To research engaging & accessible documentaries that can bring about ... · that can bring about...

Winston Churchill Fellowship Report | Alison Black | Documentary Producer | 2015 Fellow

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To research engaging & accessible

documentaries that can bring about

social change

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Winston Churchill Fellowship Report Alison Black, 2015 Fellow

To research engaging & accessible

documentaries that can bring about

social change

I UNDERSTAND that the Churchill Trust may publish this report, either in a hard copy or on the internet or both, and I consent to such publication.

I indemnify the Churchill Trust against any loss, costs or damages it may suffer arising out of any claim or proceedings made against the Trust in respect of, or arising out of the publication of any report submitted to the Trust, and which the Trust places on a website for access over the Internet.

I also warrant that my final report is original and does not infringe the copyright of any person, or contain anything which is, or the incorporation of which into the final report is, actionable for defamation, breach of any privacy law or obligation, breach of confidence, contempt of court, passing off or contravention of any other private right or of any law.

Alison Black23 November 2016

Index

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04

Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05

Programme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06

What is documentary? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07

New technology – the role of virtual and augmented reality

in creating empathy in audiences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09

The optimal duration for a documentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Engaging and accessible documentaries : the role of access . . . . . 15

Making ‘difficult’ subjects entertaining and accessible . . . . . . . . . . 17

Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Celebrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Conclusions and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Thanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26


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Introduction

Factual, non-scripted television is undergoing disruption and change to a degree that has never been seen before.

Digital technology has democratised the ability to make content, but it has also fragmented the platforms on which that content is distributed, and by definition, has fragmented the audiences.

The days of the family, and the nation, gathering around the television to watch one program which everyone would be talking about the next day, are – with the very rare exception – gone.

We have more ways of watching than ever before, and more content to watch.

But what does that mean for those seeking an audience for their message, and by influencing them bring about social change?

How do you engage those people when you are working in subject areas that do not easily attract an audience: subjects as diverse and as difficult as the environment, dementia, poverty post-GFC, the international refugee crisis and the overreach of governments post 9/11.

What techniques can make these subjects more digestible for a broad audience?

And how can we embrace the democratisation of documentary – suddenly you don’t need a gatekeeper in the form of a commissioner to give you permission to make a film. Nor does it need to conform to technical standards, set running times or channel specific guidelines.

We are living, according to The Guardian, in the Golden Age of Documentary.

“…a handful of factors have conspired to render non-fiction filmmaking the liveliest pocket of the cinematic coat.”

www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/14/golden-age-of-documentaries-michael-moore-amy-making-a-murderer

So how can documentary makers embrace new technology, engage an audience, increase its empathy and, by doing so, set social change in progress?

These are the themes and questions I addressed during my travels in 2016.

It is a personal report: what I find engaging and accessible may not necessarily be someone else’s cup of tea. But I hope the issues identified are universal and a starting point for further discussion.


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Executive summary

My project is to research engaging and accessible documentaries that can bring about social change.

Documentary makers are working in a period of unprecedented industry disruption.

Technology has changed how we film and edit our projects, and which platforms are available to distribute them.

Anyone with a video camera on their mobile phone can, in theory, make a documentary. And anyone can find a platform to allow it to be viewed from.

But that means the audience is fragmented and harder than ever to find.

My conclusions are:

New technologies offer the filmmaker a never before opportunity to engage the viewer experientially.

Access-based documentaries where we are taken to a world we have never seen before, whether it is a whistleblower in the midst of committing a major crime or a pop star’s break down, will remain important to audiences. But it is becoming harder to find those places we haven’t seen before.

Durations of documentaries are now elastic, they can fit the optimal time it takes to tell the filmmakers’ stories.

Innovative approaches are needed to engage audiences with subjects that don’t appear initially to be appealing.

Celebrity and use of music continues to be an effective way of engaging an audience.

We are experiencing a Golden Age of documentary and it is a wonderful time to be a filmmaker.

But we need to upskill in our understanding of where to find our target audience.

We need to learn more about how best to exploit our content to bring about social change. This applies particularly in television, where we need to find a financial model that enables that work to be carried out.

I will be presenting this report to various educational establishments in 2017.

