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Documentary Business

Peter Hamilton Consultants, Inc

GOOD MORNING AMERICA covers the making of “Diana: The Rest of Her Story”

GOOD MORNING AMERICA dedicated a segment on Friday to the making of a hit documentary… Tom Jennings’ follow up to DIANA IN HER OWN WORDS. The GMA segment tag line reads: An exclusive look at the upcoming documentary “Diana: The Rest of Her Story” that uses the princess’ voice to tell her life story. Its …

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The True Crime Boom: What’s Hot in 2023?

The True Crime genre boom continues. What kinds of stories do the streamers prefer? Who gets the greenlights? Does your project fit the market? With seventeen projects from Hulu, Netflix, Max, Showtime, Peacock and ID, we continue Camran Shealy‘s survey of the genre. Previous True Crime Posts Part 1 includes The Tinder Swindler.  Part 2 …

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Building Impossible: Nat Geo Refreshes a Traditional Factual Genre with Hoff Productions. How They Did It!

Building Impossible with Daniel Ashville stands out as our Summer Case Study selection: The series may signal a renewed appetite for a Factual genre – Engineering – that has been a pillar of documentary channel schedules. Hoff Productions refreshed the genre with a new talent who successfully crosses over to TV from the social media economy. …

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Netflix 2024: What You Need To Know Now!


AI for Documentary Filmmakers: Rapid Advances in the Spotlight. My Webinar with Philip Shane

Veteran Sundance award-winning filmmaker and AI expert Philip Shane highlights recent advances in CHATGPT’s capabilities and how they are contributing to the documentary production process. His message: “Learn about AI! Your knowledge is essential to grappling with the issues of today.” Watch here (15 min) Timecode 1:00 ChatGPT’s new text-upload and analysis feature, “Code Interpreter.” 3:00 Exploring ChatGPT’s refined …

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Juan Carlos I: “Bad King” Docu-Series Wins at Berlin. Case Study Update

The four-part Sky Original docuseries Juan Carlos: Downfall Of The King was named Best Docu-series 2023 at the Berlin TV Series Festival. We covered in detail how Beetz Bros created their €2.5 Mn production: Here is my revealing Case Study. And my interview (20′) with producer Christian Beetz. Producer and co-writer Christian Beetz, co-director Anne von Petersdorff The jury …

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Best of British Documentaries & Lifestyle, 1H 2023. The Top 100

It’s always a pleasure to share the UK’s highest-rated unscripted programs. Here they are for 1H 2023. #1-50 and #51-100 are covered in this post. My brief Takeaways are below the #1-50 list. Global Sparkplug The UK viewing data is more important than ever this year because many producers and buyers want to build international …

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Desktop Doc Netflix course


WB Discovery’s ID Network Orders Originals. Pact Webinar with Dan Salerno

Warner Brothers’ ID: Investigation Discovery network is actively ordering new originals. While many legacy channels are cutting back on their commissions, ID‘s strategy is relatively unchanged in the streaming era. What is ID buying? Veteran programming executive Dan Salerno, answers this question and more in our latest webinar. This is episode #7 in a series on …

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What French Viewers Like About Documentaries. CNC Study Highlights at Sunny Side

France, Germany and other European documentary economies offer funding opportunities that feel distant to U.S. producers. An ambitious deep study by the CNC, France’s media regulator, helps us better understand how French consumers relate to the documentary genre. The study was commissioned for France’s Year of the Documentary and was presented at Sunny Side of …

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