support the intent of each sequence that has been selected for a cue? Is there a good structural flow and pacing to the score? Is it distracting? Is there too much music or perhaps too little? Or too much time between cues? And finally, does the music feel appropriate, integrated and well composed?

I always like to start at the beginning and work my way through a film organically. Early in my career, I would blaze through the entire film, hoping to develop my ideas fully before sharing my work with the director. Over the years I've discovered that it is much more productive to share as early as possible to make sure I don't waste time developing  material that the director will never be on board with. Building on ideas that work is my motto. What I need from the director is input and serious consideration of musical ideas I present. Together we can explore the elements of a cue, discover what supports their vision and move forward with a fruitful and enjoyable collaboration.

Enough philosophy; here are some ways of being proactive in getting the best possible score for your film: Thorough preparation, realistic budgeting of time and money, careful selection of a composer and investment in the creative collaboration all play a crucial role in making the best music with your composer.

Don't Underestimate Your Music Budget

The film scoring process begins with the initial budgeting; make sure it's realistic—wishful thinking will get you in trouble down the line. Do your research: Talk to composers, music supervisors and other filmmakers and look at some music budgets of films you like. Do you envision an electronic score, a jazz band, ethnic music or an orchestra? Do you want to work with a well-known composer, or are you willing to take a chance on someone less experienced and pay a lower fee? Do you need to license a popular song? How big a part will music play in your film? Answers to these kinds of questions will help you assess your financial requirements and ennsure you'll have the resources and time you'll need for a good, effective score.

Editing with Temp Music

Although filmmakers should start thinking about music as early as the budgeting phase, most don't really focus on it until they're editing. I've worked with editors who have an amazing internal rhythm and can cut without music, but most prefer to find  temporary compositions that inspire the editing and inform scenes. Time and budget permitting, the composer can also begin to be involved at this point, and in my own experience this is a fantastic way to work. I can supply click tracks or simple beats, or I can actually start composing. Typically, we'll discuss some concepts, I'll write a piece of music, the editor will lay it in, start cutting and send it back to me for conforming. We'll go back and forth as the film takes shape. Rather than getting attached to temp music, the filmmaker can thus take advantage of all the composer has to offer, which can lead to a truly original and affecting score.

The other common way to work is to offer the composer a cut with a temp score. You can temp with other music written by your composer, or with any music that inspires. I personally prefer that temp music doesn't come from me, as it's way more interesting to do something new for every project. Referencing my own music from another film carries baggage; I'd rather have a fresh approach. Whatever music you choose to temp with can save time for a composer and provide creative direction early on. It's important that you convey to the composer what you like and don't like about the temp music so that there won't be any confusion.  Time spent discussing these details will yield great benefits throughout the process..

Trusting Your Taste

Before you begin working with a composer, though, it helps to hone your own sense of what music might work in your film. I always tell filmmakers to trust their ability to discern what feels like it's working and what doesn't. After all, you wouldn't be making films if you didn't have strong ideas. So spend time thinking about what styles of music resonate with your vision for the film. Analyze films with scores you like. Throw some music samples up against picture. Begin a creative dialogue in your mind. Even if you don't know much about music, you can begin to experience the effect different approaches can have on a scene. This will help develop confidence in your ability to provide solid direction for your composer.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

When you choose a composer, the relationship you establish with that person will set the tone for all the creative work that follows, so look for someone to whom you can relate, not just a music machine. Even if you're drawn to someone's music, don't underestimate the importance of your rapport. I'd also suggest you look for someone who not only is talented, but has an equally strong collaborative spirit. If so, you're more than likely to have a creative and dynamic experience.

Film and TV composers are used to tight deadlines and strict budget requirements. Regardless of the parameters of the project, our role is to support your vision, flesh out your ideas and bring all our experience and musicality to the table. Together, we can develop a language for communicating about non-verbal, emotional and abstract ideas. But while your composer is willing to make a generous contribution of time and talent to a collaborative effort, you as a filmmaker should be realistic about your expectations and respect your composer's boundaries. Most documentary scoring budgets are not going to afford the composer a lot of room for financial gain, so good will goes a long way in encouraging our best efforts. And the more satisfying the working relationship is, the more open a composer will be to spending time fleshing out your ideas and achieving what may have seemed out of reach.

Knowing What to Look for

But how do you find this fabulous person? You can start by noticing who wrote the film music you recently enjoyed. Ask other filmmakers you admire for referrals. Then go online and Google them. Most professional composers have well-developed websites with lots of examples of their work. Remember, it's critical to distinguish between general musical ability and actual film-scoring talent and experience. Your brother may be a great guitar player with a home studio, but that doesn't necessarily mean he can take direction or has the sensibility or technological know-how to compose and synchronize music to picture (let alone deliver on a fixed schedule and budget). Just as in the rest of the filmmaking process, there are complex levels to film scoring, both creatively and technically. They include communication skills; an ability to organize, plan and budget for the overall project; compositional skills; music preparation (scores and charts); and an ability to work with musicians, handle union issues, produce sessions and record and mix the score to the technical specifications of the post house. And all this must be done on time. So be sure to check the breadth and depth of your chosen composer's experience.

Composing Credibility

But how can you assess the qualifications of your potential composer? As I said, the process usually starts with a recommendation or by hearing some of the music this person has written. But then, even if you've seen a film that person has scored, request a sample audio reel (and video, if you like). Listen to it with an open mind; get an overview of the work, and don't expect to hear the perfect music for your film. This reel probably reflects what the composer has already done for someone else, and he/she may be second-guessing what you want to hear.

Nonetheless, does what you hear move you? Does it stay with you? Even if the selections seem way off the mark for your film, if you can't get the music out of your head, then take a meeting with the composer. Find out more about this person. He or she may have other work that more closely resembles what you want—or has the ability to stretch for what you want. Don't underestimate the creative connection that may be unexpectedly forged.

