Introduce Yourself: Sign In Here First

Hello, I have been lurking around here and would really like to get involved with this community. I am documentary director with a feature currently in post. I could really use the support that seems available in this community. Any pointers on where or how to get involved? My films website is www.glacierdocumentary.com.

Thanks

Just keep posting away, Cory. That's all any of us involved people do.

Eric, welcome, as well, and feel free to register for full membership.

Hello everybody.
I figured I'll re-introduce myself and see if I still qualify to stay in D-Word :)
I am a Screenwriter & Filmmaker newly relocated to Beirut, Lebanon.
I worked for 5 years at Al Jazeera Network in Doha, Qatar and at the same time was completing my MFA in Screenwriting at Hollins University in Virginia, USA.
I am now back to unemployment, or freedom, or independent filmmaking :) Just got me a Canon 7D and a MacBook Pro to try and keep up with short doc production along my narrative career.
I'm a member of D-word since 2004 (?) probably but I was busy for a while and now I am intending to tune in regularly to benefit from al the great things I learned – and can definitely still learn- from this home.
Peace all around :)

Welcome back Niam!

Hi everyone,
I'm a new member and interested in opportunities to help people with their projects. Let me tell you a bit more and if you're interested please contact me at orman.neil@gmail.com.
I'm a recent NYU grad film grad and here is a link to some of my doc work:
http://www.vimeo.com/16894051
I've done both camera and some sound before, and I won a short doc contest last year called Madrid Dares You that was covered in the NY Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/12/14/2009-12-14_in_a_ny_minute_a_film_shoot_in_madrid.html
In addition to being a filmmaker I was a journalist for 10 years, so I have lots of applicable skills.
I've worked exclusively on student projects before so I'm most interested in helping people at the 'professional' level (or pretty close), people who have made documentaries before that have been distributed or broadcast, and are savvy about the nuances of getting projects funded. I'm glad to work for free right now to get the experience. I'd particularly like to become more technically proficient with the nuances of doing docs with tiny or no crews, such as how to do camera, sound and lightning all by yourself.
Much appreciated either way, and thanks for having a Web site like this.
Neil

Welcome, Neil, and great to have you back, Niam.

Hello Everybody
I am working on my first documentary. I am eager to pick your brains on lots of topics like funding and labor. I currently work at one of the three televison networks in New York.
Charlie

In reply to Doug Block's post on Tue 25 Nov 2008 : Doug
I don't know whether you remember me but I had the pleasure to work along side you for a very short period of time. You were finishing 51 Birch Street. (brillant) I knew nothing then and I know just a little more now. I have started a documentary on the 'undocumented Irish in New York' and I have a trailer and treatment. I look forward to reading more on this website.
Thanks
Charlie

Thanks, Charles. I remember you well and greatly appreciated your help on 51 Birch. Glad to see you made your way here and best of luck with your doc.

Hi, I'm Stephanie Wang-Breal, the filmmaker behind Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You, Mommy). I am consulting producing on another film that I think would do well at the Hotdocs Pitch forum. anyone pitch their film there? did it result in any pre-sales/ or funding? and is it just plain worth the costs? looking forward to being part of this online doc community.

Hey, Stephanie, great to have you posting here. However, this is the topic for people to introduce themselves. I'll repost your questions in the Finding Funding topic.

Hello to all of you,

I am a sociologist and I have been researching on immigration and youth here in Barcelona, for about 3 years now. This has implied a lot of workfield in different public spaces on peripheral neighbourghoods. This adds to my interest in visual culture and in documentary practice, I have attended to some courses on technical matters ("experimenting with documentary") and also visual anthropology. Some days ago, I met, together with a colleague, a group of enthusiastic young men from Dominican Republic, who started to produce short films about "street-stories". We proposed to them to help on technical matters (lend them a better camera, script development), and at the same time we learn a lot from them and film the process of making this short film they want to present to a local competition (ending the 20th of december). We all want to continue with the experience after the competition ends, offering to them formation on script development, and they allow us to keep filming the process, with the idea of making a doc on their experience in a context such as the society, and the neighbourghood they live in.

