ITVS’s Claire Aguilar attended the 11th annual Tribeca Film Festival this past April, participating in the Tribeca Film Institute’s Filmmaker Pitch Workshop and acting as a juror for the Tribeca All Access Documentary Program.

Tribeca Film Institute Industry Meetings

For the past five years, ITVS has participated in the Tribeca Film Festival in many different capacities, from the funder of films selected for the festival (this year included Stephen Maing’s High Tech, Low Life, Beth Murphy’s The List, and Jerry Rothwell’s Town of Runners), to hosting special screenings of ITVS films (FUTURESTATES), ITVS’s involvement in this iconic festival is always varied and exciting.

Two special events this year included participation in Tribeca’s Interactive Day (attended by ITVS’s Karim Ahmad) and Tribeca All Access, a year-round initiative that supports the careers of filmmakers who hail from communities traditionally under-represented in the film industry. Tribeca All Access has been a successful and groundbreaking industry event, fostering and supporting diverse filmmaking voices through industry meetings, development support, and mentoring.

(L) Yoruba Richen (director), The New Black and (R) S. Leo Chiang (director), Outrun

This year I was honored to participate in the 2012 Tribeca All Access Documentary Program as a juror for the Documentary Creative Promise Award.  The award gives one documentary film $10,000 for its creative potential, innovation, and promise as a compelling and unique film.  My fellow jurors included Julie Goldman, Eugene Hernandez, Debbie Zimmerman, and Jean Tsien. Out of the five films proposed this year, the award went to Yoruba Richen’s The New Black. Congratulations to Yoruba and her producers Yvonne Welbon and Angela Tucker on the Creative Promise award!

I also participated at the Tribeca Film Institute’s Filmmaker Pitch Workshop, which gathered TFI’s newly-minted filmmakers with industry pitch producers in order to help formulate their pitches for their upcoming industry meetings. This event, held at the Hotel Griffou restaurant, known for its darkly romantic Eyes Wide Shut-like décor, was designed to help producer teams practice their pitches with industry mentors.  Along with producer Julie Goldman and director Dawn Porter, I helped the teams guide their pitches and offered feedback for the week’s industry meetings. Included in our group were Two Children of the Red Mosque with Hemal Trivedi (director), Mohammad Naqvi (co-director), Whitney Dow (producer) and Jonathan Goodman Levitt (producer); Desert Stars with Raouf Zaki (director/producer) and Frank McDonnell (producer); The Human Experiment with Dana Nachman (director/producer), Don Hardy (director/producer), and Chelsea Matter (producer); and Outrun with Leo Chiang (director) and Johnny Symons (producer). The producers and directors did a dry run of their pitch and showed materials, either a trailer or selected scenes.   It was a fantastic opportunity for producers to rehearse their pitch in a supportive environment consisting of their peers and other industry professionals offering feedback, a great method to break the ice before launching into a pitch and also a beneficial networking opportunity.

Two Children of the Red Mosque Team: (L to R) Jonathan Goodman Levitt, Hemal Trivedi, Whitney Dow, and Mohammad Naqvi

I wish that we could have this rehearsal arrangement with every one-on-one pitch meeting for documentary producers but unfortunately, most opportunities often represent speed-dating with meetings only 15-20 minutes long.

Some pointers for producers for one-on-one meetings (from the other side of the table):

• Introduce yourself and clearly communicate your name and what your role is (director, producer, intern, etc.).  This may seem totally elementary, but I can’t tell you how many meetings have started without an introduction of participants. I often leave a meeting only remembering that I spoke with a man with a pierced eyebrow and blond hair…

• Prior to your meeting, do your research. Depending on who you are meeting with, you can achieve various objectives by being prepared. Know what they can do for the project – if they’re a broadcaster, go on the website and research their editorial line and parameters. If you are meeting with a funder, read their guidelines and deadlines. If it is an engagement professional or sales agent, look at their past campaigns or films.

• Don’t assume that everyone has had time to thoroughly review your materials beforehand. If they haven’t, you will want to start your pitch from scratch (including showing materials that you have already circulated).

• If you’re screening from a computer or iPad, bring headphones.  These environments are noisy and distracting so it’s very difficult to hear or concentrate without them.

• Skip the hand-outs:  business cards are good, but DVDs, one-sheets, and postcards – um, no thanks. These days if you have additional material to share, I would rather get a vimeo link rather than have to lug around press kits and DVDs all day.

• If your meeting is a follow-up meeting, then pick up where your last interaction ended.  If your meeting person hasn’t screened your work-in-progress or sample yet, don’t worry – you can ping them about it later.  Use the opportunity to give them a production update or any other news about the project since you last met.