Your Place or Mine?

You should meet at a potential composer's studio to get a better sense of the person and how he/she works. Also, check out the gear. Does it look professional, well maintained, up to date? Get a feel for how the person thinks: Do you like his/her ideas? Bring a copy of some part of your film and discuss some of the musical ideas you've been exploring on your own. See how the composer reacts and what is offered in return. Play some of your temp ideas to illustrate what you like.

If a filmmaker doesn't offer me any musical direction in our first meeting, I have developed ways of assessing taste. As we get deeper into a discussion, I'll start playing either my work, or music from other film scores or CDs in my collection to see what makes an impression. Is it orchestral, classic, contemporary, groove-oriented, ethnic, edgy? If the filmmaker is totally visual and has no musical vocabulary, I try to identify sounds or textures that get a response. As long as we can relate the music to a desired emotion or interpretation, I'll find the sound and instrumentation that will evoke that feeling or sensation.

If you take a second meeting with your potential composer, take it in your editing bay. There, you can begin to analyze scenes and see how the composer relates to your editor and other members of your crew. When you're ready to make the hire, have a candid discussion about what is possible within a range of budgets and just how flexible a composer can be.

Actual Budget           

Let the composer know early on where you stand monetarily so that no time gets wasted on either end. But don't rule out the possibility that you may decide to raise more money if someone really inspires—or that the composer has been waiting for an exceptional project like yours and agrees to work for a lower fee than usual.

Nowadays, most indie and doc budgets are "package" or "all in" deals. A savvy composer will outline what is possible for what you've offered. This can vary dramatically from composer to composer, based on experience, schedule, resources and approach. Different composers offer different levels of service and collaboration, so be sure to fully explore how your chosen composer works. The music package provided usually includes one or more spotting sessions (meetings with the director/producer to decide where and what kind of music), composing, review and approval meetings, music preparation, musicians, recording sessions, the music mix and, finally, delivery of a finished music master synchronized to picture. Be sure to clarify how many, if any, live musicians are possible within the budget.

Clearly, a composer who has his or her own studio has a budgetary advantage. Nonetheless, it still costs money to record, even in one's own studio. Sometimes I suggest various possibilities to meet a filmmaker's budget. I'll start with a basic fee, then build in possible future contingencies so there won't be any surprises. As we move along in the scoring process, I may suggest that for "x " amount more, we can add a cellist; for "xyz" amount, we can add Yo-Yo Ma! I've seen possibilities for enhancing the score sometimes inspire filmmakers to raise more money. Stay on top of what your composer is writing. If it's turning into an orchestral score, make sure you can afford to actualize the concept. Remember that every additional service and musician adds cost. Changes made after the recording sessions have occurred or picture changes after the music has been mixed can also add expense. Delivering a great score on a limited budget requires lots of advance planning, so stay involved and informed as the score evolves.

Music Rights and Wrongs

What kind of deal will you make with your composer regarding ownership and rights to the music?  Will this be a "work-for-hire" where you own the copyright and/or publishing or a synchronization deal where you obtain a license to use the music within certain parameters?  Many filmmakers aren't familiar with the way music copyright, publishing and synchronization rights work. It is not necessary that you own or even control the rights to the music in your film in order to have what you need to distribute your work with its wonderful original score.

The concept of work for hire came into being during the heyday of the Hollywood studios because they actually had music departments with composers as salaried employees. This included support staff, engineers and musicians,  and all expenses were paid by the studios to complete the score. Thus whatever was created in that context was a work for hire and owned by the studio. In today's world of package deals, composers often function as independent contractors who agree to deliver a final product on a fixed budget. In this context, it's fair to say composers own what we create—and can negotiate those rights based on what we get in return.  An ample budget that includes enough money to pay the composer and the production costs might make a work-for-hire deal more attractive. And, if there's likely to be significant royalties from broadcasts or theatrical distribution, a composer may be more open to negotiating some rights. Remember, there is room for negotiation, but not necessarily a reason for a composer to give up their music rights by accepting a work-for-hire deal.

Filmmakers do not pay music performance royalties.  Broadcasters (including radio, and in some cases, internet providers), theater owners and live venues do.  The world is split into territories, which are represented by Performance Rights Organizations (e.g. BMI, ASCAP, SESAC in the US, PRS in the UK, SASEM in France, etc). Professional songwriters, composers and publishers affiliate with a PRO, granting permission to collect music performance royalties on their behalf. Royalty income derives from fees paid by these broadcasters, theater owners and live venues worldwide to obtain blanket licenses from the Performing Rights Organizations for their entire catalog—music of all their affiliated writers and publishers. The PROs then distribute the funds to their affiliates as royalties based on the number and types of performances. This business model has worked well since the early days of our industry and has resulted in a robust music community. As music budgets have gone down in a tough economy, more and more music creators rely on the backend royalties to stay in business.

A composition is divided into 100 percent writers and 100 percent publishers share. (But even in the work-for-hire model, the composer is supposed to retain writer's share.) When a film is distributed or broadcast, performance royalties are generated and collected on behalf  of whomever owns the writers' and publishers' rights to the music. How much income depends on the success of a film and is paid out based on the way the writers' and publishers' shares are split. For a filmmaker, this can work to your advantage and may help you interest a composer you might not otherwise be able to afford. There is room for negotiation: Do you really need to own the music by using a Work-for-Hire Agreement?  Do you even have a functioning publishing company?  If you don't, then a well negotiated Synchronization Rights Agreement and Master Use Agreement will get you what you need. Synch Rights grant you a publishing license to use the compositions in the score, and a Master Use Agreement grants you the rights to use the recorded music

There are negotiable aspects to these agreements as well: Are the music rights exclusive to this film? Is there a time limit on that exclusivity? How many years before the composer can repurpose that music, if ever?  How else is a filmmaker allowed to use the music—for ads, or different versions of the film? Or even for another project? These should all be discussed and agreed upon prior to working together. By negotiating these issues and creating a win/win, you may open up more possible choices from which to select your composer—or perhaps find a composer who wants to do your film, but might otherwise consider the budget too low. I, for one, have been able to put more money into the production value of my scores because I know there will be income down the line if I retain my rights to the music. This gives me even more incentive to work hard to contribute to your film's success.