It would be great if I could learn from the experience of others who have underwent these kind of processes... as well as sharing what I have learnt from the sociological (or anthropological) ethnography practice, "participational observation", etc.

Thanks!

Welcome Stephanie and Nadia :)

Hello everyone at D-Word! My name's Christina and I specialize in making feature documentary films about Brazil. I grew up in Brazil, now live in London, and am interested in bringing contemporary stories about Brazil to a large international audience. You may have seen Only When I Dance, a feature about two teenage ballet dancers from Rio's most violent favelas that make it to the highest eschelons of the international world of ballet, which I co-produced. I'm new to this site and am looking forward to meeting others here with a passion for international feature docs (and maybe even some clues as to how to make a living out of them?!) as well as a great mutual exchange of info and help all round. All the best from snowy London!

I specialize in analyzing sports mechanics (how an athlete moves) with frame-by-frame video analysis. My Olympic athletes have won 44 Gold Medals and have set 11 World Records. You can see examples of our analyses on our YouTube channel 'somaxperformance'. I joined because I will be producing a documentary on our project to break the 2-hour mark in the marathon--currently thought to be impossible. We will also be needing videographers to record during race day, and I thought that this forum would be a good way to find local talent.

Welcome Christina and Bob!

My dad was an athlete in the 60ies (100 meters, 200 meters, high jump) and marvels how technology is helping athletes these days. Good luck with your project.

How to make a living from docs, Christina? Get thee to the Our Daily Bread topic.

Good to have both you and Bob with us.

Hello D-Word,

I am Andrew with Green Solutions. We are a US West and East coast DVD, CD, Blu-ray and Eco Friendly packaging company. We've been in business for almost 14 years. I have worked with hundreds of independent producers over the years. While self distributing can be difficult, I believe we have the ability to help. We work with a web fulfillment company in CA, who can set up your shopping cart, credit card merchant account (giving you complete control of the finances) and handle the drop shipping to your customers. Even if we don't do your work, I am dedicated to the Documentary Producer and will answer any questions related to authoring, packaging, replication, duplication, printing, credit card processing and fulfillment. I'm here to help.

Great, Andrew. I'm sure there are a ton of members here who would love to pick your brain about such matters. We talk about self-distribution all the time in the Marketing and Distribution topic, so feel free to hang out there.

Hello D-Word!
My good friend Joshua Z. Weinstein recommended I check out this site and I'm excited to join such a supportive and knowledgeable online community. I'm an aspiring editor with three years of experience assisting on features and shorts (including 2010 SXSW-nominated "Dirty Pictures"). I'm currently looking for my next project so if anyone is interested in hiring an intelligent, experienced, and friendly AE feel free to e-mail me at jeremiah.glazer@gmail.com. You can see a few videos I edited here: http://vimeo.com/jeremiahglazer. Thanks!

Office Share Available! 1 to 3 desks avail in office in historic Cable Building at corner of Broadway & Houston, downtown Manhattan (aka Angelika Film Theater Bldg; aka Crate & Barrel Bldg). 24/7 access building, lot of light, best n'hood. Anyone interested or know anyone interested, please contact me directly! (dpiperni@cargofilm-releasing.com) Thank you!

Hi,
My name is Larry Paros and I'm new here. I've just directed and produced a film called "Walk Right In." It's the perfect counterpoint to "Waiting for Superman" and "The Race to Nowhere," but we don't have the resources or contacts to get the word out. Help!

Welcome to The D-Word, Larry, and good luck with your film. You might want to check out the Marketing and Distribution topic, as well as Social Networking.

