A Sundance Film Festival award lags only behind an Oscar nomination as a measure of success for documentarians. But what are the odds that a U.S. or international documentary will earn a slot on the Sundance program? Is $848 million really the total spent on all those submissions that missed out? Read on for my …
The Sundance Documentary Economy: $848 Million Spent by Producers Who Miss Out Read More »
What are the key demand trends in the documentary sector across platforms, and how are the festivals responding? That was the ambitious topic for this morning’s recording of an engaging panel for the upcoming Guangzho International Documentary Film Festival 2021. China had almost fallen off my radar after many years of deep involvement in the …
GZ DOC Panel: Global Factual Content Summit: 2021 VOD Platforms & Festivals Read More »
The buzz of the week centred on The Walt Disney Company‘s announcement that Disney+ had added only 2 million subscribers in 3Q 21. Lightshed Ventures Partner Rich Greenfield shared with Bloomberg‘s Emily Chang his useful analysis of why Disney’s streaming strategy is failing. The message: Disney owns all the programming and other resources to accelerate …
The COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference opens in Glasgow on October 31, bringing urgency to the race to save our planet. Documentary commissioners, producers and distributors have responded with lots of new orders. Does global warming have the urgent audience appeal of programs that address hot button issues like true crime, gender, and social …
News Roundup: Climate Change Documentaries Breaking Through? Read More »
Three years ago, I wrote here: “Discovery must be in play after AT&T’s recent takeover of Time Warner with its Warner Bros, HBO and Turner programming assets.” (Discovery for Sale, June 20, 2018) ATT confirmed today that it will spin off its renamed WarnerMedia unit into Discovery Inc. My Initial Takeaways: 1.Discovery Transformed A leading …
Discovery Transformed by WarnerMedia: Pro’s & Cons. Winners and a Loser. Read More »
Update: Mandy Chang is leaving her post as legendary BBC-STORYVILLE‘s commissioning editor. Last year she recapped her STORYVILLE strategy in detail for my panel at Taiwan’s virtual CCDF-CNEX Documentary Conference. Our fellow expert panelists were: Hong Kong-based, Phoenix TV exec Haibo Huang And from Washington DC, all-knowing veteran programmer and senior consultant Dan Salerno. Read on …
BIG vs SMALL stood out at Sunny Side of the Doc 2019 as a pitch to watch. Last Friday, PBS‘s primetime NEWSHOUR dedicated a report to Director / Producer Minna Dufton‘s gripping feature documentary of Giant Wave surfer Joana Andrade. Below is the link to Stephanie Sy’s video report, and the transcript follows in case …
PBS NEWSHOUR features BIG vs SMALL, a GIANT WAVE surfer story by Finland’s Minna Dufton Read More »
A Sundance Film Festival award lags only behind an Oscar nomination as a measure of success for documentarians. But what are the odds that a U.S. or international documentary will earn a slot on the Sundance program? And what is the total expense on all those submissions that missed out? This year, the Sundance Film Festival screened 73 feature-length …