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October 2007

The IFP Market: Docs in Progress Alums Share Their Experiences

Tom Dziedzic

Carolyn Projansky and Susan Barocas

July 2007

Appalachian Activism: Catherine Pancake

April 2007

CurrentTV - Short Films, Long Reach

Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson

ALUMNI ALMANAC

A new feature to the Docs in Progress newsletter and website, this column will spotlight Docs in Progress workshop or Peer Pitch alumni to see how their projects have developed.

October 2007

The IFP Market: Docs in Progress Alums Share Their Experiences

The IFP Market is one of the major events for independent documentary filmmakers to get attention from industry executives while there films are still works in progress.  Held every September in New York, two of our Docs in Progress alumni, Tom Dziedzic (Redemption Stone: the Life and Times of Tom Lewis/Screened January 2007) and Carolyn Projansky (The Fast Lane/Screened May 2005) attended this year’s Market.  Dziedzic was there with a revamped version of Redemption Stone, one of only six shorts accepted to the Market.  Projansky was there with Breaking the Rules, a feature length documentary she is co-producing with another Washington DC-based filmmaker, Susan Barocas.  We asked the filmmakers to tell us more about their experiences at IFP.

Tom Dziedzic

Then you have to get all your print materials ready to take with you.  I created press kits, custom postcards, special business cards and a poster.  I sent out personal invitations to select Industry reps that were interested in shorts and who would be attending the Market.  I did contact four other filmmakers who had previously attended the IFP Market and their advice was very helpful.  The IFP Market staff were all great, very helpful and attentive to any needs, questions or concerns.  

The Market experience itself was exciting, fun and tiring.  It was spread out between three downtown New York City locations only blocks apart.  So it was easy to get around by foot.  The screenings, all at the Angelika Film Center, were first class with good projection and audio.  Redemption Stone was screened twice and the audience was a mix of industry people and other filmmakers.  There were several festival programmers interested in my short and one film distributor did make a firm offer for educational distribution.  It was also great attending other screenings to see what your peers where producing.  I saw many excellent shorts, features and works-in-progress. 

I made all kinds of contacts including distributors, cable TV reps, funding organizations, festival programmers as well as other filmmakers and film related people like composers, editors, scriptwriters and even entertainment lawyers.  The mix of people was wonderful.  IFP was very supportive. I learned a whole lot about the indie film market and what people are looking for.  It got me thinking about which future projects to develop and which ones to put on the back burner.  And I became friends with other filmmakers whose work was inspiring.

In terms of the specific challenges of going to IFP with a short, it was mixed bag.  Cable TV reps were way more interested in features.  One cable programmer told me ”we don’t want anything past tense” so historical docs were off the radar with some reps.  Some festival programmers only wanted “short shorts” so they could program those before a feature.  But then other festival programmers liked longer shorts so they could program two or three in a block of 60 or 90 minutes. 

One especially fun experience: On Monday night all the filmmakers were invited to the USA premiere of a new film Honeydripper directed by John Sayles who introduced the film. While waiting in line to get in, we met Dee Rees, a director who had recently worked with Wendell Pierce, the actor who plays “Bunk” on HBO’s The Wire.  We indicated how much we admired Mr. Pierce’s acting in show.  Then Dee says, “Well you’re about to meet ‘Bunk’ in person” as he was just walking down the street.  When Wendell saw Dee he came over and chatted with us for a while.  Yes, we got his autograph.  Only in New York!

I’d definitely recommend other filmmakers try IFP.  Present your best work and a good pitch. IFP has a “works-in-progress” category for features that I would recommend if you have something in production but need assistance with funding or distribution. 