Alison Black 0414 198036

[email protected]


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Programme

I travelled during June and July 2016 and followed up with some of my interviewees in October and November 2016.

Places, people and events visited included:

Katie Lander Finestripe Productions Glasgow, UK

Sheffield Documentary Festival, UK Interviewees included:

Stephen D Smith USC Shoah Foundation

Ciaran Deeney Executive Producer Mattress Men

Lee Koromvokis Executive Producer Monster in My Mind

Jon Betts Executive Producer, Seed: The Untold Story

Roger Mosey Master, Selwyn College Cambridge, UK

Gabo Arora United Nations Virtual Reality Unit New York, USA

Rev Dr Will Rogers Civil Rights Activist Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Ms Frances Kidd Fundraising and communications consultant to the entertainment industry Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Natasha Deganello Giraudie Micro Documentaries San Francisco

Hussain Currimbhoy Sundance Documentaries Los Angeles

Edward Snowden undisclosed location via video link


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What is documentary?

This year is the 120th anniversary of documentary in Australia. But we’ve been telling each other stories for ever.

No-one knows when the first story was told, whether it was oral, a picture or some other means of communication. But stories are universal and bind us together as humans. What have changed are the methods we use to communicate those stories.

Coming from Scotland, I have long admired the work of John Grierson, the man widely regarded as the father of British documentary. He coined the term ‘documentary’ in 1926 and defined it as a ‘creative treatment of actuality.’

www.griersontrust.org

Documentary in Australia has a definition provided by the Australian Content Standard as:

‘a program that is a creative treatment of actuality other than a news, current affairs, sports coverage, magazine, infotainment or light entertainment program’.

www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Broadcast/Television/Australian-content/definition-of-documentary-television-i-acma

Each year, The Grierson Trust commemorates John Grierson by celebrating the best of documentary making from around the world. They are known as “The Griersons” and widely coveted by filmmakers.

On my trip, I met with Roger Mosey, a former Editorial Director at the BBC and the man behind the BBC’s very successful London 2012 Olympic coverage, as BBC Director of London 2012.

Roger is now the Master of Selwyn College at Cambridge University, and was asked to be a judge of the Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme award for the 2016 Griersons.

The nominated documentaries covered subjects as diverse as domestic violence, the right to die

through assisted suicide, Muslim drag queens, domestic violence and chemsex.

Roger said, “Initially I viewed more than 30 films – probably around 50 hours of viewing. Very enjoyable.

“What makes a film stand out for me is

subject matter. Some catch you by surprise in that you weren’t sure you’d like them, but they sneak up on you and tell you something you didn’t know.

“I also like high-end filming techniques and good

Screenshot from Screen Australia Facebook page, 21 November 2016


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pacing, which can mean taking something slowly and letting it build.

“Inevitably on the panel there are differences about what we like and don’t like. But there were some that just stood out: Behind Closed Doors really stood out as saying something shocking and new about domestic violence. The Age of Loneliness was a personal favourite, because I thought it was elegiac and sad, and was a counterpoint to the frenetic world that the media often portrays. Again, it had extraordinary access and a real humanity about it.

“I had a few more reservations about the film that won – Simon’s Choice – because it had almost too much access and there were some sequences that I felt very awkward watching, but I realise this was voluntary on the part of the family and again it said something very important about the way we live and die.

“Chemsex was probably the most extreme film in taking us into a world about which the judges knew nothing, even if we had to watch some of it from behind the sofa!”

The winner of Roger’s category was How to Die: Simon’s Choice, broadcast on BBC Two in Feburary 2016. It’s described as:

A film telling the dramatic and poignant story of one man facing a heart-wrenching decision of whether to end his life at a suicide clinic.

I asked Roger whether he thought any of the films in his category had the potential to bring about social change.

“Clearly, the voluntary euthanasia arguments in Simon’s Choice are part of a current debate. I would hope that the Age of Loneliness might have made people look in on an elderly neighbour or relative. The Muslim drag queen film gave a real insight into modern British Islam, away from the clichés that exist in some of the coverage.”


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New technology

Documentary is an art form that is constantly evolving, and perhaps never faster given the development of new technologies.

