The State of Documentary Film - Episode II. Getting Deeper at Getting Real
A Week in Los Angeles with Fellow Filmmakers, Industry Members, and the IDA
Welcome to this week’s Wednesday edition of The Backlot. These mid-week newsletters are reserved for deep dives of the latest filmmaking news, interviews with filmmakers, and episodic series on major issues affecting the industry.
NOTE - The mid-week version of the newsletter will be free for the next few weeks before moving to a paid subscription in May…
This week, we’re continuing our series on the Documentary Film Industry and getting a deeper on-the-ground look at the documentary film industry at Getting Real…
🎞️ Getting Real with the International Documentary Association
🎬 Looking Ahead to the Next Edition
🗞️ Latest News and Updates from the Film Industry
Catch up with the previous episode first…
Sitting with my face pressed against the window of an empty Metrolink train as it barrels past the neverending suburban landscape of Southern California, I started collecting my thoughts from the past few days.
I spent four days walking around Little Tokyo during the International Documentary Association’s Getting Real Conference, aiming to learn more about the industry and grow my community of friends and filmmakers. I also went into the event looking to get an on-the-ground perception of the feelings and emotions around the documentary film industry.
The annual documentary filmmaking conference held every year in Los Angeles by the International Documentary Association brings together filmmakers and industry members from all over the world, including notable names such as Kristen Johson (Dick Johnson is Dead and Cameraperson) and Jean-Marie Teno ( Clando and Africa, I'll pluck you…).
This year, the theme of the conference was Strategy, Networks, and Access focusing on bringing together filmmakers to create better and more just systems moving forward in our industry.
Here is a little bit of what I learned. To view the videos, speeches, and updates from Getting Real, visit the IDA’s website here.
The Entire Industry Needs to Evolve
One of the biggest takeaways from the conference was the changing landscape of documentary film. Throughout the event, there was a collective agreement that the current landscape of documentary filmmaking and distribution is failing.
Throughout the week, I had many conversations with filmmakers about this issue and their thoughts on the current state of our industry, and although everyone remained optimistic, nearly everyone agreed that there are major issues with distribution, funding, sustainability, and accessibility.
These issues were punctuated by some of the news that broke during the week—Participant Media's shutdown, announced by their owner, Jeff Skoll. The company, which financed films such as Roma and RBG, has long advocated for socially progressive documentary filmmaking.
In an article by the Hollywood Reporter, sources close to Skroll stated, “The marketplace has changed materially since he first started, and he’s no longer super involved. I don’t know that the Participant brand means what it used to in today’s environment.”
The closing of Participant is a major loss for the documentary field. As more distributors conglomerate or close down, socially forward companies looking to finance real stories are harder to come by.
The news seemed to cloud a few of the talks that morning and only enhanced the community’s sense of urgency to develop solutions.
AI Is On Everyone’s Minds
Sometime during the week, I lost count of the number of conversations I had involving artificial intelligence and machine learning programs. It seemed like every single workshop, panel event, and keynote speech touched on the issue in a different way.
The presence of AI in the film world has been a major topic lately, and we’ve seen the narrative industry reckoning with it for the past few months. In documentary filmmaking, though, the presence of AI is more than just concerning to filmmakers; it’s a threat to the health and safety of our society.
During the conference, two major announcements made headlines. First, news surfaced that a new Netflix crime documentary used AI-rendered images to reimagine the life of the victim prior to their murder. The news highlighted the major issue at hand: there are dangers to filmmakers using AI to rearrange the truth.
At the same time, during the conference, The Archival Producer’s Alliance announced new guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence in documentary filmmaking, seeking to counter these exact situations.
“We can’t know the future, but we believe we have a responsibility to use GAI in accordance with the journalistic values the documentary community has long held,” stated the APA in an open letter published in the Hollywood Reporter.
“Generated material presented as “real” in one film will be passed along—on the internet, in other films—and is in danger of forever muddying the historical record. The commingling of real and unreal taints all of it; if neither images nor audio can be believed, then the nonfiction genre is hopelessly compromised.”
Throughout the conference, this use of artificial intelligence was brought up in many different ways, including by a few of the keynotes who both celebrated and condemned the use of artificial intelligence.
In Kristen Johnson’s keynote, she talked about how AI cannot possess the same type of understanding of filmmaking and storytelling as humans, because it does not have a body. She also made us look into our neighbor’s eyes for a minute, inducing some intimate moments between strangers in the conference hall.
At one of the lunches, I spoke with a few members of Google’s Machine Learning program, who seemed optimistic about the possibilities of AI-assisted productions. In a later talk they gave on these possibilities, a fellow documentarian shared how she used the technology to work with a production crew across four different languages.
In a conversation with another filmmaker, he mentioned the idea of content that is generated without artificial intelligence becoming more of a premium and delicacy, such as what we see with organic foods.
