Many faculty have great ideas for documentary projects but do not necessarily have exposure to the procedures of how to present their ideas for funding and distribution (or, television acquisition). This panel is aimed at providing faculty with advice and tools to take their idea from the proposal, to the pitch and (hopefully!) to "green light!" Panelists will each provide 10-minute presentations on documentary funding options, proposal “best practices” drawn from winning submissions and the importance of a strong project pitch prior to opening the floor to Q&A and discussion.
Moderator: Michael R. Ogden, Central Washington University
Panelists:
Chris Turner, Independent Television Service (ITVS), “From Concept to Contract: The Path of an ITVS Proposal”
Steve Weiss, Clubhouse Productions & Colorado State University, “News & Sports Documentary Funding Options in Today’s Television Marketplace”
Michael R. Ogden, Central Washington University, "Low Budget Film Financing: Is Crowdsourcing The Answer?"
The panelists represent four universities from different regions of the country with graduate programs that specialize in or have an emphasis on documentary education and that culminate in an MFA degree. Each panelist will discuss approaches adopted to prepare students for the changing professional marketplace in the industry and/or academe to provide an overview of “best practices” of entrepreneurship at their respective programs.
Moderator: Mary Dalton, Wake Forest University
Panelists: C. Melinda Levin, University of North Texas; Social Media Development and Entrepreneurship: A Tiered Curricular Model
Dennis Aig, Montana State University; Funding the Decisive Moment: Financing Nonfiction in the Cloud
Mary Dalton, Wake Forest University; Integrating Entrepreneurship into the Traditional Documentary Curriculum
This session raises and addresses questions of choice during documentary production: how does one present history from sparse audio-visual evidence; how does one balance the need to convey an idea to the public without overstepping ethical boundaries; what has the increase in reality programming and cable-channel documentary productions done to complicate traditional documentary agreements between filmmaker and subject; what are the challenges of depicting the realities of Native Americans to wider audiences?
Moderator: Thomas Mascaro, Bowling Green University
Panelists: Leighton C. Peterson, Miami University (Ohio); Shooting Back: The Complexities of Representation in Native American Documentaries
Kathleen Ryan, University of Colorado; Lack of Evidence: Documenting the History of Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service during WWII
Nancy Carlson, Ball State University; Faking the Shot vs. Public Awareness: Ethical Issues in Wildlife Conservation Films
Respondent: Evan Johnson, Normandale Community College
This panel will discuss how collaborations between media production courses, communication studies courses, or even courses from other departments, can produce viable community media projects while providing relevant, real-world experiences for all students involved. Panelists will lead a discussion on the community media projects they devised and share techniques on how other colleges and universities can implement and execute such service learning experiences. They will also discuss how to get student buy-in when doing such collaborations.
Moderator: Victor Evans, Thiel College
Panelists: Kevin Burke, University of Cincinnati
Laurie Moroco, Thiel College
Diane Guerrazzi, San Jose State University
Alan Hueth, Point Loma Nazarene University
Douglas Osman, Purdue University
Must documentaries present a social analysis ? Is this analysis external to the documents used for the work ? We producers and teachers start with documents. Do such documents themselves include embedded social codes; or do they become material for documentaries when the prodcer adds her experience and her own analysis? This is a praxis-based analysis of the way documents are used by documentarians, refracted from the perspectives of a graduate student, a TV reporter/producer, and a broadcast professor.
Moderator: David Dunaway, San Francisco State University & University of New Mexico
Panelists: David Dunaway, San Francisco State University & University of New Mexico;
Documents and Their Use in Documentary
Greg Luft, Colorado State University; Documents from A Reporter's POV
Julia Bernstein, San Francisco State University; Documents and Documentarists
Respondent: Grace Provenzano, San Francisco State University
An informational exchange about letting students use their own equipment to record and edit class projects, bypassing department equipment.
Moderator: Linda Thorsen Bond, Stephen F. Austin State University
Panelists:
Casey Hart, Stephen F. Austin State University; Transforming Theory to Classroom Practice
Al Greule, Stephen F. Austin State University; Putting Pocket Video to Use
Linda Thorsen Bond, Stephen F. Austin State University; Working in the Converged Classroom
Tony DeMars, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Digital Media Classes in Traditional Media Programs
