Documentary Voices’ artistic director, Anisa Mehdi’s aim is to bring together documentary filmmakers at all stages of career development. She says, “Combining the know-how of established talent with the wit and audacity of newcomers will give everyone a creative boost–not to mention the benefits of nourishing relationships for future projects.” A veteran American journalist and documentary filmmaker, Mehdi has a track record in building bridges through reporting and interactive workshops among people of different cultures with similar concerns. Mehdi is a Muslim-American who devotes professional and personal time to projects that break stereotypes and amplify authentic voices from diverse communities. She is founder and president of Whetstone Productions, co-producer of Documentary Voices.

The initiative is endorsed by the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF). It will showcase stories of the greater Gulf region and the filmmakers with the zeal to tell them. There will be films about music, politics, war, peace, and faith by men and women with the passion and vision for telling true stories. An international jury of experts in film, diplomacy and the arts selected the films, primarily from Arab countries, the US and Iran, to be screened for the public in July. Filmmakers will attend the screenings of their work and engage with audiences, many of them exhibiting for the first time. They will also participate in an intensive program of workshops, master classes and symposia, designed to hone skills, amplify effective communication and encourage networking across the globe.

Dubai’s leader, His Highness Sheikh Mohammad bin Maktoum, is eager to make his city a cultural hub of the Middle East. Documentary Voices complements that goal. Approximately 30 thought-provoking documentary films will be screened and discussed. The initiative will entertain and educate local audiences, while providing a much-needed platform for filmmakers from the region to learn about production, financing, distribution and creative development from experts in the field. Networking among professional filmmakers from both inside and outside the region will foster dialogue and continued partnerships.

The symposium is a co-production of Whetstone Productions, Anisa Mehdi, artistic director (US), and Caspian Events, Mahshid Zamani, Managing Director (Dubai). For more information, please visit www.documentaryvoices.com.

If the proverbial theatrical release is elusive and the video business is flat or in decline (depending on which statistic you tend to support), what else is there to expect out of the proverbial festival tour beyond the face-to-face that filmmakers get with their audience? The undercurrent of a point from these words is that if you’re traveling to a festival, you might as well enjoy the experience when you get there. Any other expectation misguided at best. Read the entire entry>>

Think how many scenes you’ve seen in the movies of a character or characters strolling down the sidewalk or walking down steps of a courthouse or quietly strolling through a park. “Shoe Leather,” a term used in filmmaking, refers to these parts of a movie that precede other scenes and serve to make sense of the transitions. These sequences, while seemingly pedestrian, establish necessary continuities, open up the action to establish a sense of place, and give the viewer an understanding of how characters arrive at their destinations.

Read the rest of the post at Shoe Leather on Reframe.

A couple of months after the company’s official launch, I had a chance to catch up with Rubin, the company’s marketing guru, for a quick chat to check in and see how things are going and what they have in the works for the coming year as they trend-watch and keep their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the online digital landscape.

Rubin told me that they don’t consider themselves a distribution site right now; however, they’ve partnered and are collaborating with companies and nonprofits such as IFP, The Workbook Project, From Here to Awesome, illumobile, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and global law firm, Orrick. You can read more about how these partnerships work and how they benefit filmmakers here. Citing other fundraising models such as the “Causes” application on Facebook, Rubin claims that IndieGoGo’s model is so effective with its own fundraising model, people are finding much easier, quicker success in that quarter than ever before.

Rubin says that the company, closely modeled on Robert Greenwald’s way of fundraising and creating awareness for a project, is a mind-set. “It’s a site based on action, not necessarily about any kind of social interaction. The set-up is straightforward: projects, people, resources. So, right away, when you go to a project, you can immediately discern what their particular needs are in order to move forward. You know right away what someone is seeking. The question of ‘how can I help?,’ in other words, is already answered.

“We’re in the business of discovering content, and in that regard, different distribution entities are coming to us because they know that’s where we’re headed. But right now, it’s about getting the projects made, and that happens by creating promotion and raising awareness which needs to start well before the finished product.”

Being an artist these days means that one just cannot solely concentrate on the work of making art. I’m not really sure that this is a change from being an artist in any other era, particularly if you’re an artist intent on sharing your work with others, but now, more than ever before, it’s a necessity. Rubin and his partners created and designed the site to contain a “business 101″ tutorial style learning model, each stage organically building on another–a) art, b) technology, c) business and marketing, aka, finding your audience and d) creating innovative ways and means to get your project to that audience.

IndieGoGo will soon be partnering with TubeMogul, a universal upload aggregator, of sorts, that allows one to only have to upload a video once. Then, through TubeMogul, that video will be disseminated automatically to a dozen different video sharing sites. “We want everything we include on our site, every application, every piece of software, to be helpful to our users. You shouldn’t have to give your whole entire life over to your project,” Rubin says.

For right now, IndieGoGo is careful to stay away from any elitist bent by allowing, literally, anyone to create a project site with them. Still in road-test mode, their current model speaks more to their concern with functionality than the quality of content. So it’s come one, come all, whether you’re a professional filmmaker or a mom in a small town trying to raise awareness for a particular cause. “Right now, we’re not concerned necessarily with how credible something is, but how effectively the site is being utilized.”