Carolyn Projansky and Susan Barocas

Photo: Susan Barocas and Carolyn Projansky take a break from schmoozing at the IFP Market. We knew about IFP for several years before applying with our film, Breaking the Rules, a 90-minute feature documentary that explores an important untold story from South Africa – the story of the whites who opposed and fought against apartheid as allies in the struggle for racial justice.  We already had attended other documentary markets and industry events with this film, including MIP-TV, Real Screen, the World Congress of History Producers, Sithengi (in South Africa) and, of course, Silverdocs.  We have found markets to be very helpful for their opportunities to encounter key decision makers face to face, particularly in informal social settings.  IFP is a prestigious market and very competitive, which makes acceptance to IFP a valuable achievement in the quest for film financing.  There’s no other market that we’re familiar with in the United States that pre-selects projects for inclusion.  All others are open to whoever chooses to pay for entry.

We applied to the Works in Progress section of what they call “Spotlight on Documentaries.”  The application process takes only a moderate amount of time, but it is very precise, requiring you to have a tightly worded 25-word logline, 60-word synopsis and other short descriptions for your film which, as we all know, are the hardest descriptions to write.   

There are numerous deadlines to meet throughout the process,  and they start to come up rather quickly once you're notified of  

acceptance.  These include submitting a two-minute  teaser/     

trailer, final catalog copy, head shots, copies of your work for the video library and a screening copy of the work you're showing.  In addition, there are printed materials that are crucial to maximizing the experience.   

The first video clip you send them, a two minute teaser or ‘trailer” and the written catalog copy (essentially your application text), informs the industry reps’ decisions on which filmmakers they’d like to meet with at the market.  You also need a longer video clip for screening in a theatre (ours was 12-minutes) and DVDs of the same video for buyers to screen in a library screening room.  In addition, IFP strongly recommends that you bring press kits, postcards and other marketing materials, which we did.  In retrospect, our most valuable marketing component was the lobby card, a postcard or similar sized, very visual “flyer.” We put them on tables everywhere and handed them out to people we met along the way. 

In the weeks leading up to IFP, we found ourselves rather uncertain about “what works” at IFP and what aspects of the process were most important to focus on.  We spent many days cutting and re-cutting our “work in progress” video clip and did not regret the effort we invested.  With the help of Docs in Progress, we called a producer who had previously attended IFP and she provided us with many helpful hints, such as, “Don’t worry about how big an audience you have for your screening. The screening is not that important.”

To create a press kit, we worked with a graphic designer and also did some design work in-house to create a two-sided, color one sheet and lobby card as part of a multi-page press kit.  In deciding what to print, we adapted the suggestions in the IFP Filmmakers Guide to our project and budget.  In one respect, we felt we were a bit “ahead of the game” because we had already printed a one-sheet for MIP-TV in April.  We revised and adapted that for IFP. 
 
The last two weeks leading up to the Market were particularly grueling.  Nearly every day we received new missives from IFP. Among them was a notification that we were semi-finalists for a cash prize we hadn’t heard about before, for socially-conscious documentary. The notice asked us to submit a detailed educational outreach plan within a few days and we spent a frenzied 48 hours pulling that together (we didn’t win).  

Ten days before IFP started (and the day before Rosh Hashanah!) we received the most important email of all -- our meeting list. This is THE list of buyers who had requested meetings with us. We were initially disappointed by the number, seven meetings. However, as we discovered at IFP, that number was rather typical.  Our calendar for the week also seemed unbalanced -- we had been given four meetings the first day PLUS our screening!  The other three meetings were scattered over the remaining three days.  IFP doesn’t attempt to negotiate meeting times with buyers unless there is a direct scheduling conflict.  

At the same time, we were notified that the industry buyers list was on the IFP website and were urged to “make use of it,” although it wasn’t at all clear what that meant.  We did not know whether anyone who did not request a meeting with us would reconsider if we contacted them.  We came up with a list of 25 and we prepared a pitch to fax them.  We were unable to find fax numbers for six of our target companies and there is no way to know who specifically from the company will be attending. 