• Last tip:  welcome the opportunity for feedback – and listen!  Remember that it is about a relationship and the key is interaction.  You can have a forceful and compelling pitch, but if you don’t leave room for a reaction, then its energy wasted.

Click here to learn more about the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. 

As you probably know, TV viewership today is vastly different than it was just a few years ago. There’s at least one upside. Now that viewers tend to click on their entertainment, media has become easier to track. Recent Nielsen reports paint a picture of TV homes aglow with multiple screens, and their viewing habits vary across demographics in interesting ways.

Gadget owners juggle between multiple screens. While watching a TV program, they checked email (57 percent), surfed for unrelated info (44 percent), and visited a social networking site (44 percent). In 2011, the number of laptops surpassed desktops in TV homes, making it easier to browse on the couch. The top visited websites were the usual suspects: Facebook, YouTube, Zynga, Google Search, and Yahoo! Mail.

Portable internet devices have fragmented audiences and their attention spans. Interestingly, tablets are the only digital category where males make up the majority. Tablets are mostly used at home, and used on-the-go only 30 percent of the time. They are used almost equally for books (31 percent), sports (34 percent), and news (39 percent). Smartphones, on the other hand, are a commuter’s best friend. App usage peaks among adults at 5PM as workers file out of the office to play Angry Birds. Smartphones have also penetrated a large swath of the mobile market: By the end of 2011, 44 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers owned a smartphone.

As you might have guessed, internet video watchers tend to be younger than TV viewers. The 18-34-year old and 35-39-year old groups make up a larger percentage of online than TV viewership. However, the youngest tots are still watching the older medium: 2-17-year olds make up 23 percent of TV viewers, but only 14 percent of online video viewers.

These new habits and demographics beg the question: How can we get viewers to engage with us on multiple screens at once? And how do we sustain the interest of younger viewers who are used to a deluge of media vying for their attention? Independent Television Service has responded with Project 360 Enhanced, an initiative launched in Fall 2009 to enhance documentaries with interactive experiences such as digital games, website features, mobile applications, and more.

“By creating contests, games, and multi-screen experiences, audiences become more active viewers,” said Cathy Fischer, senior content producer at ITVS. “They can engage with the content, dig deeper into the subject matter, participate, and share.”

One successful example was The Hayloft Gang. The documentary illuminates 1930s and 40s America through country and bluegrass music radio shows. To draw in musicians through online communities, Project 360 Enhanced worked with the filmmaker to encourage bluegrass enthusiasts to submit their liveliest renditions of 30s and 40s roots tunes. The winners were featured on The Hayloft Gang’s website and awarded prizes such as a Martin Vintage Guitar and a custom mandolin.

Sixty participants entered, and the contest itself received 52,898 views and 19,648 votes. “With The Hayloft Gang Contest we were able to reach audiences that may not usually watch PBS, but are fans of bluegrass and folk music,” Fischer said.

The Diverse Muslim Voices Exchange was held at the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art at Shangri-La.

Collaboration is the best teacher and earlier this month, my classroom was a recreated 17th century Mughal garden overlooking the crisp blue ocean in Honolulu. Life is tough. I was fortunate enough to be included among the six filmmakers working on Muslim themed documentaries invited to fly to out to Hawaii for a 3-day meeting of the minds at the Diverse Muslim Voices Exchange. The event was hosted by The Doris Duke Foundation of Islamic Art at Shangri-La, the residence of the late Ms. Duke, which houses one of the world’s most unique private collections of Islamic Art.

We were invited to workshop and pitch our stories to funders from Ford Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Black Public Media, and the Center for Asian American Media.  I had come to pitch a film I have been researching for four years about men who convert to Islam in prison and their journey transitioning out of incarceration.

This was my first experience among established non-fiction filmmakers, all of us pitching our projects to the same funders.  The group had no shortage of talent, such as Jed Rothenstein who had been nominated for an Oscar for a short doc, and Hemal Trivedi who was the editor of Saving Face, the 2012 Oscar winning short doc. How was I supposed to compete with that?

Filmmakers Justin Mashouf and Emad Burnat.

Then I met Emad Burnat, a quiet Palestinian farmer turned filmmaker.  He was invited to Diverse Muslim Voices Exchange as a case study of a successful non-fiction storyteller.  Emad directed a feature documentary called Five Broken Cameras, which chronicled an Israeli separation barrier being built in his Palestinian village.  He bought his first camera to capture the story, during which he was shot at, detained, and beaten up by Israeli soldiers and settlers. The film earned Emad the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance this year.