Happy Together

As I've said, once the scoring process starts, it's important for you as a filmmaker to stay on top of what the composer is doing, so that time isn't wasted on unproductive tangents. Sometimes I write some music without picture and send it to the editing room to see if I'm on the right track. With today's midi, digital audio, video and Internet, filmmakers can get a sense of how the music is working with picture very early on, well before any recording sessions (after which, changes will be more difficult and expensive to make). I often make changes while the director is sitting next to me in my studio or even on Skype; that way we can re-shape the score together. Even though you'll be incredibly busy with other aspects of post-production, it's well worth spending time with your composer. It's worth mentioning, though, that some composers prefer to wait until the film is more defined before getting involved, while others won't even start composing until picture has locked. The composer's work style is something you want to explore before you hire someone.

The Film Comes First

What happens if you're working well with a composer but suddenly you find you hate some of the music? First of all, don't panic. Composers who work in film and TV understand that not everything is going to be what you want (even if we think it's great!). Think of your editing process and how many times you make changes before you get it right. As a filmmaker, you should foster a safe environment to discuss these matters and work them out. This is the essence of creative collaboration; there is no absolute right or wrong. There may be a really effective compromise that will serve the film, a solution that evolves from this kind of creative tension. But in the end, there must be a singular vision for a successful film, and the filmmaker has the last say. To me, nothing is worse than a director hemming and hawing, trying to find a polite way to tell me he/she doesn't thing a cue is working. Remember, you're dealing with professionals. We accept that sometimes our favorite cues get thrown out, so we're not too attached to each musical idea. The film comes first.  

All's Well That Ends Well

I've had experiences in which we've made it through the whole film, and there's still one cue that isn't cutting it. The music is due the next week and it feels like it'll never happen. But we just keep plugging away—and magically it comes together. The last time that happened, my director shed tears of joy. That made me cry. Isn't that why we all do this?

Miriam Cutler has been writing, producing and performing music for over 20 years. Her documentary credits include American Promise, Ethel, Poster Girl, Kings Point, Vito, Thin, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Scout's Honor, Desert of Forbidden Art, and Lost in La Mancha.  www.miriamcutler.com

SIDEBAR:  The Music Story Arc

Setting a film to music is a creative and rather instinctive process. Music expresses the emotional tone of each aspect of the story, and it's critical that composer and filmmaker are on the same page.  While there are no hard and fast rules for scoring a film, there are considerations which can inform decisions about how to utilize this powerful element. 

With some colleagues, I have been developing a customizable Excel document as a tool for improving the ability of filmmakers to explore on their own, better communicate their ideas to a composer, develop a language for working together, and keep a perspective of how the score relates to the storytelling throughout the entire film. Using basic Three Act Story Structure and Character Arc as its foundation, all musical decisions can be assessed within the context of how each cue serves the story, cue by cue, in each act, and finally in the film as a whole. The Music Story Arc is a holistic approach—the intersection of the composition of the score and the film's story structure. This perspective helps composers understand the filmmakers' vision on a deeper level and gets us closer to telling the same story. Having a one-page overview allows us to take in the relationship between the story and the music of the whole film at a glance—how much music there is and where. It's easy to determine visually if there is too much or too little, or places where the music is too fast, or bogging the film down. Or too repetitive. The detailed page for each act fleshes out the characteristics of every cue by identifying themes, emotion, intensity, instrumentation, tempo, placement and length. As much or as little of this information can feed into the Film Overview Page.

The Music Story Arc is very flexible, allowing each team to build on their own way of thinking about this process. But the main idea is to give composers and filmmakers a common point of departure and framework for discussing the music in the film. Together they can create this document and update it however they want.

As I said, first this approach can be used for analyzing and understanding the temp score—what the filmmaker likes about the temp and what isn't working can both be noted. The filmmaker can create an overview of their ideas in putting together the temp music, and this can be a foundation for discussions during spotting sessions with the composer. 

Then, as the original score evolves, either a new document, or some kind of update can be generated to help maintain an overview of how music is being used. It's very easy to get caught up in individual moments in the film, working cue by cue, and lose track of how it all fits together as a whole—especially when everyone is on deadline. Being able to see the whole film at a glance will help identify potential problems and provide a common framework from which the entire team can collaborate.  

Below is a Music Story Arc in progress for my current project, The Genius of a Place, directed by Sarah Marder/OLO Creative Farm in Italy. I started collaborating with them to create a map of the temp music, the purpose of each cue, energy/tempo, tone, any notes she might have about these cues. That was our starting point and it gave us a lot of concrete ideas to talk about. From there, the Music Story Arc continues to evolve as I am gradually replacing temp music with midi mock-ups of the original score. We're currently about halfway through the film and we already see patterns emerging. 

Once I've sketched out cues for the entire film, we'll use the document to give us a sense of how we've paced the music, how it relates to the unfolding story, plus how the musical themes play out and fit together over the course of the film. It will also serve as a handy, orderly place to share notes for cues that need to be altered before we begin recording. It prints on 11 X 17 paper and there's room on it for written notes.

My hope is that thinking about the score as a well-integrated layer of the narrative will help filmmakers build a strong, clear foundation for a fruitful, and enjoyable collaboration with their composers, enhancing their use of music as another powerful filmmaking tool. 