The Filmmaker’s Guide we received from IFP right after our initial acceptance was supposed to provide us with a step-by-step roadmap to the process. It was reasonably helpful, but we found numerous aspects that were definitely not at all clear to a “first-timer.”  We found ourselves either calling or emailing IFP staff many times before the market to ask for clarifications. Before the market started, when we had questions or needed guidance, the response varied quite a bit from patient and helpful to giving off a sense that the person on the other end of the phone (or email) was too busy to deal with this even if it was stated as being their job.  Understandably, they seemed overworked and a bit stressed before the market. 

The market was energizing and exhausting, exciting and a bit exasperating. It was fairly easy to navigate, but there were two main drawbacks that were related -- having to navigate between three different sites, each a few New York City blocks away (but great for getting exercise!) and the lack of opportunities to meet and mix with industry people.   Filmmakers were mainly "kept" in one building that housed the Filmmakers’ Conference (discussion sessions), a filmmakers’ lounge and our mailboxes.  The site for the industry meetings was a few blocks away.  IDs were checked and you were pretty much allowed entry to that building only if you were on the list of meetings scheduled over the next couple of hours with industry reps.  Few industry people showed up at the opening film and reception or in the daily filmmaker lounge gatherings each evening.  So there were lots of filmmakers talking to other filmmakers – a wonderful and enriching experience but not the purpose of our being at the market.  In our experience, one of the primary benefits to being at a film market is the opportunity to meet industry reps in both formal and informal settings. At IFP, the informal settings were all but absent.   

Our screening was scheduled for noon on the first full day of IFP.  So we had very little time to invite people to the screening who were not already planning to attend.   To boost our screening audience, we did what we had time for – we spent Sunday afternoon during and after the orientation session preparing and then stuffing large envelopes with a one sheet and personal note to each our top picks.  We gave the envelopes to IFP staff to stuff into industry mailboxes because filmmakers don't have access to those mailboxes, a real drawback from our point of view.  There is no way for us to know whether that happened, but later in the week we met industry reps who had never even opened their mailboxes.  We do think the faxing and stuffing mailboxes helped generate a bit more interest, but it's so hard to measure because, as we all know, this a long-term effort with payoff often way down the road.   

If there were something we wish we had done differently, we wish we had printed business cards with the name of the film, rather than using our company business cards.  We would also consider producing some sort of promotional item, such as a catchy button or T-shirt to help create a buzz.  There were a few filmmakers with these items and they were very noticeable.  In our case, Breaking the Rules would look great on a button and we probably would have seen people wearing them.  There were buttons that simply said Unattached which was the name of another project and people definitely picked them up and wore them. We would definitely recommend that anyone attending IFP spend significant time and effort creating an effective “lobby card” or handout that promoted the day and time of your screening at Angelika. Being one of the first films shown, it was difficult for us to promote the screening, but having a sticker on our lobby card would have been helpful.

The screening itself is a 25-minute time slot which is meant to include (1) introducing yourselves and your film, (2) showing a clip of any length and, (3)  a Q&A.  The filmmaker can decide how much time to allot for each of those elements, so if you prefer to screen a 20-minute clip and not have a Q&A, you are free do so.  But the time is strictly monitored. IFP’s screening staff, in particular, was great.  Our screening went smoothly and when there was a glitch, they immediately offered a second screening free. Attendance at our screening was sparse, but typical of others we attended. It included several fellow filmmakers, reps from a couple of large production companies, two film festivals and a distributor.  In the end, mostly filmmakers attend the in-theater screenings because industry people can go to the video library or on-line to screen projects on their own schedule. We befriended the video library staff which resulted in our getting information as soon as it was available and several times earlier than we would have otherwise.

It is also valuable, particularly at an early stage in the making of a film, to see a clip “on the big screen” in a theater and get feedback from an audience.  As we all know (and the strength of Docs in Progress is), feedback from an audience is absolutely invaluable to help a filmmaker objectively evaluate technical aspects as well as your story, characters, emotional draw of the film and all those intangibles that you must have, in the end, to make a good film. 

