As reported by al.com, documentary filmmakers Andrew Wight and Mike deGruy were killed this past weekend in Australia when a helicopter malfunctioned during take-off.

A excerpt from a Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival newsletter puts the measure of grief into better words than we can. Scroll to the bottom for ways to honor the memory of Mike deGruy.

We grow closer in times of shared sadness, and this week the international documentary film community grieves the devastating loss of two well-loved and deeply respected colleagues.

Andrew Wight, known to his friends as Wighty, and Mike deGruy were working on a film for James Cameron and National Geographic when they were killed this past weekend in Australia. Details about their helicopter crash are incomplete, but news reports suggest some kind of malfunction at take-off. Wighty and Mike were brilliant storytellers, remarkable colleagues, loving husbands & parents, fearless explorers and good friends who will be deeply missed.

Services for Andrew will be held near Melbourne. More details will be available in the next few days.

A celebration of Mike's life is planned for Sunday, February 12th in Santa Barbara. His website is the source for information. Please consider posting a thought, memory, poem, or other gesture there for Mike and his family.

If you would like to make a contribution in Mike's memory, please consider:

Santa Barbara Middle School
Heal the Oceans
Mobile Baykeepers

The Center for Social Media at American University is hosting Media That Matters 2012, a conference that brings together professionals, artists and students interested in making an impact through media.

This year's theme, "Change for Good," features conversations about how independent social change filmmakers can execute integrated campaigns that are strategic, action-oriented, and have enduring impact.

The conference begins on Friday, February 10, 2012 at 5pm with an opening keynote address from Meredith Blake, distinguished attorney, social entrepreneur, and Founder and CEO of Cause & Affect—a strategy consulting and management firm in the business of high-impact social change.

With workshops on Fair Use, a Designing for Impact clinic, short film screenings, advice on strategy for media creation, and various chances to network, who would want to miss such an event?

Sign up for Media the Matters today! Registration closes at 5:00pm EST on Wednesday, February 8.

This past Monday, January 30, members of the documentary community kicked off the first Doc U of 2012 at Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater with a conversation about the intricate details of fair use in documentary filmmaking. 

We may or may not have broken a few fire codes to get everyone in the building, but we should have known that this panel would be so popular! Chairs had to be set up in the aisles to accommodate the overwhelming turnout for this event.

Michael Lumpkin started the seminar by introducing moderator Adam Chapnick (far right) and panelists (from left to right) Michael Donaldson, Mitchell Block, and Russell Hickey. 

Michael Donaldson, an entertainment attorney who has been fighting for independent filmmakers for most of his career, started off by helping the audience with some easy ways to identify what he called the "safe harbor" in fair use. Donaldson told the audience to ask themselves three important questions in order to be safer than safe:

1. Does this clip or piece of music clearly illustrate your point?
2. Did you only use as much as needed to illustrate the point?
3. Is the connection between the item you are using and the pint you are making obvious to the average viewer?

Donaldson asked why we even have fair use in the first place, and emphasized that if not for fair use, so much good art and journalism could not be done.

Next, Russell Hickey of AXIS Pro Insurance took the mic to discuss how his company looks at risks as a whole. When a filmmaker buys insurance for a project, AXIS Pro looks at the claim holistically to determine whether or not the project is likely to generate a claim. Axis Pro has a long history of helping filmmakers through the hurdles of E&O Insurance. If a project has questionable use of clips from other sources or music that's superfluous to the point being made on screen, then that film carriers more of a risk for an insurance carrier. If one isn't able to obtain full coverage for their film from an insurance carrier, the likelihood of that film finding any kind of meaningful distribution melts away. "Any time you're dealing with unlicensed footage," Hickey warned, "you're dealing with a risk."

Fresh off of a plane from halfway around the world, documentary producer Mitchell Block had his turn, which he chose to use defending the rights of documentary filmmakers and their footage. Seemingly playing devil's advocate, Block reminded the audience that one person's use of footage is another person's loss of income. As documentary filmmakers, we capture images of famous people and historical events for the sake of telling a story, but also for the means of posterity. When the next generation of filmmakers or the next person to do a film on the same topic comes along, what rights do you have as the owner of a useful piece of footage that other storytellers need to make their story more complete? What do we do as filmmakers to protect those income streams?

After the panel, the conversation continued in the front of the theater and on the back patio, where everyone in the seminar fielded burning questions from those in the audience. 

Moderator Adam Chapnick speaking to eager audience members and fellow IDA supporters. 

Documentary magazine editor Tom White mingling with other members of the IDA community.

That's quite a spread! The Winter issue of Documentary magazine will soon give way to the newest issue - look for it in a few weeks!

Thanks to everyone who made Monday night a huge success. We'll see you at our next Doc U in February!