Special thanks to Carla Patullo and Zacarias de la Riva for their contributions to the Music Story Arc format.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post originally appeared on the Motion Picture Editor's Guild website. It is republished here with permission from the author.

In mid-December, the International Documentary Organization (IDA) rounded out its 2013 Doc U series of educational seminars with Point of View: Editors on the Art of Storytelling. This lively discussion on the crucial role of editing in documentaries was held at Cinefamily, formerly the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, and moderated by Editors Guild member Lillian Benson, A.C.E. (Wounded Knee, Craft in America). The first African-American woman member of American Cinema Editors (ACE), she was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on Eyes on the Prize II in 1990.

Joining Benson on the panel were Guild member Yaffa Lerea (Project Runway, Ken Burns' Baseball), Johanna Demetrakas (Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Angels in the Dust), Maya Hawke (Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, Cave of Forgotten Dreams), and Kim Roberts, A.C.E. (Inequality for All, Last Call at the Oasis).

IDA Director of Educational Programs and Strategic Partnerships Ken Jacobson opened the program by polling the audience that filled the theatre for their professional designations. This revealed largely even numbers of documentary editors and producers, along with some writers and students.

From left, moderator Lillian Benson, Kim Roberts, Johanna Demetrakas, Yaffa Lerea and Maya Hawke.

Jacobson then introduced Benson, who said, "Everyone here on the panel came straight from the editing room, and I checked with them because documentarians always tell the truth." She went on to ask the panelists how they got into documentary editing.

"I went to the Documentary Masters Program at Stanford and got into editing afterwards," said Roberts. Noting that she has only edited documentaries, she said, "It's like being in grad school. You are always being immersed in other countries, other lives, other subjects."

Demetrakas started out as a painter. "Then I fell in love with movies and then I fell in love with a cameraman," she said. This led to work in low-budget features and eventually into editing. She continued, "Like painting, you do it alone. In the editing room, you are alone most of the time."

During the editing process of a film production class, Lerea recognized, "That's where the story is told, so that's what I wanted to do ,and I got calls to work on features." She quit work as an assistant editor on Elaine May's Ishtar (1987) to work on Voices and Visions (1988), a PBS series about American poets. Later, she moved from feature documentaries to reality TV.

"I started editing when I was 12 years old," said Hawke. Her father was a cameraman who taught her in a unique way. "We took still pictures at a zoo and then went home and put the photos in order." Only recently, after working in editing for over 15 years, she said that while editing Baltimore (to be released this year), "I realized that editing was what I wanted to do."

Benson herself earned a Fine Arts degree at the Pratt Institute in New York and became a public school art teacher. Later, a filmmaker gave her work as an intern on a documentary about a labor union and then helped her get her first couple of jobs as an assistant editor.

The panelists then treated the audience to clips from their films to demonstrate the qualities of editing special to the documentary. Describing herself as working in “issue ghetto,” Roberts shared a sequence from Jacob Kornbluth's Inequality for All (2013) which follows former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich in his efforts to spread awareness of this country's widening economic gap.

"It's a challenge to distill a really complicated topic to be really understandable, and I worked with archival footage researchers," said Roberts. She cut the film in Los Angeles with fresh, live-action material coming from Berkeley, where Reich teaches and the producer is based. The footage mounted rapidly with three or four cameras shooting each of Reich's classes and she used ScriptSync to do searches through it all.

She also worked a lot with graphics in the film. Roberts said, "I work with an assistant to temp out the graphics and the graphics person takes it to the next level. Then the assistant would put out string outs of material. I'm very assistant-dependent. My assistants do more graphics than regular assistant work." Benson added, "Graphics are important for an assistant's skill set."

Demetrakas screened a clip from a film for which she was nominated for an Emmy — Lee Hirsch's Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (2002). Shot in 1994, while Nelson Mandela was running for President of South Africa, she said, "The movie showed how they overcame apartheid, but it's really about the music and the lyrics of the movement's songs. As the songs went around the country, the word of what was happening got around."

Intercutting high-contrast black-and-white photography with color, the sequence chosen recalled the prison experience of African National Congress member and freedom songwriter Vuyisile Mini, who was arrested and killed in 1964. The scene included a remarkable humanizing interview with the "gallows man" who performed the execution. Demetrakas commented, "If you don't want to demonize, you look for something inside. You have to have an attitude inside to find a way to make that the whole story."

In response, Benson said, "Part of the reason we work on docs is because we want to change the world for the better. That's part of the gig: truth-telling and making things better."

"I looked for music that was sad but I couldn't find any," Demetrakas continued. "No music that came out of this movement had defeat in it." Benson noted, "Like spirituals from American slave days… And now to the brave new world of reality."

With that, editor Lerea introduced two examples of her work to offer a striking view of the similarities and contrasts between unscripted television and documentary. The first of two clips she brought was a precisely constructed sequence developing the characters and rivalry of the fashion designers in an episode of Project Runway (2011-13). Her second clip was from Joseph Aguirre's Next Year Country (2010), a verité documentary following three farm families facing a drought in rural Montana over six years.

"Reality producers appreciate what I did in documentary and I wind up doing documentary structure for them," said Lerea. "It's hours and hours of footage of designers putting their designs together — cut down to show the various story lines of work."

The audience then viewed a harrowing sequence from Mary Posatko and Emily Topper's Baltimore, revealing continuing racial tensions underlying a murder that took place in 1972. This was panelist Hawke's first solo credit as editor.

Describing her transition from assistant to editor, Hawke said, "It comes down to love. You have to work with people who value you and whom you value. Over all the things you know — story and structure — you need to find that one other thing."

Moderator Benson screened a sequence from her current work-in-progress: Lyn Goldfarb and Alison Sotomayor's Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race. The film chronicles Bradley's life — including his rise from the Los Angeles Police Department to his 1973 election as the city's first black mayor — intercutting contemporary interviews with archival material encompassing film, photographs and newspapers.

