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Hi.
I’ve been making docos in Australia for the past fifteen years. I’ve followed a family of boxers, a heart transplant recipient, a fantastic group of war veterans from the states who visited Aus in ww2, a group of police who investigate cattle duffers (thieves), some renegade downhill skateboarders to name a few.
Last year I went to china twice to follow two giant pandas to Australia – although the story was a little light I enjoyed following the people aspect – the negotiation between the vets, zookeepers and officials of the two countries – a great experience personally.

Now I’ve embarked on the scary project of my first child – 14 weeks old – eeak.
Looking forward to reading more from you all – this is an impressive bunch of people.

Welcome to The D-Word, Nicole. And much congrats. Looks like the Doc Maker as Homemaker topic might be right up your alley. Or maybe you should just pour yourself a drink now that you can again.

Thanks Doug – the drink option sounds great!

Hi,
My name is David Dewhurst and I have been in the still photography business since leaving college in England back in the early seventies. I specialize in cars, motorcycles and planes and I'm based in the Los Angeles area. For the last six years I have also been shooting PR b-roll for many of the major car companies. Now I have the chance to produce a one-hour documentary on one of those companies with an insiders perspective of the troubles they face. It's a throw-him-in-at-the-deep-end project that seems extremely daunting t me. I'm sure I'll be coming back with all sorts of questions. Luckily I seem to have found a very knowledgeable group that appears to have most of the answers. I look forward to the discussions.

Welcome, David. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll just come back to you with questions like, "So, what digital still camera do you recommend for under $500?"

Hi everyone. Great to be here. I'm hoping I can get your support. My recent doc is called The Queen's Suite. I'm currently raising the finishing funds on Kickstarter. One comment on the doc is, 'The vid on Kickstarter is the most inspiring thing I have seen in all my adult life." Please view Kickstarter. I've organised lots of great gifts from acknowledgments, online downloads, DVDs, photos, lunch with the UK's leading doc exec producer, a recording session at Premises Studios, one to one sessions in doc filmmaking and camera plus more. Pledges start from $3 (£2). It's taken 18 months to make and it was done so without funding. It now needs funds for the online, dub and release of archive. We have until the end of August to raise the funds. http://kck.st/cbGGo1

Welcome, Corine. No need to double post on The D-Word, it's one of the few rules we have here. This topic is more for telling us about yourself rather than pitching for your project (which you did well in the Classifieds topic). That said, good luck with raising the funds to finish.

In reply to Fatima Geza Abdollahyan's post on Sun 11 Jul 2010 :

A late but special welcome to Fati. (She's too modest to mention that KICK IN IRAN kicked off at Sundance.)

Hi all,
My name is Ann Husaini and I'm a freelance editor and post-production manager for documentary based in New York. I worked on a couple of great docs in years past that had good festival lives and were both selected for Whitney Biennials, ALMA and CARNIVAL ROOTS. One was about the healing of a mother-daughter relationship that had been scarred by mental illness and sexual abuse, and the other about Carnival in Trinidad. (Let me also mention that Meg Reticker, who is awesome, finished CARNIVAL when I went off to film school.) I went to Columbia for an MFA in film, directed many narrative shorts, and I've done a lot of reality tv in the past to pay for that lovely education! Right now I'm working on a couple of probono music doc projects. One's cutting a fundraising trailer about amazing jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and the other's a co-editing a doc about 80's band/conceptual artists Devo. In the future I'd love to do human-rights oriented doc work too, and to teach teens and young adults about filmmaking. So if people need help with either, do feel free to approach me. I'm really looking forward to meeting the community on this site and I'll definitely look out on the board for ways I can help others. I hope to enjoy being a part of things here for many years to come!

Yay! Devo doc.

Welcome to The D-Word, Ann. The best way to be a part of things here is to register for professional membership, which gives you full access to all the discussion topics.

Hey Ann impressive history but I also zoomed in on the Devo project – would love to see a Devo doco.

