Producers and funders will discuss how filmmakers can make business decisions that support values like creative independence, representation, sustainability, and authorship today, given the limited funding sources available to all.
Business
- October 5, 2020 @
- January 24, 2019Raising money for a film often feels like a Sysyphean task, constantly pushing a boulder up a hill. But as documentaries have become more popular
- January 4, 2019This is a fully revised look at documentary budgeting, and updates the 2006 Documentary article “Don’t Fudge on Your Budget: Toeing the Line Items.” At the center of the documentary "business" is the budget, which offers a map of the filmmaking process, expressing both the film you’re planning to make and how you plan to make it. Ideally, it is also a living document that can help get a film to completion.
- September 25, 2018One of the costs of living in the US is that you have to pay income tax to enjoy all the services of the government. This year, paying taxes just got
- September 28, 2017In the face of perceived dominance in the documentary marketplace by such major SVODs as Netflix and Amazon, an international coalition of
- January 17, 2017By Susan Margolin and Jon Reiss During IDA's Getting Real 2016 conference back in September, we held a panel called "So Your Film Didn't Get Into
- September 26, 2016*/ Editor’s Note: The complete PDF of this Survey, conducted by the Center for Media & Social Impact in collaboration with IDA, is available at
- August 30, 2016http://www.documentary.org/sites/default/files/images/magazine/Sum16_Int..."> As a Manchester, UK-based documentary filmmaker for over a decade, I
- June 6, 2016 @
Get any group of documentary filmmakers together and, no doubt, a big topic of conversation will be money: how to get it, how to make it, and how to keep getting and making it. Why? Because making docs is hard enough, but figuring out how to make a living making docs can be downright maddening....
- January 20, 2015 @
Making a successful, long-term career in documentary filmmaking has never been more challenging than it is now. How can you generate the support you need and apply proven strategies in order to better position yourself for the long haul?
Join award-winning filmmaker Dawn...