We had some great meetings at IFP.  For example, we met with a key decision maker at PBS who was already enthusiastic about our project before we sat down.   She has written a strong letter of support that we were able to include in a funding proposal.  Other good meetings included the Sundance Institute and a large production/post production house in New York that provides in-kind services (in return for some ownership of rights, presumably.)  There were several individuals who attended our screening and/or viewed our DVD in the screening library that we will try to contact as follow-up.  Relative to other markets where we leave with many, many casually-met contact names, after IFP there are relatively few. The difference is that most contacts made at IFP are high quality because there is already interest from the potential buyer. In the end, the meeting we had with PBS was worth all the effort and may never have happened without our attending IFP.

One of the best aspects of IFP is that it is a vetted process -- your project is screened, evaluated and chosen for participation. That adds very valuable credibility to the work you're doing and puts the filmmaker in a different power dynamic than at other markets. You're not begging for meetings, but rather you are selected for meetings by industry reps who have seen your trailer and/or read about your project in the catalog. Whatever the outcome, it's a nice feeling, a confidence builder and a source of great feedback to know that decision-makers chose to meet with you. 

It is important for independent filmmakers to remember that every film market is different and serves a different function.  Some people exclusively attend IFP every year and no others.  We feel that is not a smart approach because every market/conference has something different to offer.  Large markets are different from small ones. Markets that are mainly conferences and workshops are different from ones that primarily offer exhibitor booths for doing business (e.g., MIP-TV).  Some markets emphasize their pitching forum (IDFA). Others focus on screening films.  There are film markets all over the world and they offer a wide variety of options for the filmmaker.  You should sample a few and see what you like.  But rest assured, all of them have great parties.  Enjoy! 

To see the full list of films which screened at this year’s IFP Market, click here.  To attend next year, stay tuned to the IFP Website.  Submission deadlines are generally in late spring/early summer.

July 2007

Appalachian Activism: Catherine Pancake

Catherine Pancake screened BLACK DIAMONDS: MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL AND THE BATTLE FOR COALFIELD JUSTICE at Docs in Progress in July 2006.  The film, about the impact of surface coal extraction on the environment and communities of Appalachian West Virginia, has become a shining example of how a documentary can have an by focusing on grassroots outreach.  We talked to Pancake about her approach to the film and particularly to its outreach.

No stranger to the world of film, Pancake had established herself as a musician and avant garde filmmaker in Baltimore, Maryland.  BLACK DIAMONDS, however, would be her first documentary.  “Foolishly, I felt that the documentary form would be as easy if not easier than personal experimental work because the facts are obvious and the story lines seemed more obvious,” recalls Pancake.  “However, I quickly learned that the art of making a documentary, especially a feature, went way, way beyond anything I had attempted before.  Crafting a compelling and dramatic story from a slow-moving struggle that mostly involves a lot of law suits, legislative action, waiting, monitoring mine sites, and gathering evidence about environmental violations was extremely hard.”

Pancake did not go it alone.  She collaborated with her sister Ann, a fiction writer who was also passionate about the issue of mountaintop removal.  The fact that the two were natives of West Virginia made a difference in being able to get access to the story and the characters.  “We had some immediate connections and the ability to talk about the love of the mountains, the cultural value of the people, and the price we were willing to pay with our time and energy to work on the project,” says Pancake. “We were also very clear that one of our goals upfront was to avoid any Appalachian stereotyping or presentation of them that would in any way diminish their personal integrity.”

One of the keys to their approach was to involve community activist groups early on in the process.  “We first contacted more visible Appalachian groups such as Appalachian Voices and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition that were already performing outreach to spread the word about the issue.  They were very responsive.  These ‘pro’ activists then referred us to the citizens in the community who were literally risking jobs, safety, and reputations to fight the issue in their own small towns.”  Even participating in the film was a risk for some of them notes Pancake.  “In order to gain the trust of the local activists, we had to demonstrate that we had a very serious interest in the issue and that we understood the risks they were taking in allowing themselves to be documented on camera with a position un-popular with the local coal industry and unions.”  