Addressing the issue of how much the editor contributes to the writing of a documentary, Benson said, "On Bridging the Divide and Eyes on the Prize, I had to work on historical process, so there was a factual timeline as a guide. Directors are writers with verité films, but when the directors are not there, you work with the raw material which you might write yourself as editor."

Roberts responded, "I've almost never worked with a writer. At the end of the day, sometimes the editor will get a writer's credit. You make a rough cut and then it's all about refining the structure. Unless you have a narrator, there really is no writer. It's the editor and the director together." Demetrakas stated bluntly, "The editor is the writer making the story." Trying to sum things up, Benson said, "With team efforts, it's a dilemma."

A question from the audience arose about working with first-time doc directors. Lerea replied, "You have to get to know them and get a sense of their passion and clarity about what they want to do, so you can share in that passion."Demetrakas added, "And you must have good footage."

Looking at the entire life of a documentary project, Roberts said, "There's the movie you think you're making when you're planning it, when you're shooting it and when you're actually editing it. They're not the same."

Asked about the structuring of a documentary, Benson provided a general perspective: "First and foremost, it's a story and the directors tell us what they have in their head and you take it from there. It's simple but profoundly difficult."

For specific situations when the editing process is bogged down, Demetrakas suggested, "Start somewhere in a scene that you like; where it's cutting smoothly and saying something." Hawke offered, "When I find myself just shuffling things around in the timeline, I get up and try to come up with an idea, a through-line, some kind of coherent thought that will pull it all together." Lerea agreed: "When I need a fresh approach, definitely walking away helps. I get my best ideas in the shower, in the car."

Someone from the audience asked Lerea directly about reality TV's influence on documentaries and their audiences. She responded, “Reality TV does influence documentary audiences. Docs have more life now with audiences appreciating the stories in people's lives, but I don't know if reality shows are affecting documentary filmmakers.”

With time running out, Benson introduced another clip from Amandla!, closing the program as a tribute to Nelson Mandela. It depicted a song sung to Mandela at a 1994 campaign rally hailing him as "a Solomon…a Moses." It also brought the program back to a key theme of the seminar, as expressed by the moderator: "Is this film going to make the world any better?"

Edward Landler is a filmmaker, media educator and film historian. He made I Build the Tower, the definitive feature documentary on the Watts Towers, and is currently writing a cultural history of film. He can be reached at edlandler@roadrunner.com.

Remember the time you were up until the wee hours of the morning the day before a grant deadline? The stress you endured, the pots of coffee you consumed trying to format an unwieldy proposal that just wouldn't behave. What about that time you discovered the perfect grant for your film but realized you'd missed the submission deadline...by a day?
 
As we are probably all too aware, not staying abreast of what's happening in the fundraising landscape could result in missed opportunities or unnecessarily driving yourself and your team into a panicked frenzy trying to meet a cramped deadline. How can you minimize this in the future? One idea is to create a quarterly--or even yearly--outline of grant opportunities for which you plan to apply, including deadlines. Think of it as a calendar of opportunities!

When planning your strategy, be sure to give yourself enough lead time to find out of a particular grant is right for you. It's smart to speak with a grant officer at the organization to ensure that your documentary is eligible for the grant. Many foundations have restrictions that might include geographic location, budget size or population served. Taking measure to verify eligibility will save you time and effort in the long run. This is especially the case when thinking of applying to government or state agencies since those grants tend to be pretty intensive. Again, contact a grant officer at the agency. It's well worth the conversation.

As any seasoned filmmaker or fundraising professional will tell you, start planning your fundraising strategy months in advance. To help get you started and stay in the know, we've put together a list of upcoming documentary specific grants. Maybe one or two will end up on your calendar this year!

GRANT & EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

IDA'S PARE LORENTZ DOCUMENTARY FUND
The Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund will provide annual production grants totaling $95,000 to be used in the creation of original, independent documentary films that illuminate pressing issues in the United States.  Grants will be made to up to 6 projects that tell a compelling story and focus on one of Pare Lorentz’s central concerns—the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all or the illumination of pressing social problems.
Deadline: Letter of Intent, March 31, 2014

CATAPULT FILM FUND
Catapult Film Fund provides development funding to documentary filmmakers who have a compelling story to tell, have secured access to their story and are ready to shoot and edit a piece for production fundraising purposes.
Opens December 16, 2013. Deadline: January 31, 2014

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE DOCUMENTARY FUND
The Sundance Institute Documentary Fund is dedicated to supporting nonfiction filmmakers worldwide in the production of cinematic documentaries with contemporary social relevance. Grants ranging from $10,000 – $50,000 are awarded in development and production/post-production categories. Grantees become eligible for year-round artist support activities of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program including creative Documentary Labs, Fellows programs at the Sundance Creative Producing Summit and the Sundance Film Festival, Work-In-Progress screenings, and editorial and creative support.
Deadline: February 4, 2014

GUCCI TRIBECA DOCUMENTARY FUND
Provides finishing funds to feature-length documentaries which highlight and humanize issues of social importance from around the world. For films, based anywhere, that are in production or post-production with the intended premiere exhibition. Grants range from $10,000 to $25,000.
Opens December 5, 2013. Deadline: February 5, 2014

NALAC FUND FOR THE ARTS (NFA)
The NFA is a national grant program open to US-based Latino working artists, ensembles and Latino arts organizations that demonstrate artistic excellence in pursuit of social justice through the arts. Grants range from $5,000 to $15,000.
Deadline: February 6, 2014

FLEDGLING FUND
Supports innovative media projects at an advanced stage, designed to help ignite social change. Seek films that create a specific understanding of social problems and inspiring concrete action. Seek well-structured and creative community engagement initiatives to move people from awareness to action.
Deadline: February 7, 2014