There’s a lot of buzz in the documentary world about using virtual and augmented reality as a means of engaging an audience, and enabling them to view often confronting subjects in a different, more immersive way. The idea is that by becoming more personally engaged, the story has more impact.

At the forefront of this work is the United Nations and their work in bringing understanding and empathy to the plight of refugees.

Gabo Arora is the Creative Director and senior adviser at the United Nations, and founder of UNVR.org, the United Nations virtual reality lab. He has directed and produced a series of pioneering and widely acclaimed virtual reality documentaries focussing on vulnerable populations in crisis. Clouds Over Sidra, Waves of Grace and My Mother’s Wing have all premiered at major film festivals around the world, featured at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and screened at the White House.

He generously took time out of an incredibly busy schedule to talk to me in New York, and explained why virtual reality has been dubbed ‘the empathy machine’.

“We have forty different countries where there are face-to-face fundraisers for UNICEF. We looked

at the data sets. When someone stops you in the street, what’s the likelihood of their donating? Across all the countries, it’s fascinating – pretty much the same - it’s one in 12.”

Then they started in integrating VR, and getting people to watch a short film called Clouds Over Sidra.

“And, over all the countries, the number of people donating doubled, from one in twelve to one in six. And each donation was on average ten per cent more.

“I knew we would make a difference, how could you not? Most people who watch it, the first thing they say is ‘How do I help?’”

Gabo’s work contributed to the VR experience being dubbed ‘the empathy machine’. And the metrics show that people are engaged by watching his virtual reality stories. But Gabo’s work is about more than just raising money.

“If my goal was just to make people cry and have them donate money, I could do it, but I don’t want to do that. I want there to be a depth of emotional feeling.

“It’s much more important to make an authentic story that doesn’t feel like it’s propaganda.”

The technology, driven by the games industry, is undergoing rapid development, and already has moved on from just being a headset experience.

Just after we met, Gabo was heading to Poland, to make a ‘room scale’ VR project with a holocaust survivor.


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Coincidentally I had ‘met’ the same holocaust survivor in Sheffield, Pinchas Gutter, a month earlier. Well, I had spoken and interacted with him, but we had never actually physically met.

However, I did physically meet Stephen D. Smith, the UNSESCO Chair on Genocide Education for the USC Shoah Foundation, one of the producers of the responsive hologram of Mr Gutter that was part of the Sheffield Documentary Festival Alternative Realities strand.

Stephen’s team has made something so remarkable, it was the talk of the Festival.

Here’s how it works: you sit in front of a monitor and talk to Pinchas. He answers your questions naturally, meets your gaze, and responds. Any question from “What was the worst bit of your experience?” to “What was your favourite food as a child?”

Within minutes you forget you are talking to a holograph, and engage as though he was in the

room with you. It’s an astonishing experience.

As a filmmaker I wanted to understand technically and editorially how this worked- what were the processes?

Stephen told me: “First you create a script. Usually around 500 questions about the subject – specific things that you would want to know based on his biography.

“Then we ask him a bunch of questions that are general which will be ‘Where were you born?’ ‘When were you born?’ ‘What’s the name of your family?’ ‘Do you believe in God?’ ‘What about genocide?’

“That becomes the basic set of questions that we have. We then interview the individual for five

days and go through that list. It’s one hour sessions every hour. We have a break, then we have another hour, then another break.

“For the subject, it’s emotional, mental, and physical. It’s truly the only way to get through the

The author ‘interviewing’ holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter.


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amount of content we need. As we’re going along we’re listening to what he’s saying and if he says something where we think, ‘Ah, we may need to clarify that’, then we write that down also.

“If he says, ‘My favorite Jewish holiday was Hanukkah because the lights were so meaningful’, it raises two questions. One, what is Hanukkah if you don’t know. Two, why were the lights meaningful? We write those down as we’re going along. We create a bucket of follow-up questions. We don’t necessarily ask all of them, because we rank them at the end, to say what’s most important? You have to make sure that any obvious questions that are begging at the end of it can then be followed up.

“By the end of the session we’ve usually got about 1,000 questions and answers. We then stick all of that into a database. Then we basically go through and say, ‘If this is the answer, what questions might you ask that get you that answer?’ The question sheet goes away altogether because there could be multiple questions, because of the number of things you’ve talked about. The answers could be, ‘My favorite holiday was Hanukkah, because the lights were so meaningful. My mother always used to cook chicken and I loved the smell of her chicken. My grandfather always used to be there.’