The film ultimately took six years to complete, not uncommon in the world of independent documentary.  Pancake felt is was important to “make sure that have an end in sight and that you conclude the piece at the right time.  We intended to end in
2004, but extended the film because a lot of other relevant things happened in the movement in 2005 that we felt we had to include.” 

While funding can be one of the challenges for many independent documentaries like BLACK DIAMONDS, Pancake kept herself focused.  She feels it’s important to “keep your fund-raising hat on as much as possible without being too annoying.  Try to keep materials ready as you do the work in progress. Have your short cuts, trailers and other information on hand upfront.  Funders can get in a mood to provide money , but by the time you get them a cut they may be on to other things.  Just because you work on something for a long time doesn't necessarily mean anyone will care.”  

Keeping her own motivation along the way came from getting feedback at different stages of the project.  “This is a very different psychological process from presenting personal work that goes straight from one's mind to the screen with a singular and subjective motivation.”  Pancake’s sister Ann and Elizabeth McGraw, a freelance editor who cared about the issue “provided a ton of feedback and notes” for the first cut.  The filmmaker also showed the film to others slowly to get on-going feedback about what they like and disliked.  She held a focus group at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore with about 20 people who had various degrees of knowledge about the issue.  Her post-production team at Mission Media provided some polish to the film. 

By the time Pancake screened the work at Docs in Progress, the film was close to the fine cut and just needed one last reality check.  “Docs in Progress was invaluable in providing concrete feedback on the piece.  The feedback I got went beyond a discussion of the subject matter and into the actual structure of the piece in a real and valuable way.  It can be extremely hard to get this kind of feedback for free - and even if you try to pay.  I really wish I would have been more involved with Docs in Progress programs before I started the piece as I would have approached quite a few things differently and more effectively in terms of networking and funding.”

Pancake also found grounding in keeping her creative juices flowing through working on other projects “so everything in your creative life isn't riding on one project.  I made other short pieces, did musical projects and other collaborations to try to not have all my eggs emotionally in one basket.”  She also feels it is important to be inspired by the work of other filmmakers.  “Obviously Barbara Kopple was a filmmaker I studied a lot on my own,” says Pancake about the documentarian who helped humanize Appalachia with her groundbreaking 1976 film HARLAN COUNTY USA.  But Pancake does not limit herself to documentaries.  “I watch a ton of films constantly and I'm influenced by everyone from Werner Herzog (who I have very conflicted feelings about) to Chan-wook Park to Jane Campion to Serge Leone!!  I also have a rotating list of experimental film-makers I watch - Nancy Andrews, Suzan Pitt, Ana Hallin, Jenni Olsen, etc.”  In terms of documentaries, Pancake notes that she recently saw MAXED OUT, James Scurlock’s  incisive documentary about the credit card industry and felt “it should be required viewing for all high schools students.”

She has similar hopes for her own film and is working hard on outreach.  While many filmmakers may only aspire to seeing their films broadcast or have a theatrical run, Pancake sees the power of her documentary as something much broader – a tool which can be used in activism.  “My priority in the getting the film out was to try to get it shown in the areas most impacted by the environmental harm.  Many Appalachian academics, activists, and others who follow the issue had been waiting for the film to be available, so we had been keeping a database of all the folks who desperately needed the film to help demonstrate the effect of the practice on the citizens.”  The advance “buzz” about the film created a ready-market and screenings were booked well in advance, especially in Appalachian communities in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee.  The grassroots approach helped Pancake succeed in getting funding for outreach from the Paul Robeson Fund [Docs in Progress also recently talked to the Fund’s Director of Grantmaking, Trinh Duong] As a result, Pancake was able to provide free DVDs to activist groups so they could distribute them to people in low income coal communities.  The film has also been used and promoted by national environmental groups working to raise awareness of the human impact of coal.