OPEN MEADOWS FOUNDATION
Open Meadows Foundation is a grant-making organization for projects that are led by and benefit women and girls, and that reflect the diversity of the community served by the project in both its leadership and organization. Open Meadows Foundation funds projects in the U.S. and abroad that are run by and for women and girls.
Deadline: February 15, 2014

FILM INDEPENDENT LAB
2014 Fast Track: Fast Track is a film financing market that takes place during the Los Angeles Film Festival designed to help narrative and documentary filmmakers move their current projects forward.
Deadline: February 24, 2014

WORLD CINEMA FUND
The World Cinema Fund works to develop and support cinema in regions with a weak film infrastructure, while fostering cultural diversity in German cinemas. The World Cinema Fund supports films,  either in production or distribution, that could not be made without additional funding: films that stand out with an unconventional aesthetic approach, that tell powerful stories and transmit an authentic image of their cultural roots.
Production Grant Deadline: February 27, 2014
Distribution Grant Deadline: Ongoing

CREATIVE CAPITAL
Creative Capital is one of the only national nonprofit organizations that awards grants to individual artists through an open application process. They are a premier provider of risk capital in the arts, taking chances to support ideas that are bold, innovative and genre-stretching. To be eligible, you must be a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident, at least 25 years old, a working artist with at least five years professional experience and not a full-time student. Letter of Inquiry Form will open on February 3, 2014 for applications in Film/Video and Visual Arts.
Deadline: February 28th, 2014

VISION MAKER MEDIA – PUBLIC MEDIA CONTENT FUND
Vision Maker Media (part of U.S. public television) is looking for compelling Native American stories that appeal to broad audiences. We're particularly looking for stories that advance CPB's initiatives--The American Graduate, and Women & Girls Lead. Projects in any phase of production are eligible to apply for funding with Vision Maker Media. Awards for research and development range from $5,000 to $20,000; awards for production or completion can be up to $100,000; and, new media awards range from $5,000 to $20,000.
Deadline: March 10, 2014

PACIFIC PIONEER FUND
The Pacific Pioneer Fund supports emerging documentary filmmakers who have demonstrated a commitment to the craft of making documentaries for at least several years—but no more than ten. Limited to organizations anywhere in the US, certified by the IRS as "public charities", which undertake to supervise any project for which individuals receive funds, and to control the selection of individual recipients of funds.
Deadline: May 1, 2014

GRANTS WITH ROLLING DEADLINES

BRITDOC
BRITDOC funds international and region specific documentary films through various awards and grant opportunties. Be sure to review each one to see if you are eligible:

• PUMA Catalyst Awards
• Channel 4 BRITDOC Fund
• Bertha BRITDOC Fund for Journalism and the Bertha BRITDOC Connect Fund

Tonight at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the International Documentary Association announced plans for the Documentary Film Conference 2014. Co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the conference will take place October 2 through 4 in Los Angeles. Under this inaugural year’s banner "Getting Real", the Documentary Film Conference 2014 is a 3-day national conference that will serve as a major platform for critical discourse on the most pressing issues affecting the documentary film community.

With major focus centered on the areas of art, impact, and career, the Documentary Film Conference seeks to answer questions important to those involved in the world of documentary film: What will the documentary form look like in the future? Can my film change the world? Does it have to? How can we create a sustainable environment for documentary filmmakers?

The Conference will also include an evening retrospective of documentary film classics that will be linked to the issues discussed during the day's events.

"This conference is first and foremost an opportunity for filmmakersto participate in a discussion of critical issues affecting the documentary film community," says IDA Executive Director Michael Lumpkin. That’s why we need to hear from you! We want to know what you think are the most critical issues facing our community. We've crafted a brief survey to help gather your thoughts and share your input. Weigh in with your opinion today and have your voice heard at the Documentary Film Conference 2014 in October!

Funding for this conference was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Catapult Film Fund, and the Albert and Trudy Kallis Foundation.

Learn more about the conference

And away we go!

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced the Academy Award® nominees for Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short Subject this morning. The Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, March 2.

Here's the lineup:

Best Documentary Feature

The Act of Killing—Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
LEARN MORE: The Art of 'Killing': How Much Truth Comes from the Lie that Tells the Truth?

Cutie and the Boxer —Zachary Heinzerling and Lydia Dean Pilcher
LEARN MORE: Meet the IDA Awards Honorees: Zachary Heinzerling

Dirty Wars  —Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill
WATCH: Dirty Wars Director Richard Rowley Explains How to Tell a Global Story Through One Journalist

The Square—Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer
WATCH: Actor Khalid Abdalla Speaks About Collecting Footage from Tahrir Square

20 Feet from Stardom—Morgan Neville, Gil Friesen and Caitrin Rogers
LEARN MORE: Unsung Heroes: Twenty Feet from Stardom Hails the Singers behind the Hits

Best Documentary Short Subject

CaveDigger—Jeffrey Karoff

Facing Fear —Jason Cohen

Karama Has No Walls —Sara Ishaq

The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life—Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed

Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall—Edgar Barens
This film was a part of IDA's Fiscal Sponsorship Program. Learn more

Save the date! You can see all the Oscar-nominated docs at IDA's annual DocuDay of on Saturday, March 1. Stay tuned for more details.

This week, both the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) and the MacArthur Foundation announced the latest recipients of their respective documentary funds for the 2014 granting cycle.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a supporter of independently produced film and video for more than 30 years, announced today the recipients of 18 grants totaling $2 million for documentary film projects. The documentaries address a range of important issues, including immigration, wrongful convictions, and the aftermath of genocide. Several IDA Members make up the list of grantees for this funding cycle, including Pamela Yates (500 Years), Heidi Ewing (The Arrivals), Jamie Meltzer (Freedom Fighters), Byron Hurt (Hazing), and Danny Alpert (The Schools Project). View a full list of all 18 films set to receive funds from MacFound in 2014.