“Now, you’ve got four subjects. One about your mother’s cooking and one about when you saw your grandfather. Those are all possible questions

that could lead you to that answer. That’s hard for them manually, but there’s an algorithm, a natural language algorithm which allows the data to be searched based on your query.”

So the interactivity with Mr Gutter is down to exhaustive interviewing and algorithms that can predict the correct answer to the question you’ve asked. It was amazingly accurate, and understood even my broad Glasgow accent. The only question he couldn’t answer was the one at the end of a gruelling conversation when I asked if I could give him a hug.

Technically it is a massive (and very expensive) job.

Stephen explained: “ We shoot it in a light stage. It’s a 20 foot dome with 6,000 LED lights creating an even daylight. He was filmed with 50 HD cameras at 180 degrees. He was the first subject. After that, we went to 120 cameras at 360 degrees. They’re all HD. Basically, that’s giving dimensionality to them.”

Given the ages of our remaining holocaust survivors this technology will allow future generations to interact with people who have been witnesses to historical events. The ability to actually interact is more engaging than possibly just watching a film. It is incredibly powerful to have what feels like a ‘one-on-one’ conversation.

Stephen is currently evaluating the experience.

“ The audience that we have is the Illinois Holocaust Museum and US Holocaust Museum.


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There are control booths where they put a guide with them and they go through a structured Q&A for school visits. Then in the US Holocaust Museum, it’s just open to the general public. They’re pretty similar results.

“We’re getting 87.5% satisfaction rate on the basis of it was an excellent experience. And it’s not age specific, which is interesting.”


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What length should a documentary be?

But here’s the real revolution: Natasha’s films run less than four minutes. They’re sometimes just two minutes.

“There’s a discipline in making a very short social impact film. You have to cut the fat and grab the heart right away. It elevates your bar.

“But going under two minutes is a problem for your narrative arc and you enter an overly promotional space.

“Millenials don’t separate daily life from doing good. They expect their employers to be socially

conscious, they expect their coffee to be fair trade. That’s why short films work – they fit into their lives.

“I think Micro-Documentaries caught this wave at just the right time, and we are constantly evolving.”

From the commercial world, there is research and metrics on how long people engage with content online.

Wistia Video Analytics measured audience

retention from one minute up to one hour.

They know that the web is a measurable resource as they can tell when people click on and when people click off. Here’s what they say about the graph above:

New technology has been a game changer in determining durations of documentaries.

Previously filmmakers were mindful of the length of television slots or a feature release.

Now the answer to the question What length should a documentary be? is that there is no answer.

In San Francisco, I met with one of the pioneers of shorter form story telling.

Natasha Deganello Giraudie started Micro-Documentaries at the end of 2009. Since then she and her team have made around 2,000 films in 30 countries. They also help train storytellers in the social innovation space. Natasha’s work is possible because of the technological changes in the past 30 years. Beautiful films can be shot on digital media in ambient light and the films distributed to an interested audience via an online platform.

Leveraging that audience is important, and Natasha and her team work to ensure it reaches as many eyeballs as possible. She says “Post and pray is not the way!”

Image courtesy Wistia Video Analytics


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• Halfway through one minute, you still

have 80% of viewers,

• Up to two minutes, you’ve got 70%,

• Two-three minutes, just 60% are still with you at halftime,

• Over three minutes, only 35% of your audience are still with you halfway.

The longer the duration the quicker the viewers drop off.

What this doesn’t tell us is how many people, seeing the length of the video, never click on in the first place.

However, short form isn’t the only duration currently working in the documentary world.

For Hussain Currimbhoy, a documentary programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, documentary filmmakers have never had it so good when it comes to flexibility of duration.

He pointed me in the direction of the documentary series OJ.:Made in America – seven hours long, and utterly engrossing.

Other examples of longer length series include Making A Murderer and The Jinx,: The Lives and Deaths of Robert Durst – both breakout hits.