Pancake sees this national focus as key since she doesn’t want her film to be seen as just  a local interest story.  “I think the film is but another message and piece of evidence that helps people in West Virginia see how the coal industry is not helping the state or its future.  Because of the state’s political system and its reliance on the coal industry for campaign money, I think change will only come from a national push forcing the state to stop.”  The film has played at festivals, universities, and conferences in places as far afield as Anchorage, Alaska and New Orleans, Louisiana.  The Rain Forest Action Network has worked hard to arrange for screenings in San Francisco and other West Coast cities. A 72-minute version of the film was also acquired by Bullfrog Films, a leading U.S. educational distributor which specializes in environmental topics.   “We are continuing to push hard for screening in the Northeast, particularly with the Ivy League schools to try to reach those students and academics who are cultivating the people who will more than likely be in positions of privilege and power making decisions about energy production and usage in the US.”  And Pancake does not rule out the possibility of getting an international distributor since she believes the topic can have a universal resonance, especially in countries with strong environmental activist movements.

“I'm personally interested in provocation, revealing social stress and conflict, the ability to bring an aesthetic to the subject matter that takes it into a cinematic realm somehow.”  Pancake feels she has grown tremendously as a filmmaker through the process of making the film.   “I feel extremely proud to have completed a distributed feature before I turned 40.  It basically expanded my knowledge on all levels, technically, creatively, relationships gained, and a general better understand of the national documentary market.”  For Pancake, the accomplishments are measured by the impact the film has on individuals.  “I've gotten a few standing ovations which feels good, but the best outcomes are when you inspire another artist or create some sort of lasting change.  A Maryland Institute College of Art student wrote a grant to do a photography project on coal surface mine sites after seeing my doc.  He won the 4k grant and will have exhibitions in Baltimore and Chicago.  Students at a small college where I showed the film restarted an environmental group to press the school on green energy.  These things are moments of success.”


BLACK DIAMONDS continues to be screened at venues across the country, including an upcoming screening at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV on October 29.  For more information, visit the film’s official website or to arrange a screening or get a copy of the film, contact Bullfrog Films.  In the meantime, Pancake is shooting a 35 mm short film based on comical haikus by Baltimore poet Jai Brooks and is laying the groundwork for some other short narrative pieces and possibly a larger documentary in Baltimore.

April 2007

CurrentTV - Short Films, Long Reach: Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson

In our first edition, we are highlighting the work of Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson of qWaves Productions.  Wilson presented in Docs in Progress’ first Peer Pitch program in October 2005 with HEARTLAND USA, a work-in-progress about the controversy surrounding a same-sex marriage announcement appearing in the local paper of a small rural town in Pennsylvania.  Hamer presented his short THE PREACHER AND THE POET about the challenges of being young, black, and gay at the May 2006 Docs in Progress public workshop.  The film was a national finalist in the Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival.  

Like many independents, filmmaking is not a full-time career for Wilson or Hamer.  Wilson works for a foundation that supports human rights work in the United States, Haiti, South Africa, Mexico and Northern Ireland.  Hamer is a scientist working on two socially charged issues - HIV/AIDS and the biology of human sexuality - and an author of popular science books including the controversial The God Gene, which was featured on the cover of Time Magazine.  However, both have always combined their passion for justice with their work and see documentary filmmaking as an        Filmmakers Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson.

extension of that.  “For us, filmmaking goes

hand in hand with social activism.” says Wilson, “The world
is full of important stories that need to be told to a broader audience and we think that film is a wonderful way to accomplish that aim.  That was the incentive for us to form qWaves and start making short documentaries.”

The two started out making shorts for several practical reasons.  “Neither of us had any prior experience making films,” admits Hamer, “This made the idea of spending years on a feature film pretty scary – like starting a novel without ever having written a full paragraph.”  But they also saw that the short form had another important benefit -- outreach.  According to Hamer, “The young audience we want to reach is more likely to watch a three minute film on the Internet than a 90 minute film in a theater.” 