Currently, they have a couple of hundred projects and about $35,000 in contributions have come through for those projects. They are also quickly becoming a “discovery channel.” They’ve been contacted by lots of industry folks that have come to look at what’s there. But, at the end of the day, they really want to be a trusted source for the artist. And like artists that have created these models for themselves, like Lance Weiler, Robert Greenwald, Susan Buice and Arin Crumley (the creators of IndieGoGo consulted with artists like these before launching), there is a desire to wed “real life” with “online life,” thus Rubin’s whirlwind tour in recent months of as many film festivals as he can take in, where he can talk one-on-one with filmmakers, sit on panels to talk about future possibilities, and relationship build.

What excites Rubin the most, of course, is this sense that audience is being built as the project is being created, which is a new model for most. The filmmakers of The Lilliput, for instance, after raising their first $10,000, were approached by several festival programmers wanting to show it when it’s complete. Most of us are used to funders and/or other exhibition outlets wanting to see the completed film before putting in a dime. This is extremely exciting and encouraging for the independent still in production phase. Psychologically and emotionally, it seems to create a momentum that might be missing were these films not out there marketing themselves every step of the way, creating fundraising milestones well before it’s time to figure out how to produce the final cut.

As it moves through its “build” phase, IndieGoGo is intent on talking to as many people as possible and will be doing outreach through places like IFP, teaching in both the narrative and documentary labs and creating case studies on success stories, while continuing to investigate how they can improve and enhance functionality. Rubin’s advice: “Post your project online as soon as the idea for it forms in your mind. If you put it out there, things will happen.”

Open to all delegates at the Rogers Industry Centre, DocAgora Ontario will present a few panels with some stellar international representatives. First up is “Who is Who in Digital Docland” moderated by Neil Sieling, Center for Social Media/American University and, the ubiquitous Peter Wintonick of Necessary Illusions. Guests Paula LeDieu of Magic Lantern (UK), Joel Ronez of ARTE web (France), Andreas Ua’Siaghail of Resolvelabs (Canada) and Lance Weiler of From Here to Awesome (USA) will discuss the changing face of the industry and who is at the forefront in developing the ideas and tools for the next shift in control and form and who is taking advantage of what we have at our disposal today in terms of production, in ways we haven’t yet fully realized.

Later that same day (Thursday, April 24), four teams of media makers will present their projects to a special panel of international and Canadian interactive experts, participants and mentors who will analyze each presentation in what they’re calling a “Convergence Lab Critique,” part of the larger DocAgora Ontario Initiative. (I saw a similar presentation in Amsterdam during the IDFA at the Mediamatic Lab, of which I’m now a member.) The panelists are Gerry Flahive of NFB (Canada), Klara Gruning-Harris of ITVS (USA), Paula LeDieu of Magic Lantern, Andra Shaffer of the Bell Fund for new media and broadcast (Canada), Joel Ronez of ARTE web, Ingrid Van Tol of the Dutch Cultural Broadcast Fund for new media and documentaries (Netherlands), and Lance Weiler.

Lastly, there will be “Short Circuits: Trends in Docs in the Digital Docspace” on Friday the 25th, moderated by Shooting People’s Ingrid Kopp. Guests Jeremy Boxer of Cinelan.com (UK), Klara Gruning-Harris, Noam Muscovich of Ithentic.com (Canada) and Mark Cranwell of Babelgum.com (UK) will discuss digital doc shorts as the hot new media. Shorts and micro-doc series are being aggressively bought for mobile distribution and can be seen in various incarnations all over the web. The panel will provide an overview of shorts in the digital realm and discuss the ways in which flexible delivery modes of short docs affect viewers, faster concept-to-delivery timelines, and the cost/benefit ratios of short-form productions. Makers of shorts, rejoice!–to market, to market where there’s a home (several, actually) for your wares.

Big Ideas for a

The interstitial series “Eco-Biz” and “Ecoists” will, once again, be hosted by award-winning environmental journalist Simran Sethi, and community advocate and MacArthur Fellow, Majora Carter, presenting insights into green issues and stories of “eco-heroes.” I loved the segments on these “eco-heroes,” because they are everyday people–businessmen and women, farmers, teachers, researchers–whose life work has become dedicated to finding new and innovative ways for all of us to live greener lives. With the launch of The Green in 2007, the Sundance Channel became the first network in the US to dedicate a major regularly-scheduled program entirely to the environment. In its second season, the show will continue to offer focused, entertaining sources of information and inspiration on how every human being can become a greener citizen, by providing ideas and tangible ways to revamp all facets of our lives–the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the dwellings we inhabit, the products we buy, the cars we drive, etc.