Doc U is made possible by generous grants and contributions from our donors. Special support provided by:

The International Documentary Association is now accepting proposals for the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund, which provides production support for full-length documentary films. The Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund is made possible by a grant from The New York Community Trust.

Named in honor of the landmark documentary filmmaker, the Fund provides annual grants totaling $75,000 to be used in the creation of original, independent documentary films that illuminate pressing issues in the United States. In 2012, grants will be made to up to 5 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.

The Fund supports full-length documentary films that reflect the spirit and nature of Pare Lorentz’s work, exhibiting objective research, artful storytelling, strong visual style, high production values, artistic writing, outstanding music composition, as well as skillful direction, camerawork and editing. Complete guidelines and application are available at www.documentary.org/parelorentz.

Recipients of the 2011 Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund Grants:

• ¿Más Bebés?, Renee Tajima-Peña, Producer/Director
• As Goes Janesville, Brad Lichtenstein, Producer/Director
• Rise and Fall of ACORN: America's Most Controversial Anti-poverty Organization, Sam Pollard, Producer/Director
• American Village, Mary Posatko, Co-Director/Co-Producer, Emily Topper, Co-Director/Co-Producer

GE and CINELAN announced the FOCUS FORWARD Filmmaker Challenge and plan to award $200,000 in cash prizes to the top five entries in the professionally juried Challenge, with $100,000 going to the Grand Prize Winner. The Filmmaker Challenge is an expansion of the FOCUS FORWARD - Short Films, Big Ideas, a series of 30 three-minute nonfiction films developed by leading documentary filmmakers about the incredible human power of ideas and invention that will screen at prestigious film festivals globally, followed by day-and-date distribution online to millions of viewers. The initiative was first announced at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

Qualifying films for the Filmmaker Challenge are three-minute end-to-end stories about people or organizations whose innovative efforts in medicine, computer science, robotics, engineering, green energy, or other fields of applied technical knowledge have had a significant positive impact on humanity. Recent, cutting-edge inventions that are changing how we live today are of special interest. The Challenge films will be available online to a global audience through Vimeo and will sit alongside the first 30 films produced by FOCUS FORWARD filmmakers. As the program progresses, FOCUS FORWARD films will be distributed across cable and satellite VOD, gaming system networks, Internet Free On Demand services as well as in theaters and on DVD. Submissions open in mid April, with winners to be announced at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. For more information, please visit www.focusforwardfilms.com/challenge.

The announcement was made this morning at a special press preview of the first five three-minute films in the FOCUS FORWARD - Short Films, Big Ideas initiative, which are also being presented the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The five films by Jessica Yu, Phil Cox, David W. Leitner, Jeremiah Zagar, and Jessica Edwards & Gary Hustwit will make their world premiere on Tuesday, January 24, at 12pm EST on www.vimeo.com/focusforwardfilms and at a special screening beginning 6pm MST at the Holiday Village 1 in Park City. The FOCUS FORWARD films will also be paired with select features in the U.S. Documentary Competition and World Cinema Documentary Competition sections at Sundance.

Also announced at the preview, the latest filmmakers to join the FOCUS FORWARD initiative are Steven Cantor (loudQUIETloud), Kief Davidson (Kassim the Dream), Senain Kheshgi (Project Kashmir), Victor Kossakovsky (¡Vivan las antipodas!),Jeff Reichert (Gerrymandering), and Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern (Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work).

"It’s exciting to finally unveil the full scope of this program.. The Sundance Film Festival is the perfect venue to reach the most talented people in and around this business," said CINELAN co-founders Morgan Spurlock and Karol Martesko-Fenster. Jack Myers, project producer, added "The concept is to build a traveling nonfiction film series; we will be inviting filmmakers from every corner of the earth to join us in creating short films about game-changing innovation." CINELAN’s Managing Director Douglas Dicconson adds, "It’s important to everyone associated with FOCUS FORWARD that we’re in a position to reward the filmmakers directly in two ways; first with two hundred thousand dollars in prize money and second by providing a worldwide distribution platform for these films."

John Cooper, director of the Sundance Film Festival, commented "We are thrilled to be collaborating with FOCUS FORWARD to present the first five films in this one-of-a-kind series. We’re known for supporting documentary filmmakers in the Sundance community and around the world, so getting the word out about the Filmmaker Challenge is a natural extension of our creative mission. We’re also delighted to note that this relationship goes beyond 2012 with the Filmmaker Challenge awards ceremony at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival."

In addition, representatives for FOCUS FORWARD - Short Films, Big Ideas announced that they will be working with the 2012 Berlinale Talent Campus #10 on the occasion of its 10th anniversary to host a series of panel discussions around short-form documentary. Jessica Yu and Phil Cox will join the list of FOCUS FORWARD filmmakers who will be in Berlin to encourage and inspire emerging talents at the weeklong series of lectures, discussions, and hands-on training.