Also earlier this week, TFI announced the grantees of its TFI Documentary Fund for 2014. The fund "aims to advance character-driven, non-fiction filmmaking featuring creative and unexplored perspectives from around the world." For the 2014 funding cycle, TFI has chosen 11 films who will together receive a total of $175,000 to fund their projects in various stages of development.

The IDA is proud to see Diamond, Silver & Gold, which is a part of our Fiscal Sponsorship Program, among one of the 11 films to receive funding this year. Directed and produced by Jason Kohn, Diamond, Silver & Gold is a story about the origins of life, synthetic diamonds and other nagging issues. Our fiscal sponsorship program has been helping hundreds of independent documentaries, which may otherwise have been unable to secure funding, get funded and finished since 1988.

TFI also announced winners of the second annual TFI/ESPN Prize and of the inaugural Influence Award, part of TFI’s new multi-year partnership with the Europe-based Influence Film Foundation. This year, the two prizes went to Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund grantees The Punch and Check It, respectively. A program of the International Documentary Association, the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund—made possible by The New York Community Trust—supports full-length documentary films that exhibit objective research, artful storytelling, strong visual style, high production values, artistic writing and outstanding music composition.

The Punch, directed by Andre Hörmann, tells the story of a fateful relationship of a father and his son living a shared fragile dream in their little boxing community. The film is a tale about failure and hope—and what it means to live with dignity. The Punch was the recipient of the TFI/ESPN Prize, an annual grant extension of the TFI Documentary Fund given to a feature-length work-in-progress documentary that presents sports, competition and athleticism as a backdrop within a character-driven story.

Directed and produced by Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer, Check It is about a gay African-American gang struggling to survive in one of Washington, DC’s roughest neighborhoods. Started by a group of bullied 9th graders, the crew is trying to claw themselves out of gang life through an unlikely avenue: fashion. The film received a grant through the Influence Award, which supports documentaries through grants, equity investments and audience development. The award provides an annual matching grant to a feature-length work-in-progress documentary that sparks meaningful dialogue around an area or issue that has been overlooked or under-represented in the media.

View the full list of films to receive funding from the TFI Documentary Fund

Killer Images: Documentary Film, Memory and the Performance of Violence
Editors: Joram Ten Brink & Joshua Oppenheimer
New York: Wallflower Press, Columbia University Press
$25.00, 330 pps.
ISBN 978-0-231-16335-4      

On the heels of his acclaimed documentary The Act of Killing, filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer has co-edited and contributed to Killer Images, a volume of scholarly essays and interviews, reflective of his own filmic inquiry into the routinized mechanisms of violence as well as the imaginations that beget this violence in society and cinema.  Part of a larger research project entitled "Genocide and Genre," Killer Images is the latest release by the Nonfictions series from Wallflower Press. Together with the support from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of Westminster, Oppenheimer credits the Vision Machine Film Collective for contributing to the collaborative exploration for this book.

Within these pages, you may find a timely resource for researchers; strong filmic interpretations—accented by careful, mise en scene analysis—are employed alongside an erudite chronicling of the holocaust documentary genre, for example. Emerging documentarians will benefit from interviews with such celebrated filmmakers as Errol Morris and Rithy Panh, to name a few. Cinema's unique abilities to function as a tool for articulating histories of political violence and operate as an actor in these histories are depicted here with a relevant urgency. In the words of Joram Ten Brink, co-editor and contributor to this book, "Cinema is often directly implicated in the imagination and machinery of mass violence. Thus, if the cinematic image and mass violence are two defining features of modernity, the former is significantly implicated in the latter."   

In an interview conducted by Oppenheimer, Morris discusses his 2008 film Standard Operating Procedure and exposes a problematic cultural condition: the misunderstanding of photographic images, attributed in large part to the impact images have on us, the ways in which we deal with them and the wrongful inferences we make from them. "Standard Operating Procedure is about how we can't make those kinds of inferences," Morris asserts. "The Abu Ghraib photographs are a perfect example of that sort of thing. We think we've seen Abu Ghraib and we think we've seen the crimes that were committed at Abu Ghraib, when in fact what we've seen is a couple of hundred images which were taken during a very restricted period of time on Tier 1A of the prison during the fall of 2003."

Next, as Oppenheimer hones in on the trajectory of Morris's film efforts over the years to deal with movie images, television and photography, he addresses how these are implicated in how we see ourselves and ultimately, our social responses to violence. Referencing an on-camera interview with Emily Miller, an eyewitness to the murder examined in Morris' 1988 film The Thin Blue Line, Oppenheimer posits, "And what your film reveals is that the detective movies that Emily Miller watched seemed to have conditioned her to what she thinks she saw. I had this feeling that these ingrained habits of seeing had very, very serious consequences. Indeed, they were going to cause Randall Adams to be killed." Morris' response reveals that we are all in a position to confabulate and conflate different realities-something he attributes to the proliferation of media sources. 

Oppenheimer links these misperceptions in The Thin Blue Line with those in Standard Operating Procedure: "That misperception of the Abu Ghraib photographs, which was encouraged by the government, has led us to misperceive ourselves, and our complicity or involvement or engagement in what happened and what was continuing to happen when the film was released. In the case of the Abu Ghraib photographs, top administrative personnel concocted and promulgated the bad-apple narrative to help us fill in the gaps between and around each photo, thereby transforming photographic evidence of what in fact was a vast pre-meditated and institutionally sanctioned crime into a tool in the cover-up of that same crime. The irony is that photographic evidence of a crime became tools in a cover-up, and allegories for the visible become mechanisms of blindness." Drawing comparisons to Mark Twain and to Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Morris likens this story of Abu Ghraib to the true stuff of nightmares.