Hussain said:

“It’s simple. Just make the film you want to make. Take more risks. Be honest. Watch everything. Be inspired. Think about your marketing. Be strategic. Be involved. Don’t be boring. Be true to your vision. Make sure you have a good and clear idea in the first place. Think about your craft, the mood and your approach. Treat your audience as the smartest people in the room – we don’t need to be hit over the head. You can help us see the world differently, to feel something. Find the deeper truth.

“There are three stages to empathy – you need to make people aware, then you have to engage them, then you have to get them to act. Just make the film you want to make. Let me spend some time inside your head.

“It is a golden age for documentary. Not everything is going to make it into Sundance- we get 12,000 submissions every year. But you have an opportunity like no other time in history to make your film and get it in front of an audience.”

One of the privileges of Hussain’s job is he gets to see films before the rest of us. His top tips for 2017?

“There are some great biographical documentaries on the horizon – Maradonna, Oasis and Grace Jones, following in the path of the Oscar-winning Amy. All based on great access and archive. It’s a really interesting time.”


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Engaging and accessible documentaries : the role of access

For documentary filmmakers, it gets increasingly harder to come up with subjects and locations an audience has never seen before. But that’s what can make a film experience impactful.

One of my favourite documentaries is about Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who, concerned over the increased and unauthorised government surveillance of our lives,flew to Hong Kong where he released thousands of classified National Security Agency documents to journalists.

That process is followed in the Oscar-winning film Citizenfour, an astonishing access driven documentary.

Whilst working on this report I had the opportunity to talk to Edward Snowden, who now lives in exile in Russia. I asked him about why he made the film and the impact he thought it had.

He said: “I was working with a number of journalists one of whom was Laura Poitras who made Citizenfour.

“She turns the camera on and of course shoots, she gave us a little bit of a warning we were like ‘that’s fine, whatever,’ because we expected the door to be kicked in anyway. We hoped at least there will be some kind of historic record on there.

“Although I will say, this is not really standard when the government is going to be accusing you of committing a crime and you are on camera

while it is happening. But we said ‘all right hey, we are on game for this. We might as well go on with it.’ ”

For Edward Snowden, the risk of the filming was worth it.

“Privacy isn’t about something to hide. Privacy is about something to protect. It’s about protecting our rights. It’s about protecting a free and open society. Privacy is the foundation of all other rights. You can go

to whatever church you want. You can read any book you want at the library.

Author talking to Edward Snowden via video link. Mr Snowden is at an undisclosed location in Russia.


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“When somebody says ‘I don’t care about privacy because I’ve got nothing to hide.’ That’s no different than saying ‘I don’t care about freedom of speech because I’ve got nothing to say.’ We don’t want a police state. We don’t want a security state. We don’t want to be watched for no reason and it’s not because we have nothing to hide. It’s because of the consequences of if we don’t, we’ve lost something fundamental. We’ve lost not just

a single right, we’ve lost all of them. We’ve lost liberty.”

At the time of writing this report, Edward Snowden remains in exile in Russia. He is charged with theft of government property and two charges under the Espionage Act.

His future in unclear, especially as Donald Trump is now President-elect of the United States.


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Engaging and accessible documentaries : making ‘difficult’ subjects interesting

I started my Fellowship trip in my hometown of Glasgow in the UK. I was aware of a BAFTA winning documentary series called Bank of Dave which I admired. It was an entertaining and accessible way of talking about the banking crisis.

I met with the Executive Producer Katie Lander of Finestripe Productions who developed and produced the series.

Katie said, “Bank of Dave was born out of the last financial crisis. Dave Fishwick’s minibus business was badly hit because his regular customers couldn’t get credit from the banks. He decided that the only way to keep afloat was to lend his own money to his customers using his own consumer credit licence. It was then that he realised that banking wasn’t a difficult business. He used his own judgment to assess whether customers would pay off their loans and the default rate was minimal.”

When Katie first met Dave, he was raging about the banks. He thought they treated honest hard working people in a disgusting way. There was no face to face contact and decisions on loans were arbitrary. He felt that if you were a plumber you need a van and tools and that a loan for that would be jobs for two people instead of two people claiming unemployment benefit.

The idea of The Bank of Dave was born. Dave knew he could do a better job than the city bankers who had caused all the trouble. If banks just did what they were meant to do, it wasn’t a difficult business.