"There’s no better way to inspire the next generation of great international filmmakers than to put them in dialogue with some of the world’s foremost practitioners of documentary,” said Matthijs Wouter-Knol and Chritine Tröstrum, managers of the Berlinale Talent Campus. “FOCUS FORWARD is committed to fostering young talent and we are proud to enlist their support on this 10th anniversary edition of our creative summit."

After Sundance and Berlin, additional FOCUS FORWARD films will premiere as curated collections at the Tribeca Film Festival and International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), both strategic partners of the program, and at major festivals in Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Africa, South America, and the Middle East throughout 2012.

The five films premiering at Sundance are:

• Meet Mr. Toilet (Dir. Jessica Yu, 2012) – Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu (In the Realms of the Unreal) introduces us to Jack Sim, AKA Mr. Toilet, who uses unorthodox methods as he travels the globe raising awareness about the lack of sanitation in underdeveloped countries.
• Hilary's Straws (Dir. Phil Cox, 2012) – UK director Phil Cox (The Bengali Detective) unveils a moving mini-portrait of Hilary Lister, a quadriplegic champion sailor whose metal-and-circuit-board navigational tool, invented with friends, led her to conquer the oceans of the world.
• The Landfill (Dir. Jessica Edwards and Gary Hustwit, 2012) – Training their eye on a facility in Delaware County, New York, Edwards and Hustwit (Helvetica) challenge the way we look at landfills, not as an ever-growing problem, but as a possible source of renewable energy.
• Heart Stop Beating (Dir. Jeremiah Zagar, 2012) - Jeremiah Zagar (In a Dream) tells the story of Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier, two visionary doctors from the Texas Heart Institute who in March 2011 successfully replaced a dying man’s heart with a "continuous flow" device they developed, proving that life was possible without a pulse or a heart beat.
• Newtown Creek Digester Eggs: The Art of Human Waste (Dir. David W. Leitner, 2012) – Cinematographer/filmmaker David W. Leitner (Trembling Before G-d) looks at the unusual marriage of form and function at the jaw-droppingly beautiful Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, New York.

The IDA is happy to welcome IDA Board Vice President Adam Chapnick as the moderator for our upcoming Doc U on Fair Use on Monday, January 30 at the Cinefamily. Chapnick will be probing panelists Michael Donaldson, Russell Hickey and Mitchell Block on what constitutes fair use of copyrighted material, and how the implications of fair use affect you and your next film.

Adam Chapnick is a Principal at IndieGoGo, where he serves as CEO of Distribber.com, a new-model flat-fee distribution service that places independent films on digital sales platforms such as iTunes, Netflix and Amazon while allowing filmmakers to keep 100% of their revenue. Adam speaks regularly on cutting edge distribution strategies at markets and festivals including Sundance, South By Southwest, Digital Hollywood, AFM, WestDoc, Distribution U at USC, The Conversation, American Cinematheque and elsewhere. Adam proudly serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors of the International Documentary Association.

Chapnick's experience in the field will no doubt help the panelists and audience members unravel the legal intricacies of fair use. We're looking forward to a lively discussion for friends of the IDA and extended members of the documentary family!

Doors to the Cinefamily will open at 7pm. Be sure to buy your tickets in advance to ensure your seat at this event. Remember, IDA Student Members get their Doc U tickets for only $5!

Doc U is the International Documentary Association's series of educational seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.

Special support provided by:

We know how hard it can be to be a student in Los Angeles. That's why IDA is pleased to announce a new benefit for Student Members - $5.00 tickets to the monthly Doc U seminars at Cinefamily!

In order to take advantage of this special pricing, you must be a current Student Member and present your valid Student ID at the door.

Not a member yet? Join IDA now!

Doc U is the International Documentary Association's series of educational seminars and workshops for aspiring and experienced documentary filmmakers. Taught by artists and industry experts, participants receive vital training and insight on various topics including: fundraising, distribution, licensing, marketing, and business tactics.

For more information on Doc U, including tickets to the Jan 30 Doc U: Understanding Fair Use, go to www.documentary.org/doc-u

Doc U is made possible by generous grants and contributions from our donors. Special support provided by:

DocuDay LA 2012 will be held Saturday, February 25 at the Writers Guild of America Theater. A great opportunity to see this year's Oscar® nominated documentary features and shorts!

As with all of IDA's programs and events, we can't make it happen without your help. Come show your support for documentary filmmaking, and get an opportunity to see some of the year's best films and filmmakers!

Volunteer responsibilities include greeting filmmakers and guests; registration; seating and theater management; and venue set-up and breakdown.

Sound interesting? Fill out this form to register your interest in volunteering for IDA.

Contact IDA's Event Manager Amy Jelenko at amy.j@documentary.org with any questions.