In Oppenheimer's interview with filmmaker Panh, we learn of the layering effects of the uses of photographs in his documentary S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine. Once again, Oppenheimer takes us on a detailed journey through the filmmaker's processes, and methods of an excavation—of what happened and of people's memories. Describing a key element of the mechanisms of genocide—that of the guard's actions of photographing each victim prior to interrogating them within S21—Panh points to the dehumanizing effect upon them. "To have an effective genocide, it's very difficult to kill a human being," he notes. "But if you take away the identity of that human being, if you dehumanize that human being, it's much easier for that machine to work effectively.

"In making the film, the dead were with me always," he continues. "The very fact that I am here, to a certain degree, suggests that somebody left a place for me. So, my job is to transmit to the following generation what happened, but also not for them to feel guilty for what happened."

Finally, Oppenheimer and Panh discuss the upcoming trials in Cambodia for some of the perpetrators. For Panh observing the tribunal process has afforded him a deeper insight into documentary filmmaking: "If you want to make a good documentary, it's much more important to spend your time observing what happens, what people say, what people understand sometimes and what they cannot understand sometimes."

Grappling with the visual representation of violence in the Holocaust documentary, filmmaker/educator Brian Winston delivers in his essay a sound chronicling of the genre and points to the problems of the archive—expressly, misrepresentation. Winston categorizes the existing realist factual holocaust footage into three areas: the modicum of amateur material, some of which has been reworked, for example, by film essayist Peter Forgacs; the deliberately misleading Nazi films of the ghettos; and Allied footage of the liberation of the concentration camps—the most disturbing footage of all, in Winston's view. "Here are the living skeletons, the bulldozed bodies and the emotionless faces of the guards," he writes. "Here is the indelible record of the consequences of otherwise unimaginable violence, the very fons et origio of our collective visual memory of the holocaust."  

Winston makes the distinction of the claims of the images as being misleading, yet it is still not to deny their authenticity. As with Morris' films, the question of the limitations of photographs as evidence arises, but by contrast, they mislead due to an absence of other photographs, and cannot possibly represent the whole of the die Endlosung. Winston reminds us of Claude Lanzmann's strategy in his 1985 film Shoah, favoring witness statements over the inclusion of any liberation footage. "This was as much determined by necessity as by any self-imposed Bilderverbot," Winston explains.  "Shoah is specifically about the extermination camps, of which there is no footage; Lanzmann's strategy is, first and foremost, a response to this absence of imagery." 

Theory meets practice in Killer Images in an especially effective way as these cutting-edge contributions prove; documentary theory is moving away from traditional film theory and toward a more phenomenological treatment that reflects necessary applications of archives.

Mary Moylan is a San Francisco-based writer and independent scholar. She has a professional background in documentary film production, and has worked with the George Lucas Educational Foundation on Web documentaries about public education. She is currently writing a book, Unstable Intersections: The Films of Lourdes Portillo. Follow Mary on her blog, Docuthinker, at marymoylan.net.

Synopsis: Directed by Tony Award-winner and frequent Sondheim collaborator James Lapine, Six By Sondheim is a highly personal profile of a great American artist as revealed through the creation and performance of six of his iconic songs. Told primarily in Sondheim’s own words, this feature documentary weaves together dozens of interviews with the composer, rarely seen archival material spanning more than half a century (including newly discovered footage of Ethel Merman performing "Gypsy") and re-stagings of three songs produced especially for the film.

Six By Sondheim screened as part of the IDA Documentary Screening Series in December at the Landmark Theater in West Los Angeles. KCRW's Matt Holzman spoke with director James Lapine about how confident the famous composer in an interview, a direct contrast to his vulnerability in front of the piano.

Watch below:

You can watch more moments from this Q&A at our IDA Screening Series playlist on our YouTube channel

Learn more about the other docs set to play in the IDA Documentary Screening Series

Synopsis: Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey follows the real life rock 'n' roll fairy tale of Filipino singer Arnel Pineda, who was plucked from YouTube to become the frontman for the iconic American rock band Journey. In this Cinderella story for the ages, Arnel, having overcome a lifetime's worth of hardships, must now navigate the immense pressures of replacing a legendary singer and leading a world-renowned band on their most extensive world tour in years.

Don't Stop Believin' screened as part of the IDA Documentary Screening Series in November at the Landmark Theater in West Los Angeles. KCRW's Matt Holzman spoke with director Ramona Diaz and producers Capella Fahoome and Josh Green about being on the road with one of the world's most famous rock bands.

Watch below:

You can watch more moments from this Q&A at our IDA Screening Series playlist on our YouTube channel

Learn more about the other docs set to play in the IDA Documentary Screening Series

If there's one image that sums up the overwhelming workload of our nation's public defenders, it can be found in the middle of Dawn Porter's recent documentary Gideon's Army. The image surfaces when we enter the office of Travis Williams, a young attorney who is practically buried by mountainous stacks of papers and files that amount to his current and ongoing caseload. At times tackling over 100 cases simultaneously, Travis is just one of the 15,000 men and women who provide proper legal council and services to those in the US who could not otherwise afford an attorney. Along with several other optimistic public defenders based in the South, Travis's undying spirit and motivation drives this film to its final payoff, which reminds everyone that hard work is all about the small victories.

Director Porter, who was a practicing attorney before beginning her filmmaking career, felt that entering the courtroom and the legal system through the conduit of the underrepresented would make her film more than just a captivating story. Her hope was to shed light on a severely strained criminal justice system in desperate need of funding.

Gideon's Army screened as part of the IDA Documentary Screening Series in November at the Landmark Theater in West Los Angeles. Criticwire Associate Editor Steve Greene sat down with Porter to discuss why she wanted the criminal justice system at large to stand in as the "bad guy" in her film.

Watch below:

You can watch more moments from this Q&A at our IDA Screening Series playlist on our YouTube channel

Learn more about the other docs set to play in the IDA Documentary Screening Series