I am in the midst of writing a business plan for investors and a international sales agent, just having finished the first draft of a budget for my film project, "TV MAN: THE SEARCH FOR THE LAST INDEPENDENT DEALER." The sample plans I've come across are either geared towards the non-profit sector or, if profit focused, appear to have more information than I believe is necessary for my project. Has anyone come across a good for-profit documentary business plan?

that isn't fiction? docs that make a profit are rare happy accidents.

Listen to Robert. I asked a similar question 3 years ago. He gave a similar answer. I chose to ignore him. I have been kicking myself ever since. Anyone who gives you money should be looking for a tax deduction, because a profit will probably never come.

In the business plan draft I'm working on I've also included a fiscal sponsor fee in the budget and refer to it in the plan to allow the film's supporters to either make tax deductible donations or investments. I will have the final draft of the plan reviewed by experienced advisers, but feedback from this blog's readers will be helpful. Has anyone else used a similar hybrid plan to raise funds and, if so, what were the results?

you can't solict donations for a profit making enterprise. There's no way for the donor to take a tax deduction and that ends a lot of them.

hello all,
my name is jd and i am an american living in budapest hungary – i recently bought a canon legria/vixia hfs100 to make mini-documentaries or a political nature. You can see my progress in learning the little camera at http://vimeo.com/redjade

there are many many ideas i have for such mini-docus, but step by step i will get there :-)

cheers,
jd

Just did a show of original music bookended by a Gesualdo piece and a Rahsaan Roland Kirk tune in South Pasadena. Have done a bit of soundtrack music for a couple of documentaries and I really enjoyed it. Someone told me to check this site out so here I is.

I am a 'creative' from India with a quest for learning and acquiring knowledge about creative expression and zeal to contribute to the art of STORY.TELLING, by utilizing my skills and expertise to the fullest.

I'm a passionately social artist and documentary filmmaker that believes the best way to make a difference is to go out of our "established" ways of seeing and experiencing the world. I agree with Wade Davis that story telling and content that offer broader perspectives can create a difference. History has not been written, we make history with the choices and the stories we choose to tell. I'm the product of TED and Herzog, to me, if you have lived the world in a way, you would try to try to tell our story. I worked for TV and entertainment for more than 10 years, and I'm refusing my self to continue to produce garbage and meaningless programming.

Greetings from Helsinki, I'm a California-born photographer based in Helsinki. Tomorrow I'll begin a 3-country journey that will land me at The Lemesos International Documentary Film Festival in Cyprus. There, a project I'm producing based in New York, entitled THE MUSIC NEVER DIES

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il6msr2ZuHc
(our trailer)

has been chosen to be a part of Docs Talk Cyprus, a 2-day pitch forum held within the festival. I'm three planes away, but am definitely looking forward to the project getting to take some meetings – we're now pulling for a co-production as we are ~40% funded with a budget of ~$250k.

JD, Rich, Yogesh, Ana and Jason, a warm welcome to you all. You're coming here so fast and furious it's hard to keep up with the greetings.

In reply to yogesh 's post on Wed 28 Jul 2010 :

What Doug said. Hey Yogesh, be sure to fill in your profile with your full name – D-Worders like to know who they're talking to.

Hi All—

A little about me:
I’ve been making documentaries in Los Angeles for the last 13 years – mainly films about a dying breed of old Hollywood art directors and cinematographers who I find inspiring as people as well as artists.
Some of my credits include, “Something’s Gonna Live,” which world premiered at the 2009 AFI FEST and is a follow-up to my first documentary, “The Man on Lincoln’s Nose" (2001 Oscar-nominated, Short Subject). Currently, I’m in post-production on a new film that will complete the trilogy of docs on old-Hollywood filmmakers.
Ross McElwee and Abbas Kiarostami are some of my cinema heroes. One of my favorite quotes from Kiarostami is something along the lines of: “Try to make your documentary like a fiction film, and your fiction film like a documentary."
Thanks to everyone who helps maintain this wonderful website. I look forward to meeting new folks on The D-Word!