Hello everyone,
Pleasure to be aboard. I'm new to the D-Word and currently in pre-production on both my first documentary and my first feature length project. After obsessively agonizing on cameras, knowing full well the content matters more than the camera, I settled on the Panasonic GH1 for it's DOF capabilities, the fact that you could hack the bitrate settings (which I have done) and it seemed to be the only hi-def still/video camera that was capable of shooting for longer than 15mins at a clip without the camera overheating and or cutting off the clip at the 12-14min mark (as in the ever popular Canon DSLRs). So far I'm very happy.

I'll be posting more updates as I go but my main area of focus now is quality sound capture. I have a good indy rig but no wireless LAVs. I will post more on that in another section of the website and will certainly be looking for pointers and recommendations. I'm certainly in the market for some good multi-channel LAV mics if anyone has tips there.

My documentary is a "son gets to know his Jazz Musician father through his music and those who loved him and his music". And yes, I've seen "My Architect: A Son's Journey". GREAT film that was a major inspiration. If you've seen that film there are some very similar themes for me. My father was lost to me when I was fairly young (19), we didn't have much chance to get to know each other (family drama and his obsessive dedication to his music) and within the Jazz community he is rather legendary for those who really know his music.

I hope to explore the reasons why those fans and devotes of my father's music keep insisting he is a genius improviser and one of the top three improvisers of the 20th century (often listed with Charlie Parker and Lester Young others). These are odd things to digest about about someone whom you saw in a very different light growing up. I both seek to tribute my father but also get to know him better through his music. Hopefully both the viewing audiences and myself will get to know him a little better and come out the other side with a better understanding of what makes his particular stripe of musician so special.

So, next steps for me? Editing a fundraising snippet for Kickstarter and other online fundraising sights, finding some good wireless lavs and continuing to seek encouragement for this daunting task.

I do have a producer by the way. He is a former Cal Arts screen-writing instructor and huge fan/devote of my father's music. Wonderful fellow named Eddie Richey. My wife is also an ever-present producing partner and the other half of Leo Rising productions.

Here's to getting to know everyone better and most certainly sharing about the process.

Welcome, K.C. You might want to know about a similar doc by D-Word member Stan Warnow called "Deconstructing Dad", which is about his own famous musician father. Not to worry, though, since each filmmaker's journey is their own unique story.

Great recommendation! I'm not worried. I love the other stories like this. The Glenn Gould docs were also wonderful.

32 Short Films About Glenn Gould isn't exactly a doc, but it's one of my all-time favorite films.

True, there is also a brand new doc that I just saw at a theater in Pasadena. It was much more of a traditional doc. I saw both of them back to back and was lumping them together. Both wonderful pieces. The new doc has some amazing archival footage. "32 Short Films..." reminded me of a book written about my dad in which the author wrote as if he was my father (1st person) narrating his own life. Fascinating and brave way to tackle a subject. My producer is leaning toward experimental with the style and he told me to watch "32 Short Flms...". Loved it.

Hi Everyone –

I stumbled upon this community and am happy to have found you all. This seems like an incredibly supportive environment, and that's a huge testament to both the members and the moderators. Kudos!

So, a little about me – I’m a multi-hyphenate Creative Producer/Writer/Marketing Consultant with over 15 years of experience working in the entertainment industry. More specifically, I've produced everything from the visuals for the groundbreaking documentary feature, THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE – to broadcast design packages for major cable networks. I also co-created and produced a grassroots media conference in NYC and LA, served as a publicist at a MGM/United Artists in NYC for four years and wrote a book (published by the Princeton Review).

I recently moved to LA to focus my career on producing larger-scale projects and seem to keep finding myself gravitating toward the documentary world. I dipped my toe into reality TV development and sold a pitch to Sony Pictures Television a few years ago but ended up backing out of the deal for personal reasons (the subjects were friends of mine, and Sony wasn't willing to give me Exec Producer credit because I had never run a show before – so, in the interest of protecting their interests, I pulled the plug). What's that they say about not being involved/close to your doc's subjects? Learned that the hard way...