The idea is interesting but also terrifying because it means the “real” content is only available to the wealthier levels of our society. This would leave less-wealthy and marginalized communities subject to more constructed content, creating a perfect recipe for abuses of power and control.
These only outline a few of the conversations around artificial intelligence, which will clearly remain one of the hottest topics in the industry.
Solutions and Revolutions Are Coming
One of the things I admire most about the documentary filmmaking community is its resilience and ability to find solutions to the pressing issues facing our society.
Although there was much animosity, nervousness, and anxiety around topics such as distribution, artificial intelligence, and funding - the conference still felt alive with hope and an eagerness to build new systems that elevate the future of our industry.
In one of the first talks of the week, the Documentary Producer’s Alliance announced guidelines for negotiating contracts, helping producers ensure they are receiving fair and sustainable wages for their work.
One of the interesting aspects of these guidelines is their recommendation to work on a weekly pay rate, instead of a flat fee. Flat fees, which are considered an “unwritten rule” in our industry, usually indicate that producers are supposed to be paid a percentage of the budget. The DPA argues that these pay rates encourage unfair compensation, especially when projects take years to make.
Other solutions involved distribution. During a panel titled “The Hot Seat,” executives from Latinx Public Broadcasting, CPH:DOX, Chicken & Egg, and XTR answered questions from the audience.
Although the group tried their best to walk the line between saying enough and saying too much, they all agreed that change was needed.
Bryn Mooser, the panelist from XTR, talked a lot about Documentary Plus, a platform that allows audiences to stream documentaries for free, as a potential model for the future of distribution. We’ve seen these models on other platforms, such as Waterbear, another documentary streaming platform that focuses on environmental docs.
Although these platforms are not the complete answer to the distribution issues, they are options, progress, and potentially the building blocks for a future solution.
The Truth Behind What We Do
One of the more powerful themes throughout the conference was the reinforcement that documentary filmmaking is powerful and has a necessary purpose in our society.
Throughout the conference, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the ongoing siege of Gaza were major topics among the filmmaking audience. Several keynotes discussed the conflict, including a powerful and emotional speech by Jemma Desai.
For generations, documentary filmmaking has been a powerful tool for shedding light on issues and conflicts. The power of using the camera to give voice to the voiceless is a reason so many of us got into this field in the first place.
In the last few years, as documentary filmmaking has struggled to support filmmakers' livelihoods, there has been a concern that we will lose our passion and ability to tell these stories. Although there are still a lot of things that need to be improved, I think the desire and passion for shedding light on the pressing issues in our society is alive and well.
Regardless of distribution potential, acquisition costs, or even a budget, documentary filmmakers continue to tell stories and amplify the voices of others. We just have to take the solutions into our own hands and demand better systems that are more just, sustainable, and inclusive.
As Desai said in her keynote speech, “You can have everything you ask for, so ask for everything.”
On the Next Episode
In the next couple of episodes of this series, we will tackle one of the most talked-about topics in film—the streamers.
We will explore the streaming landscape, including how these platforms are using documentary films and what the future holds for the relationship between doc-makers and streamers.
This next episode will be published on May 8th, in two weeks. This will be the first paid episode of the series, meaning you will need a paid subscription to gain access to the rest of this series.
For full transparency, these subscriptions go towards supporting The Backlot and independent journalism, ensuring we can continue providing insights, resources, and stories from the world of independent filmmaking and the film community. In addition to access to these posts, the paid versions of this newsletter will include access to a calendar that will include major film festival dates, grant deadlines, and submission dates that will be continually updated throughout the year. In June, I will also be starting a virtual filmmaker happy hour, where all paid members can gather on Zoom to connect, chat about recent projects, and meet your fellow filmmaking community.
Mid Week Updates
This week’s updates from the world of filmmaking…
Quentin Tarantino’s The Movie Critic, which was going to be the acclaimed director’s 10th and final film, has been shelved. The film was set to follow a critic who was writing for a fictional porn magazine in the 1970s. Numerous reports indicate that rewrites of the film included odes to his other movies and a connection to Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth from Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.
Francis Ford Coppola’s upcoming epic Megalopolis is nearing a deal with French indie distributor Le Pacte, who recently released the Oscar-winning Anatomy of a Fall.
Severance, the hit Apple TV show, has announced they have wrapped filming for their second season.
Festival organizers for the Hot Docs festival, which starts tomorrow, have warned patrons this could be the last edition of the famous documentary film festival, due to a budget deficit, dwindling staff, and lack of government support.
President Biden has signed legislation that may ban TikTok nationwide. The legislation gives the Chinese company ByteDance 270 days to sell the platform. Failure to sell would result in the app being banned from US-based app stores and internet networks.
The trailers for both M. Night Shamalayan’s Trap and his daughter Ishana’s film The Watchers have been released, providing a look into the family filmmaking duo’s new horror films.
On Sunday, we’ll be discussing …
🎞️ Are Mid-Budget Films Back?
🎬 The Power of Genre: Horror Films
🗞️ Weekly Movie Recommendations