Give Me the Money and I'll Shoot!

Finance your Factual TV/Film Project

Nicola Lees

• Publisher: A&C Black Academic and Professional
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781408132968
• eBook ISBN: 9781408157084
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

The must-have guide to traditional, emerging and creative TV funding models that are being developed and exploited by social media-savvy documentary filmmakers. Each chapter covers a different form of funding and combines advice from industry insiders - producers, buyers, specialist media agencies and corporate funding bodies - and entertaining case studies that illustrate the benefits and pitfalls of each method. With practical tips, case studies and advice it reveals what grantors, brands and NGOs are looking for in a pitch (they all have different needs and expectations), and the cultural differences that can trip up the unwary producer. Funding examples range from blue-chip TV documentaries, such as Planet Earth, which was co-funded by the BBC, Discovery NHK and CBC to The TV Book Club (More 4), which is funded by Specsavers opticians; to Lemonade Movie, which harnessed the power of Twitter to source free equipment and post-production resources.
Readers will discover: the difference between co-productions, pre-sales and acquisitions; how to develop and pitch advertiser funded programming; the new rules on product placement; where to hunt for foundation and grant funding and how to fill in those fiendish application forms; the power of crowd-funding and how to harness the internet; how to sniff out grants and funds held in non-film focused organisations such as the Wellcome Trust; why corporations are keen to fund your documentary and how to get them to part with their money without giving up your editorial control.

PART I: The Idea

Getting Ready

“Not all stories are ready to be told.

—Cheryl A. Clarke (grant writer)

As you are reading this book, I assume you already have a TV show or documentary that you want to pitch to funders. Resist the temptation to skip straight to the funding chapters because no matter how many broadcasters, brands, grant-making foundations or distributors you approach, if you can’t fully articulate your idea in a way that a potential funder can understand, they won’t give you money.

According to Hot Docs Forum and Market Director Elizabeth Radshaw, who has seen hundreds of filmmakers pitch to funders, the most successful pitches are those in which “the filmmaker has decided what they want to achieve before they even open their mouth: they know what their goals are and they know exactly who they are pitching to, what their pitchee has at stake. They have really thought about their audience and they realize that the funder is not just buying into the pitch they are about to give but they are buying into the individual, the company that stands behind them.” Having all of that worked out before you step up to pitch gives you an immediate advantage in an extremely competitive marketplace. In fact, Elizabeth goes so far as to say that a filmmaker’s actual pitch doesn’t matter: “It’s the preparation they do up ahead by asking themselves why are they making this film? Why are they doing it now? Why are they doing it? Who is their audience and why should the audience care? With that knowledge they can just tell their story; they don’t have to say, ‘This is why the audience should care’—it will just come up, and when they get those hard questions they will have the answer.”

Another reason to thoroughly develop your idea is that you will be less susceptible to being swayed from your vision as you seek funding. Tom Ziessen, Public Engagement Advisor at the Wellcome Trust in London, will sometimes make suggestions to filmmakers who are applying for grants. “We might say, ‘This doesn’t work for us but if you did it like this, it would.’ But I think the danger is that you are pushing someone to make something that isn’t really their vision, and this is true of any money, I guess. As a filmmaker, you want to make sure you don’t take any money that will mean that you have to change your project.”

So before we meet the funders, we should take some time to explore whether your idea is actually ready to pitch and build the foundation of a great funding strategy. The work starts long before you even pick up a camera; it involves developing the idea into a workable proposal, constructing a compelling pitch, calculating a realistic budget and schedule, and planning a funding strategy. Skimp on any of these steps and you put your project at risk; by examining your idea from all angles at inception, and at regular intervals throughout the development process, you can spot and remedy any weaknesses. You’ll also be better able to target funders that are a good match for your material, achieve a better hit rate and be able to concentrate your energy on making your film rather than perpetually chasing funding.

There isn’t space to fully explain how to develop an idea into a commercially viable (by which I mean fundable) TV program or documentary idea; instead I’ll give you a list of key elements to consider that will help you get your idea pitch ready. (The companion to this book, Greenlit: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas from Concept to Pitch, gives a more in-depth step-by-step guide to the whole development process—from originating ideas, developing the format, attaching talent and running a pitch meeting—and explains how the international TV industry works.) I’ve spent more than a decade developing and pitching science, history and lifestyle TV programs to a range of network and cable channels in the UK and USA. I’ve also interviewed dozens of international channel executives and asked them what they like, and more importantly, don’t like in a pitch. The questions that follow are commonly asked by commissioning executives and other funders and often poorly answered by filmmakers.

What’s the Story?

The key to any pitch, and any film or TV project, is the story. One of commissioning editors’ biggest irritations (after program makers who proudly exclaim, “Oh, I don’t watch TV!”) is reading proposals that outline at great length the importance of raising awareness of climate change or human rights abuses, or listening to program makers who describe their detailed research without mentioning what the actual story is. The buyer needs to understand the “who,” “what,” “where,” “why,” “when,” and “how” of the film, the beginning, middle, and end of the narrative, alongside a description of locations, characters or scenes that allows the buyer to “see” in their mind’s eye what the audience would see.

The most successful documentaries (commercially and critically), such as Man on Wire, or Touching the Void, The Cove and Senna, all have a strong narrative, with a clear beginning, middle and end, and heroic/charismatic characters who embark on some kind of physical or emotional journey full of real jeopardy. It’s no accident that these same elements are found in successful Hollywood films.

