Franny Armstrong and producer Liz Garrett, who made The Age of Stupid (UK, 2009), used a com-bination of strategies to get the film off the ground. The concept of ‘crowd funding’ has been brought to a big audience and managed to get a great deal of attention among filmmakers.
Many films have of course been funded by friends, families or remortgaging houses but this concept brought funding into a very different arena: the internet. A website was created and individuals or groups of people who would form a syndicate could buy shares in the production of the film. In exchange, they would be mentioned in the credits and receive a share of the profits. You can find more detailed information, legal documents and the strategy on The Age of Stupid website. There are now specialist websites that provide ‘crowd funding’ opportunities:
www.kickstarter.com and www.indiegogo.com
3. The artist-documentary filmmaker
It’s a way of seeing. It’s a way of being, a way of understanding. It’s a language. A way of interpreting the world and telling stories about the world. It crosses borders.
(Luke Holland, interview 2007)
Artist-documentary filmmakers are generally self-employed or have a company to produce their own work, but they do not tend to work for other companies or broadcasters. They consider themselves artists and often have other creative skills (photography, writing). Their work is, to a certain extent, autobiographically driven. The films are an expression of personal interests, fascinations and possible obsessions.
I have had my own company since 1990. It’s small. It’s independent. It’s a vehicle for me to make the documentary films I want to make. It’s partly also so that the company can maintain the rights of the products. Films are commissioned through the company and we maintain the rights through the backend.
(Ibid.)
4. The activist documentary filmmaker
Facilitated by cheaper cameras and editing software, documentaries driven by new global move-ments such as anti-globalisation and environmentalist resistance to mainstream media and their corporate messages have become more visible on the internet. Documentaries such as The Corporation, McLibel and The Yes Men have reached bigger audiences through the internet and exhibition in independent cinemas or alternative venues. The activist filmmaker uses documen-tary as a tool to expose social and economic injustice or environmental exploitation. The activist filmmaker is part of a social movement and either personally funds his/her programme or man-ages to obtain sponsorship from sympathetic NGOs or charities. Although much has been written about the monopolisation of the media industry, the erosion of public values or the intrusion of corporate values in culture, never in history have so many pressure groups been so active in civil society. The internet has provided activist filmmakers with a global distribution channel and the
Figure 4.1 Selling shares to fund The Age of Stupid
low cost of producing copies on DVD has made this group more prominent in both the public sphere and on the internet.
The characteristics of this group of filmmakers are:
• Independence from existing media organisations
• Radical content, challenging mainstream views or revealing hidden realities
• Alternative forms of distribution: internet, small independent cinemas or alternative venues where one-off events take place
• Belonging to social movements – often production takes place in a non-hierarchical, partici-patory production group, taking the formal structure of a co-op
• They often take up the role of citizen journalists by reporting on events not reported in main-stream media or hidden from journalists as the footage is shot under cover.
A well-known and successful international activist media network is Indiemedia (Coyer, 2005), which describes itself as ‘A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues’ (see Indiemedia website, accessed 20 April 2010).
The news often presents a sanitised version of events or actions and has a clear bias towards powerful NGOs, corporate industry or government organisations. To get on TV you need to set up visual stunts just as Greenpeace does. I have nothing against Greenpeace, they have been very successful but it is now an established pressure group.
We organise ourselves according to our interests – whether it is abuse of animal rights, environmental disasters or abuse of human rights. Big themes but translated into local actions, protesting against another bypass, or a lab which misuses animals.
It is dynamic and constantly moving. I’m basically a full-time media activist. It’s my life.
(Anonymous, interview July 2007)
5. The ambitious amateur
When the Documentary Filmmakers Group (DFG) was being set up, and since 4Docs, YouTube and MySpace have appeared on the internet, it has become apparent that there is a large group of documentary filmmakers who make films in their leisure time, either as a hobby or with the ambition to enter the industry. Channel 4’s 4Docs catered very well for this ambition as it selected four documentaries every month which would be shown to commissioning editors.
This could lead to an offer of a place on one of Channel 4’s training programmes or a film being commissioned as part of their scheme to recruit new talent. After a brief period when it was unavailable, 4Docs was relaunched in 2010.
Amateur filmmaking has boomed since cheap cameras and editing software have become affordable and the internet offered a distribution channel. Many of the filmmakers might have more serious ambitions, but others have integrated footage about their lives as a form of com-munication in a social network environment.
6. The commercial entrepreneur
If you want to come into this business, you’ve got to treat it like a business.
(David Notman-Watt, interview January 2008)
These filmmakers tend to approach their work as a business and operate within the demands of the market, and of broadcasters. This does not necessarily imply that they follow market
demands uncritically, but due to their filmmaking experience, contacts and know-how, they are able to navigate through the system and to negotiate more favourable conditions.