Katie said, “In TV terms it was a cracking idea with a fantastic character.”

She funded a short demonstration video.

“Although broadcasters were nervous they were intrigued. It was a big, bold idea with an unknown talent. The BBC put the programme into development but got cold feet and passed on it. ITV and two commissioners

at Channel 4 also passed. Two years later we were at a Channel 4 meeting with a different commissioning editor who just loved it. It was commissioned within two weeks.”

Image courtesy Channel Four


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The series rated its socks off and won many awards, including a prestigious BAFTA. A musical based on the story is now in production with a top London producer.

Katie thinks it resonated with the audience because, “The series was an observational documentary with an entertaining character at its heart. It is the classic David and Goliath story and we used that for all it was worth. Dave could ask the questions that the viewers wanted the answers to. He explained the banking crisis in layman’s language, something that all the news and current affairs journalists had been unable to communicate.”

The most extraordinary thing is that the bank is still going, although it doesn’t have a full banking licence. It works on a peer-to-peer model. Dave’s ‘tiny tiny’ bank is still in the same premises and now employs 12 people on a full time basis. But the social impact of the documentary series is wider. Dave’s idea has being considered by other communities.

Katie says: “Dave spoke to a Britain that felt let down by the institutions that it had trusted. Unemployment in Burnley is high and they voted

resoundingly for Brexit. Social media went crazy and he has 40k followers on Twitter. He is miles away from the metropolitan elite.”

Those themes are front of mind not just in the UK and Australia but throughout Europe.

I travelled to the Sheffield Documentary Festival to discuss this further with filmmakers. The recession that followed the GFC was felt very intensely in Ireland.

And it was an Irish film Mattress Men that received a standing ovation at its opening night in Sheffield. A warts-and-all observational documentary, it follows the life of Paul, a serially unemployed Irish father who works one day a week in a “seen better days” mattress factory. Set against the crippling economic austerity of Ireland, it’s the unlikely story of how Paul

creates an internet star out of his boss in a highly successful social media campaign and attempts to attain the holy grail of secure employment to support his family. It’s a very serious film with an incredibly serious issue at its heart, but it’s also silly and laugh out loud funny in parts. The urban deprivation in every shot has a huge impact. As

Image courtesy El Zorrero films


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does the warmth, humour and struggles of the characters featured in the film

Despite being the Executive Producer, Ciaran Deeney was happy to draw attention to his film by dressing up as a giant mattress.

Ciaran told me that geographical coincidence was a strong factor in making the film.

“Our company El Zorrero Films is based just a few doors away from Mattress Mick’s shop, so we’d all walked past it thousands of times.

“It was always going to be a film about austerity, but we needed it to have a life outside Ireland, and the characters of Paul and Mick and the way they had taken the downturn and somehow re-invented their lives had a resonance that worked in other countries.

“It’s a universal story with big characters and lots of humour and I think that’s part of its success.

The film has won awards on the festival circuit

and was chosen for the prestigious Doc Leipzig event. It has had a cinema release in Ireland and the UK and is available on video on demand.

It’s also had some great reviews;

“Mattress Men has everything you want from a documentary: it’s funny, it’s smart, it’s moving and it’s a slice-of-life tale that will touch a chord…Strongly recommended.”

RTÉ Guide

Ciaran said, “I think Mattress Men shows that you can get an audience to engage with difficult topics if the characters are strong.”

I chose another two films at the Sheffield Festival as good examples of innovative and imaginative ways of dealing with “difficult subjects”.

Monster in the Mind deals with the fear of dementia, one of the biggest health and social

issues facing the western world, and Seed, an environmental film that alerts us to the dangers we face because of the lack of diversity and

Image courtesy Jean Carper Productions


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extermination of a large percentage of seeds that were available just a few generations ago.

I was attracted to both because they had found unique techniques of bringing those difficult subjects to an audience in an entertaining and accessible way.

Monster in the Mind was executive produced by Lee Koromvokis, working with first time director and former CNN Health Correspondent Jean Carper. Jean had discovered she carries the gene that means she was susceptible to late onset Alzheimers – her worst nightmare. So she took that nightmare theme and used it throughout the film – along with epic archive clips of monsters.

