Feature Docs for Broadcast
Singles vs. series on broadcast TV
British television is crammed with documentary series and repeated formats such as 24 Hours in A&E. What there appears to be a lack of is feature length singles. There are plenty of critically acclaimed documentary films made by independent filmmakers, such as The Look of Silence, but rarely do they acquire their fame from broadcast television. I have interviewed an independent documentary maker, Nick Hamer from Intrepid Media, to ask him about his experiences with broadcasters and find out why broadcasters might be avoiding documentary singles.
In this article, Does British TV have a problem with independent documentary?, Carol Nahra says: “I recently sat on the Grierson judging committee for Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme - International. It was striking that very few of the outstanding films on our longlist were given television money up front. All too often broadcasters hedge their bets, forcing independent filmmakers down the difficult path of self-financing, and only deciding whether or not to pick up a film once it's been made.”
I asked Nick what he thought of this.
Nick - It's very true. Essentially commissioning editors don't want to, or don't need to take any risks. They're very, very risk averse with how they spend their money. I think it’ll always be a risk to give me £57,000 because I'm an independent producer/director and anything could happen to me. I could die and if that happens then the project’s gone. That’s quite a big risk when you think about it. The whole thing rests on my shoulders and they’re right to be risk averse about that kind of thing. The BBC is public money, should they be risking their money in that way? No, because they make fantastic programming without commissioning independent producer/directors.
Although this is not beneficial for the independent filmmakers, it is a sensible move for broadcasters to avoid commissioning them. Their proposals can be as incredible as they like but with the film resting entirely on their shoulders alone, the money needed for commission is far too valuable to gamble. But there is a way around it.
Nick - If they really like an idea then they warehouse us with other production companies so they’ll force us to be exec’d by a larger company that can manage that sort of risk for them. In other words, if I was warehoused with my current project and something did happen to me, it wouldn't be the end of the project, they’ll bring another director in and they will have made sure that any access to the subject matter is negotiated in a way that didn't rely on me.
But there is a downfall to this. The filmmaker would lose ownership of their film, which as an auteur is a huge loss.
Nick - I was talent spotted by an executive and he asked me what my next film was going to be so he could exec it. That means I can access broadcast money. But he manufactures material and he exploits people like me for his business and together we make a movie. To be honest I thought we would do something but ultimately my lifestyle is important to me and I don't want someone calling the shots. I wasn't prepared to give that production company my stuff. They will have the ownership and control over the film to the point where I could be fired and that doesn't make sense to me. But - reality check - that's what broadcasters need in order to make a commission to director. They don't make a commission to a director, they make it to a production company. But I like the challenge of imagining a movie myself and seeing it come to life.
“No one commissioned the film, and we had no major names attached to it. I’d shot most of it myself across 18 months, unpaid, amassing 88 days of footage. For production, we had Arts Council England funds of £20k. This had been secured on the reputation of myself and Nina Pope as artists rather than as filmmakers. We had £15k from crowd funders for post-production, and that was ALL we had. (I took an excruciating peek in my “Funding” folder when starting this blog, and the unsuccessful applications run well into double figures, a personal record and not one to be proud of. Yet this has been our most successful film by several miles. Go figure!).”
“But despite a stellar festival profile starting with Hot Docs, the months passed after winning Best International Feature there, and we still had no sales agent or distribution for 'The Closer We Get'."
Nick's experience is also very similar to that of Karen Guthrie's.
Nick - My last film, 'Dear Albert' was entirely self-financed and I had a lot of knock backs from financers on route to completing it, by commissioning editors at Channel 4, a couple at the BBC, Channel 5 and Doc Society. It's not very nice to get rejected but you do get used to it and I'm pretty hardened to it so it doesn't effect me that much emotionally. And it didn't ultimately affect the delivery of the movie I was trying to make so I made it anyway and distributed it myself.
He appears to have come to accept the difficulties of securing broadcasters' support and had to go down the route of self-financing and festival releases, just as Karen Guthrie did.
After I finished the film, I released it on the festival circuit in my own way and I did have an interesting world premiere in Canada. Hardly anyone showed up to the screening. It's a niche market, documentaries. But I sold it there to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) but with an acquisition, the money is so small compared to a commission. This reflects the monopoly that the broadcasters have. So with a social interest doc like Dear Albert, in the UK there will have only been two people that would have bought it, the BBC or Channel 4. So any amount of money they’ll offer, we’ll accept. They're holding all the cards because there's no where else I can sell it. Broadcasters have their own niche and not much competition.
Whilst this may look unpleasant to the filmmaker, it is a business, and like Nick said himself, the BBC are working with the public's money so have to be very careful with how they use it. Nick then spoke about his current project, where he is also experiencing further rejections.
I thought my current film 'Far From the City' was so good that a broadcaster would finance it but I'm probably wrong. I'm only a week into pitching and I've sent proposals to two commissioning editors at the BBC and one at Channel 4 and I've had a definite rejection. So I've sent a ten page treatment, a taster video, a twelve page budget and schedule and a carefully crafted email. That just reflects the reality. They’ve spotted that I'm an independent filmmaker, not a production company, and casted it off straight away. And they're allowed to do that but it's a bit disappointing. But I don't want to go through an exec, I want to be the exec. But I am actually making a great film that will be completed because again I have everything I need and I can finance it myself. I just want them to finance it so I don't have to do my corporate work.
As Karen explains in her blogs, she has had to work extremely hard, for an extremely long time in attempt to earn back the money she has spent on TCWG. Nick too will be working extremely hard for other companies for a long time to enable him to complete Far From the City. It is clear why independent filmmakers seek broadcaster's money but it is also clear why those broadcasters would rather spend their money on production companies. Why take a risk if they have no trouble getting content else where?
Do you think more independent singles should be on TV?
Nick - I think it would be great, but I know I can access great docs easily, I don't need to turn on the TV to watch them.
Nick's optimism concludes this discussion nicely. It summarises how scheduled television is not actually the be-all and end-all for documentary makers and their work will exist without the support of broadcasters.
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