Documentary Production by Peter Hamilton. Peter’s expertise is documentary production, documentary budgets, documentary funding & how to make a documentary.
HOT DOCS FORUM That special magic thing settled over Toronto last week for the Hot Docs Forum, where 27 producers pitched their pre-selected projects to a high table packed with commissioners and funders. The setting was the Great Hall at UofT’s Hart House. It was part Hogwarts Part Westminster And much more absorbing! The Format …
Were you invited to the ‘Big W’? We’re not referring to the Royal Wedding But to the W Hotel in trendy Miami Beach That’s where A+E Network’s senior executive team recently poured on the RESPECT for their ‘preferred producers’ 20+/- top companies were invited They were thoroughly briefed on strategies for the major channels: A&E, …
‘Character-crazy’ is a phrase that captures the mood at the 2011 Real Screen conference. Yet we noticed that Leftfield Pictures was one of the very few producers, if not the only one, represented by an executive who heads a Casting department. We continue our talk with Leftfield’s co-founder Brent Montgomery, focusing on Casting as one of his firm’s competitive strengths. In …
‘Pawn Stars’ 4/4: Leftfield Puts Casting Under a Microscope Read More »
Our Case Study: How an ABC Australia commission for a signature doc special engaged a set of funding sources to execute a $1.2 million international co-pro. The project: Dino Stampede, Prospero Productions and the Australian International Co-production Model ($U.S.) Dino Stampede premieres on ABC1 on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. And in the U.S. on the …
Is there a way for Factual producers to succeed the old-fashioned way: in U.S. public television? In this week’s Case Study: How the Globe Trekker series blazed a path to a respectable living for Pilot Productions. At History Makers and then at Real Screen, we met with Ian Cross, Pilot Productions’ founder and managing director. Ian …
For our Real Screen 2011 panel, we gave AETN’s Don Robert 5 minutes to nail the question of the day: What are the common elements that go into making an unscripted cable hit? by Don Robert Senior Vice President of Research, AETN We looked at some of the top unscripted series on cable in 2010 and came …
8 Ways to Create an Unscripted Cable Hit: Lessons from 2010 Read More »
By David Kaplan David Kaplan led the Quality Control team for A&E Television Networks for the last eight years. He has worked with “hundreds of producers on thousands of hours of programs in dozens of evolving formats.” In the 3rd of a 3-part post, David continues his expert commentary on: Leading tape and audio formats Dealing with a variety of archive formats …
Network Deliverables: Tape trends? Audio. Archive tips. How to avoid pitfalls! (3/3) Read More »
by David Kaplan David Kaplan has led the Quality Control team for the A&E Television Networks for the last eight years. He has worked with “hundreds of producers on thousands of hours of programs in dozens of evolving formats.” In the second of a 3-part post, David Kaplan kindly shares with DocumentaryTelevision.com his expert understanding …