It’s an interesting analogy and it works – Alzheimers is the most feared disease in the world, but by deconstructing that fear, Lee and Jean helped us understand why we fear the disease.

Lee’s challenge has been finding an audience for the film: not just a general broad audience, but one of influencers.

Lee told me : “We staged two private screenings in July at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Toronto for experts we had

interviewed and other top scientists. The film was extremely well received – standing ovations – and people said we’d gotten the science absolutely right. Those private screenings have sparked requests for screenings at medical schools.”

The film screened at the Bergen International Film Festiveal in Norway and won the Golden Owl prize:

Through the lens of science journalism, we are taken on an interdisciplinary journey where bare facts, in-depth interviews with researchers, and clips from film classics are employed carefully in order to shed light on the complex question of ageing – a challenge with accelerating impact.

Seed: The Untold Story alerts us to the crisis of how we have lost more than 90 per cent of our seeds – and the impact that will have on us. I met with directors Jon Betz and Taggart Siegel.

John told me: “Seed: The Untold Story began with an article in National Geographic which reported that up to 96% of the vegetable seeds available in 1903 have disappeared. Within moments we knew that was our next film. The speed and scope of this loss is staggering, and its implications for

Alison Black with Taggart Siegel and Jon Betz Photograph courtesy Collective Films and Sarita Siegal


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our future are stark. As the renowned naturalist and author Gary Paul Nabhan puts it, ‘Many of our seeds today are as endangered as a panda or polar bear.’

“In an era of climate uncertainty, this dearth of diversity is a recipe for catastrophic crop failure and human suffering – not unlike The Great Famine of Ireland that saw the starvation of nearly a million people when their sole crop variety, a potato, was wiped out by blight. Seed explores a topic that is still largely unknown, yet it is increasingly urgent with climate change and the consolidation and control of the seed industry.”

The directors used beautiful animation to highlight how amazing seeds are. These tiny flecks were turned into objects of desire and beauty. The animation brought the film to life and gave it a visual quality that engaged the audience.

But Seed is more than a visual treat – it is a character-based documentary that gives you access to a world most of us will never otherwise encounter.

In November I caught up with Jon again to see how the film was being received. It has won many awards, including the audience choice award from the American Conservation Film Festival.

Jon is very happy with the impact of the film, and has just signed a deal that will have Seed shown on a major American network in 2017. Plus there is a theatrical release planned.

He figures the team have 12 months hard work ahead of them to gain the most impact and exposure for their movie. That’s what will help the movie bring about social change.

Jon has broken that down into three specific areas:

1. Education. He is taking the movie on a tour of campuses in the US.

2. Getting the community involved in saving seeds – one seed at a time. It’s a non-political, grass roots campaign where they have partnered with the Rocky Mountain Seed campaign. They are asking everyone from toddlers to grandparents to plant one seed, then harvest and save the seeds from that plant.

Executive Producer Phil Fairclough collects the Audience Choice award at the American Conservation Film Festival.


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3. And they have partnered with foundations who work with indigenous communities worldwide. They want to honour and empower those communities and take the film to them in a video van, with it dubbed into their languages.

They are also partnering with local organisations who support screenings and work to create change.

Jon says that ensuring the film has a lasting social impact is every bit as important to them as the actual making of the film.

“We’re very happy with where we are, we know we have 12 months of hard work ahead of us, but it’s worth it!”


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Engaging and accessible documentaries : using music to engage audiences

The use of music in documentaries is a well-established way of emotionally connecting with an audience.

During my trip I was privileged to be invited to speak to veteran civil rights campaigner and song leader the Reverend Will Rogers at his home in Atlanta, Georgia.

To prepare for the meeting I rewatched Soundtrack for a Revolution, the Oscar shortlisted documentary that explored the importance of song and music to the civil rights campaigners facing violence and arrest.

Rev Rogers was a song leader for civil rights leader Medger Evers, who was assassinated in 1963. The work of Mr Evers’ song leaders is featured in Soundtrack for a Revolution.

Rev Rogers told me:

“I spent many hours in the car with Medgar Evers as we traveled throughout the state of Mississippi. Part of that was what they called youth brigade. Our job was to knock on doors, pass out leaflets

and talk about how to get people out, let them know how to get to where they wanted to go to vote.