Each episode revolves around a different green theme, spotlighting three specific innovators, from scientists to fashion and product designers, entrepreneurs to inventors, accompanied by the intelligent ponderings of people like geneticist and author, David Suzuki, GOOD Magazine founder, Ben Goldhirsh, and former Talking Heads frontman and bicycle advocate, David Byrne. They also have a wonderful slate of documentaries to accompany each episode, films like Oliver Hodge’s Garbage Warrior (see my blog post below), Jennifer Baichwal’s Manufactured Landscapes, The Nuclear Comeback by Justin Pemberton, Ian Cheney’s wonderful The Greening of Southie, Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht’s All in This Tea (the pretty picture is a still from Blank and Leibrecht’s film), Gregory Greene’s Escape from Suburbia, David Novack’s Burning the Future: Coal in America, Jeremy and Randy Stulberg’s Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa, Contested Streets: Breaking New York City Gridlock by Stefan Schaefer, Brenda Longfellow’s Weather Report, James Jandak Wood’s Crude Impact, Yves Billy’s Strait Through the Ice and Michael Taylor’s The Great Warming–an amazing line-up. Tune in and discover that, contrary to what Kermit the Frog says, it is pretty easy being green. The 13-week series runs from April 1 to June 24.

DocuClub was founded in ‘94 by filmmaker Susan Kaplan and the model was to show works-in-progress in feedback-based screenings where the filmmaker could take in critique and advice from peers and, sometimes, find financial backing for his or her project. Past films screened at DocuClub include Born Into Brothels (an Academy Award recipient for Best Documentary), The Boys of Baraka and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.

Katy Chevigny, co-founder and executive director of Arts Engine and principle of Big Mouth Films, says that DocuClub “has been instrumental to the evolution of documentary film over the past decade. Arts Engine is excited to build on its legacy and introduce even more documentary filmmakers to this indispensable resource.” Her film Innocent Until Proven Guilty screened at DocuClub back in 1998.

Arts Engine also announced that it’s re-launching its fiscal sponsorship program, which has provided services for over fifty feature-length nonfiction films, including My Kid Could Paint That, Favela Rising and The Trials of Darryl Hunt.

Felix Endara has recently joined Arts Engine and will head up the new iteration of DocuClub. He says that a major goal is to bridge the technological and generational divide between filmmakers brought up on long-form work and newer media-makers who have avenues of production and distribution that didn’t exist a few years ago.

The first screening for ‘08 will be Prodigal Sons, a film by Kimberly Reed. Reed was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2007. The screening will be held Thursday, April 3 at Goldcrest Post in the West Village.

The British documentary chronicles the maverick career of US architect, Reynolds, who uses beer cans, abandoned auto tires, disposable water bottles and other materials to create sustainable dwellings called earthships. The film was nominated in three categories at the ‘07 British Independent Film Awards. It screens with Louis Fox’s short The Story of Stuff, an exploration of the global materials economy and its impact on government, environment and health. I saw this short at the Making Your Media Matter Conference last month–it’s a wonderful little piece.

This screening is supported by Sundance Channel’s weekly Robert Redford presents THE GREEN. The film kicks off the second season of the show, Tuesday, April 1 at 9:30 p.m. EST.

In my next post, I’ll talk more about the upcoming season of THE GREEN and what they have in store–a great line-up of documentary films and plenty of snappy, engaging and entertaining original stories from around the nation.

So in thinking about those strategies, where can you find actual statistics on the best running time for shorts at a festival, a CHAID analysis of festival films (Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detector),–yes, we’re going into unfamiliar territory, but bear with me–festival film titles, language structure and the naming of independent film festivals? With bar charts and other things that will take you back to the algebra and geometry years, Matt Syrett does some number crunching on things that I really didn’t know could be crunched. Used to the dry box office stats, and the other ways and means in which film-related things are tracked, this is quite ground-breaking in terms of what we learn from his conclusions based on how the bits of data reveal themselves.

Matt is husband to documentary filmmaker, Cynthia Wade, director of Grist for the Mill (an intimate portrait of her family, she also met her future husband during the making of this film), Shelter Dogs, and this year’s festival darling, Freeheld (which is one of the best-titled movies, I think, because it speaks to both its subject and its director). Matt’s blog is called Independent Film by the Numbers at www.lathrios.com. Looking up “lathrios,” I learned that it’s a search engine “that instead of finding web pages, allows visitors to mine hidden word associations harvested from blog postings.” I like stumbling upon someone that sheds light on something I never even knew existed.

What this presents are more tools in a filmmaker’s arsenal, in a way, by having access to information like this. Most artists are resistant to a by-the-numbers approach–that’s why they’re artists, after all. However, according to Wade, whom I spoke with the other day, that very much is part of the artistic endeavor. As conversation after conversation shows (particularly with doc filmmakers), the marketing and distribution of independently-produced films without any kind of substantial corporate support behind them, is as wide open to your creativity as is crafting your story, or picking the perfect font for your credit roll. And as one of the godfathers of this stuff (odd, I know, to call such a young man a godfather, but like the SAGindie ads say, “We’ve made 7 films. And we’re ten!”), Arin Crumley, has been wont to say, “A lot of this stuff is as simple as sending an email”–simple to set up, simple to use, simple to track.

Syrett supplies one more resource to help you make savvy decisions when you’re ready to send your baby out there.