On the other hand, and to their disadvantage, issue-driven films tend to have a narrative driven by the subject rather than strong and compelling characters. Writing in The Times newspaper, journalist Kevin Maher noted that, “eco-documentaries … are being made by impassioned experts who are devoted to their cause, but are mostly lacking in all but the most rudimentary movie-making skills … and push us closer to the day when all documentaries will feature angry people telling us we’re all going to die.” Deferred real world jeopardy (the bees are dying, the ice is melting … we’re all doomed) doesn’t make for such a good night out at the movies. “At the end of the day, we the audience are coming for drama, for illumination, to be moved and entertained. To shame us for being in more fortunate situations than others is not a filmmaker’s job,” wrote film critic Shlomo Porath, in Writing in Midnighteast, but “many documentaries pretend that we’ll become better people if we’re sufficiently shocked and depressed.” And spare a thought for the poor buyers who travel the globe looking for films to acquire: “Every day you watch 7–10 documentaries mainly dealing with the sadness and misfortunes of the world. You feel physical exhaustion in your body. You become dizzy, confused, even worried,” wrote Steffen Moestrup, a Danish journalist of his experience at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. If you really care about raising awareness of an issue beyond its existing supporters, I urge you to find a compelling story to tell, and let the issue inform rather than drive the narrative.

Many beginner filmmakers baulk at having to write down or describe their narrative, because the story “hasn’t happened yet.” Although TV commissioning editors and other film funders fully understand that the film will evolve during filming and post-production, they need to have enough information about the story to make a decision about whether it is a film on which they want to spend thousands of dollars. It’s perfectly acceptable to end your proposal with a question if you don’t know the outcome, for example, “After months of searching, how will Abigail react when she comes face-to-face with the woman who abandoned her at birth?”

Why Does Your Story Deserve to Be Told Now?

Just because you think a story deserves to be told doesn’t mean that funders will. Commissioners and other buyers need a reason to fund your project—either because the subject of your film is something they are passionate about, because it’s a topical subject that has currency in the current market, because you have a newsworthy angle on a familiar story or a unique format that taps into the zeitgeist, or because your proposal fulfills some other unspoken need, such as a scheduling problem.

In my very first pitch, a one-off documentary for BBC4/TLC, I had a very compelling reason to tell the story. The Guinea Pig Club was the story of a group of World War II pilots who had been shot down and were terribly disfigured by facial burns. While undergoing years of plastic surgery, they formed a drinking club and, through good times and bad, the fraternity lasted for sixty years. Every year they held a reunion dinner where they drank, danced and reminisced. When I happened across the story, the Guinea Pigs, who were by then in their eighties, had decided that as their numbers were dwindling rapidly year on year, it was getting too sad to meet. The fact that their next reunion would be their last was a compelling reason to film it: if the occasion weren’t recorded for posterity, the opportunity would be lost forever. That idea was commissioned by the BBC within a week and was the second fastest commission I ever had. (My fastest commission had little to do with the idea—which was about surgeons working aboard a hospital ship moored off the coast of Sierra Leone—and everything to do with it solving a problem for the commissioning channel, BBC3. They had an “Africa Season” planned and one of their films had fallen through at the last minute. My idea was set in the right geographical area and pitched at precisely the right time to fill the gap and so was commissioned overnight.)

Alastair Fothergill, producer of the BBC’s blue-chip natural history series Frozen Planet, which focuses on the wildlife of the polar regions, said he “wanted to do it now because those regions are changing very fast. No one else will have the resources to do anything similar for a long time and when they do, the landscape will have changed a lot.” In other words, “this is the last chance.” No one likes to miss the last chance to do something, so it’s a powerful argument to use in a pitch.

Conversely, “I’ve read grant applications that start off, ‘I am thinking of making a film about the secret lives of moths. What do you think?’” says US grant maker Carole Lee Dean. “The filmmaker’s lack of confidence and commitment to the project makes me (along with every other funder I know) nervous enough to pass.”

Having absolute belief in why your story needs to be told instills confidence in potential buyers.

Is Film or TV the Best Medium for Your Story?

It is time-consuming and expensive to make a documentary film or TV series. If you want to raise awareness about an issue you should ask yourself whether it’s really worth making a film. Might it be quicker, cheaper and have greater impact as a photo essay, magazine feature or book? Not all stories lend themselves to film. By its very nature film demands that there is something to see; a successful film is visually interesting, with lots of action to follow. If your story will be told through a series of talking heads consider making a radio documentary instead, or finding a way of making it more visual.

Sometimes you know that your subject will look great visually, but it’s hard to get it across on paper. The best way of getting around that problem is to film something. For example, when filmmaker Hugh Hartford had the idea of making a film about octogenarian ping-pong players, he went to film the European table tennis championships, and came back with some scenes that proved beyond all doubt that the characters were engaging, lively and funny. That footage was a cost-effective way to give potential funders a feel for a competitive event and its characters in advance of the World Championships, which was the real focus of the film. Wildlife filmmaker Peter Lamberti, CEO of Aquavision TV Productions in South Africa, usually pitches his ideas only after he’s filmed a climactic action sequence, around which he can build a story. Once he has his “money shot” he can prove to commissioners that he has a story worth telling.

Interactive producer and first-time director Lotje Sodderland originally intended to pitch her film to TV channels. Boomtown Babylon is a documentary project that interweaves stories from ten cities around the world, so Lotje decided it would “enhance the story” for it to be an online documentary, which would allow her to include interactive elements so viewers could choose which of the video streams they engaged with. She teamed up with Paris-based production company Honkytonk and Vincent Moon, the co-creator of a successful web series, to give the project credibility. The switch from TV to online meant that new funds opened up to her (funds are increasingly keen to promote interactive projects), and the participation of her more established partners...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction (and a word of warning)
• Part I: The Idea
• Part II: The Funding
• Part III: The Reality
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Footnotes
• End Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Disclaimer
• eCopyright