Onward and upward! I'm now producing the visuals for a feature doc that's based up in Oakland and have recently started developing another non-fiction project about the business of cancer that has numerous media extensions, including a feature component. Having never helmed a project of this size, I'm here to absorb as much info as I can from the community – and to give back, as well.

That said, I'm a huge fan of indie empowerment and have been doing quite a bit of research re: Hybrid Distribution that I'm happy to share. I also have solid experience creating grassroots marketing and outreach strategies.

If anyone here would like a free outreach consultation for their project, please get in touch with me. I'd be happy to help point you in the right direction.

One question – do D-Listers ever get together for local in-person gatherings? As I mentioned, I'm fairly new to LA and am eager to meet like-minded folks.

Thanks!
Jennifer

Great to have you joining us, Jennifer! Feel free to leap right into the various discussions going on here and all the best with your projects.

Yes, there are quite a number of LA-based D-Word members, including our co-hostess with the mostess, Marj Safinia. They're often up for in-person F2F's, so don't hesitate to organize one (on the F2F topic). You might also want to join DocuLink, which is a mostly LA-based listserve for doc filmmakers.

Welcome, Jennifer! Good to have you here :)

Hello everyone,
I am the head of the documentary division at Muse Entertainment (www.muse.ca), a major independent film and television production house and an emerging force in international co-productions. We've won numerous international awards and were just nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the mini series Pillars of the Earth which we co-produced with Germany's Tandem Communications in association with Scott Free Films. We are mostly a live action, fiction producer but we are keen to work in the documentary world as well. The first documentary we co-produced with Switzerland and filmed in Jamaica was the successful doc feature Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae. Our head office is in Montreal but we also have a US operation based in LA and a sales office in London, England. We are happy to look at documentary projects that would be relevant to Canadian audiences specifically but also of interest to international audiences.

Great to have you here with us, Betty. How far along with their project would someone need to be before approaching you? Would you at the least need to see a fairly polished work-in-progress sample?

Hi all – I'm a documentary sound guy from New York and happy to have found this community! I have been lurking for a few months, and I've enjoyed reading about (and participating in) your challenges and victories. I've been lucky enough to do some work with Josh Weinstein, Nick Higgins, and Amy Berg. I'm always looking for a good subject and a new challenge for work, and I'm happy to give advice where it's needed (I know a lot of you work alone).

Happy Solstice y'all . . see you on the other side!

HEY!

HOPE EVERYONE IS WICKED, AND HOPE EVERYONE HAS AN AMAZING CHRISTMAS!

I JOINED UP IN SEARCH OF HELP FOR MY DISSERTATION I AM DOING, IN FILM PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY

I AM DOING IT ON:
An evaluation of the technology incorporated into documentaries targeted for cinema release

IF ANYONE COULD HELP, THAT WOULD BE WICKED!! ITS MAINLY ON CAMERAS USED FOR DOCU'S AND WHY? THE SOUND AND LIGHTING...AND WHAT THE FUTURE HAS IN STORE FOR DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKERS..

APPRECIATE ANY HELP ANYBODY COULD GIVE ME..

HAVE A WICKED NEW YEAR!

In reply to Abe Dolinger's post on Tue 21 Dec 2010 :

HEY, HOW YOU DOING ABE?

BOY AM I GLAD I SAW YOUR INTRODUCTION!

YOU MIGHT OF READ MINE...AND I WAS WONDERING, BECAUSE YOUR SOMEONE WHO WORKS WITH SOUND AND YOU HAVE FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE, WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO HELP ME...

IT WOULD BE LIKE AN INTERVIEW SORT OF THING...IF YOU COULD HELP, PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME A SHOUT, IT WOULD BE WICKED TO INTERVIEW SOMEONE WHO WORKS IN THE ACTUAL INDUSTRY RATHER THAN JUST RELY ON BOOKS. IF NOT THEN HEY, THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME OUT AND READING THIS.

HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON
TAKE CARE ABE

In reply to Magela Crosignani's post on Thu 18 Nov 2010 :

hey, how you doing?

I noticed you were a cinematographer and you work on documentaries.

im currently doing a dissertation on the production technology used for cinema release documentaries, and i thought maybe you could help me with the camera technology used for documentaries.

i understand if you are busy and if you unable to help, and thats cool...but hey, it's a try right.

maybe I could interview you, ask you a couple of questions?

if you do have some time, that would be great, if not, i understand. hope you have an amazing Christmas and new year.

thank you

In reply to Jennifer Campbell's post on Sat 30 Oct 2010 :

hey, how you doing Jennifer?

it cant be colder than it is down here in the UK! The weather is crazy, but its wicked!...but hey...
I was looking through the pages, to see if there was anyone would could help me with a bit of work, and noticed you was kind of fresh out of uni.

im in the last year now, and have to write a dissertation. I know this is a long shot, but hey, what's the worse that could happen.

my dissertations on, the technologies used for cinema release documentaries, and I was wondering if you had covered any of the technology side in your course...

if you aren't to busy and you got a little time, it would be wicked if you could help. but if you cant, well hey, thanks for taking time out and reading this

have a wicked Christmas, and an amazing new year. :)

In reply to chithra jeyaram's post on Wed 4 Aug 2010 :

hey, how you doing?

I noticed you studied film production.

im studying film production and technology, now in my final year, im currently working on a dissertation on the production technology used for cinema release documentaries, and i thought maybe you could help me with the technology side of documentary film making. im not to sure if you studied the technology side but, its worth a try right.

i understand if you are busy and if you unable to help, and thats cool...

if you do have some time, that would be great, if not, i understand. hope you have an amazing Christmas and new year.

thank you

Ok, Jaggy, good to see you calmed down and stopped shouting in ALL CAPS. Time to take your pleas for help to the Mentoring Room topic. This is just a place to introduce yourself, which you certainly have done enough of. And have a wicked Christmas, yourself.

In reply to Doug Block's post on Wed 22 Dec 2010 :

Oops.

Sorry. And a happy New Year.

Hello everybody. I'm a brazilian filmmaker, this year I've showed in some brazilian festivals my first film, a short documentary called "Hands of October". This film proposes a new way of looking at Círio de Nazaré in the city of Belém, Brazil, using the perspective of the hands. A poetic, almost surreal approach. The characters are the hands of marchers, workmen, sculptors, and others. The voices are just their memories. The duality of hands, which simultaneously suggest materialness and spirituality, constructs one of the biggest faith marches in Brazil. If you're interesting, visit film's website (unfortunately not translated to the English yet): www.maosdeoutubro.com
Regards,
Vitor

Welcome, Vitor. Good to have you here at The D-Word.

Hi Doug,
In answer to your question: Yes the proposal would need to be very polished; not just idea stage but well researched on its subject, characters, relevance and uniqueness.
Betty

Betty, would be great if you registered as a full member , which would give you access to all 50 of our discussion topics, including fundraising and distribution.

My name is Mark. I am a software developer and film student. I decided to go to film school because I had a documentary that was set to go twice and the production company flaked on me both times. The story is so close to my heart that I decided to learn how to do the doc my self. That was in 2008 and I have just finished preproduction. Production to start in March.

Welcome, Mark. You may find the story of D-Word member Jon Foy inspiring. He was in the same boat as you, now heading off to Sundance with his first doc.

Hello, I'm Nancy, communications coordinator for the British Columbia chapter of the Documentary Organization of Canada. I'm gonna be in here every week or so looking for news and stuff to share with the DOC BC membership and I'm curious to hear what other people are up to in terms of financing and developing their own films.

Welcome to The D-Word, Nancy! (Blame it on the holidays that nobody has greeted you yet...)

You should also apply for Professional status here ...

Welcome, Nancy :)