“We used music all the time. I can remember we were in Jackson. The police had put us in garbage trucks and we were singing We Shall Not Be Moved. It was comical in many ways. We were singing.

We got down to the fairgrounds because they didn’t have enough room for us in the jail, so they kept us in the cow pens at the state fairgrounds. We were singing We Shall Overcome and We Shall Not Be Moved. I remember this white boy, he was saying, ‘I wish you all would stop all that goddamned singing.

You’re wearing the hell out of us with that singing’. We got louder then.

“Some of those memories are not always pleasant for us, but the music, without the music, I think it would have been very, very difficult for people to rally, for people to be encouraged on days when things were down, when you were on the verge of violence it helped.

“Music gives us common ground. With music you can move the world.”

Image courtesy US National Archives


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Engaging and accessible documentaries : using celebrity to engage audiences

In addition to music, producers know that having a major celebrity attached to their documentary will not only help get it made, but also help find an audience.

Frances Kidd worked with the entertainment industry in Hollywood for 15 years as a philanthropic fundraiser and communications consultant. She dealt with high profile celebrities on a daily basis. Frances was ideally placed to watch the boom in celebrities either fronting documentaries or using their money and influence to get subjects they were passionate about, made.

“An Inconvenient Truth wouldn’t have been made without the passion of Al Gore. Along with Bono, he showed that you could use celebrity to stir up people’s consciousness and help bring about social change.

“A celebrity will bring publicity you couldn’t pay for. Tom Hanks fans will go and see what Tom Hanks is interested in. It’s a way of sneaking in

information and education and afterwards the audience may even take some action

“I think when there’s a family connection it really works well. For example, Ted Danson, when he was first on Cheers, he lived near Santa Monica Bay and had to explain to his daughters why they couldn’t swim because of the pollution. That led to him co founding the American Oceans Campaign and his passion for the subject continues.

“Ted narrated the first major documentary on overfishing, The End of the Line, and has written a book Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do To Save Them.”

Frances continued: “Another good example of celebrities making documentaries for their kids is Chris Rock who was asked by his three-year-old daughter : ‘Daddy how come I don’t have good hair?’

“This prompted him to make a film that was a study of black hair, but he brings a humour to it. He has a great diverse, multi-cultural following and people are interested in what he’s interested in. I remember that movie more than eight years later, that’s the sort of impact celebrities can have.”


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Conclusions and recommendations

It truly is a Golden Age for documentary, a time when filmmakers have more freedom to follow their passion than ever before.

But the biggest problem in making an engaging and accessible documentary with the ambition of bringing about social change, is finding an audience.

Whether it’s a broad audience who can influence policy through sheer weight of numbers contributing to public opinion, or a more specific, smaller audience of influencers, those eyeballs are harder than ever to find.

There’s no point in making something excellent, posting it online, and getting few views.

The role of the documentary maker has to expand beyond the making of the film. They need to know how to market and exploit that content for the greatest good.

Many documentaries now include a social impact campaigns as part of their distribution

strategy: That has already been the subject of an excellent Churchill Trust report by Alex Kelly, and can be read here.

churchilltrust.com.au/media/fellows/Kelly_Alex_2012.pdf

Who pays for producers to work beyond the delivery of the film is a question that hasn’t been solved yet. Traditional funding for television documentaries in Australia is still getting to grips with the need for a budget line that pays for a producer after the film is finished.

But the debate has started. Social impact producers have become a sought after and highly skilled professional group.

We are in a period of disruption – engaging and accessible documentaries that can bring about social change are being made. But their success depends on them finding their audience, something all filmmakers are grappling with at the time of writing this report.

I finished my travels filled with optimism – I had seen some wonderful films I would have come across without the blessing of this Churchill Fellowship and had the privilege of talking to filmmakers I would never usually meet.


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ThanksThe author wishes to thank all of her

contributors, and those who helped in the setting-up phase. And of course, the Churchill Fellowship for their support. The opportunity to meet people whose work I admire has inspired me to continue to fight to make engaging and accessible documentaries for the Australian audience, and hopefully continue to bring about social change.

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