Instead of uploading their projects on YouTube only to get lost in the morass of content, Hamer and Wilson have instead focused many of their efforts on another mainstay of viewer-created content – Current TV.  Rolling Stone Magazine recently called Current TV “the best integration of television and the Internet to date.”  While Current TV may have benefited initially from the publicity of its co-founder being Al Gore, it is the work of independent filmmakers like Hamer and Wilson which are sustaining the network. 

Wilson and Hamer were drawn to Current TV because it would allow them to get their films out faster than waiting for festivals, which Hamer says was especially important for a film like THE PREACHER AND THE POET since it was drawing on the topical issue of Reverend Willie Wilson’s controversial remarks about homosexuality and youth.  “Current TV is a terrific way to get your short works seen by a broad audience, to obtain national television broadcast without having to go through a network, and to interact with a community of documentary filmmakers interested in social issues,” says Hamer.  

They were also drawn to the fact that Current TV offers multiformat platforms, since online films – which are usually anywhere from one to ten minutes long – can be “greenlighted” by viewers to be broadcast on Current TV’s television network.  A licensing fee is paid for any films broadcast on the network.  The two have had eight short forms selected for broadcast on topics ranging from the lighthearted (bodyboard surfing) to the weighty (HIV prevention and homophobia).  “Although our aims are serious, our approach is playful,” says Wilson, “We want to make people think, but also to laugh.”

Wilson submitted the first film he ever made, OTROS AMORES to Current TV’s Videomaker Magazine Challenge on a lark.  It ended up winning an award.  He was also a national semi-finalist in Current TV’s 2006 Seeds of Tolerance competition for WE BELONG, a short film he made as he and Hamer were shooting HEARTLAND USA.  “When we saw the mission of the Seeds of Tolerance competition, we knew it was just the right match for the type of work we do, which is to use film as a way to promote change in the community,” says Wilson, “We had the perfect story - a gay teen who sought our help to make a documentary about the discrimination and violence he had suffered in his rural school.” 

After a story consultation with Docs in Progress, Wilson submitted WE BELONG into the competition where it went through a three-stage judging process by staff, sponsors, and celebrity judges, and eventually was selected from nearly 400 submissions to be among the six finalists to be voted on by the viewing public.  Once the finalists were announced, Wilson and Hamer went to work on getting as many people as possible to see and vote for the film.  “Little did we know that we were in for a long and anxious month of digging, scratching, begging and scrounging for votes through every blog, website, friend or foe we ever had, “ says Hamer, “It was occasionally frustrating because the voting format made the competition a bit of a popularity contest.  But we learned a lot about film promotion and marketing, which are essential skills for any documentary filmmaker.”  The film ultimately attracted about 10,000 views and over 3,000 greenlights.  It won third place in the competition and was shown on the big screen at a red carpet ceremony in Hollywood.  Wilson received a $10,000 award which he is going to use towards the cost of making HEARTLAND USA.  “More importantly,” he adds, “we garnered wide public attention to the important issue of homophobia in the school system.”    As a result of the publicity, PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) groups around the country have begun using WE BELONG for education and outreach.  Additionally, film festivals are now requesting screeners of the film.  “It was something of a reversal of the usual path to outreach, broadcasting first and then going the festival route” notes Wilson, “but it’s certainly been seen by quite a few people.”

Hamer and Wilson both found their Docs in Progress experiences essential to their growth as filmmakers.  In just a few short years, they feel they have improved beyond simply grasping the technology of the camera and editing system to really focusing on storytelling: to look for characters and how they change, to try to document action over talking head interviews, and to show multiple sides of an issue.  “WE BELONG was our first attempt to actually tell a story rather than simply paint a picture or portray a performance,” says Hamer, “Sitting in on the Docs in Progress sessions were key to learning how to do that.” 

2007-2008, Docs In Progress
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