The night before I was scheduled to pitch my film, he invited some of us to swim in the ocean.  I asked him if he swam much back home, remembering mid-question that in the West Bank has no access to the sea for Palestinians. I tried to retract my question while he laughed a little.  After a long night of picking his brain, I finally told him that I was nervous about pitching.

“Don’t be nervous.  It’s your story, so why should you be nervous?”

His calm approach gave me a sense of ease. The next morning, as each filmmaker presented their projects, the vibe from the panel of funders was much more constructive and supportive than I had expected. I realized that the Diverse Muslim Voices Exchange was not meant to have us pitted against one another but to allow us to share our stories in a way that nurtured our respective processes in filmmaking.

Filmmakers and ITVS staff at the 2012 Diverse Muslim Voices Exchange.

As I sat with Emad after the pitch session, talking about our films and looking over the Pacific, I thought about my career back on the mainland. Coming from a television background in LA, where documentary concepts spark, fizzle, and are replaced in an instant, I often find the task of producing sincere stories about Muslims to be impossible. The Diverse Muslim Voices Exchange allowed us an opportunity to better produce these stories and to share moments of solidarity with one another as we face many of the same challenges. Collaborations like this are rare and I sincerely appreciate the efforts of ITVS in curating such creative people, and for letting me be a part of it.

Follow Justin Mashouf on Facebook and Twitter.

Photos: Courtesy of Idris Abdul-Zahir

An ITVS Production Manager offers insight on rights clearances, which can turn out to be some of the most consistently underestimated items in project budgets.

Working with archival material has always been one of the most challenging aspects of planning a documentary project.  Locating the correct third-party material, identifying the appropriate rights-holders, and negotiating clearances for broadcast and other rights is often a challenge.  And for a number of reasons, rights clearances are some of the most consistently underestimated items in project budgets.

In recent years, the rights landscape has become even more complex, especially for independent producers.  Demand for archival material for use in Hollywood TV and film, as well as advertising has grown.  As a result, many materials that have been until recently held in smaller collections are now only accessible through large, for-profit rights holders, who can be tougher to deal with.

ITVS-funded filmmakers are lucky, since they’re able to take advantage of special rates that we’ve negotiated with some organizations, such as CNN and Getty.  But there are certain steps that all producers can take in order to minimize the time and money they’ll have to spend on securing rights to the materials that they need to tell their stories.

Kenn Rabin, a producer and accomplished film researcher recently visited ITVS and shared some strategies to help independent producers adapt to changes in the rights marketplace.

According to Rabin, consulting with an experienced researcher during pre- production is one of the most important things that filmmakers can do to keep their rights budgets under control.   Beyond simply helping filmmakers refine their estimates for lab fees and licenses, researchers can also draw on their own experience to give producers a picture of the kinds of collections they will need to access to obtain the material they want to use.  Knowing whether they’ll be negotiating with small private collectors or larger commercial organizations, university collections or public domain archives can help producers get a better idea of the time, effort, and expense that will need to go into clearing the rights for the material.  It can also help them tailor their budget and production schedule accordingly.

Another suggestion that Rabin made was for filmmakers to plan their distribution strategy early on.   Ideally, all rights should be cleared for all licensed material at the end of production – but this is rarely possible for a low-budget film.  By knowing which rights need to be cleared immediately, and which can be cleared later, a producer can spread out the financial burden of clearing all their licensed material at once – and hopefully use income generated by earlier releases of their film to clear the rights for later avenues of distribution.

Using material in the public domain is another way to save money on clearances.  However, producers should be warned that the rules governing what material is in the public domain can be complex.  In addition, while there may be no license necessary to use these materials, access to the physical masters may be difficult or  expensive to obtain.  Producers planning to use small amounts of public domain material in their films therefore should determine whether the extra legwork involved is worth the free license.

Being smart about when it’s appropriate to use third-party material under a fair use argument can also help producers save money on clearances.  While exercising your fair use rights are important , Rabin cautions that it can be tricky to know when and how to employ fair use.  For more, please check out the video clip below:

The NAPT Public Media Content Fund will support video projects with significant Native involvement – particularly compelling projects that profile Native American leaders for the series Native Word: Stories Past & Present.

“The purpose of the Content Fund is to increase the diversity of voices in public media,” said NAPT Executive Director Shirley K. Sneve (Rosebud Sioux). “There are very few avenues open to documentary filmmakers, and NAPT believes that our organization has a great responsibility to support the creation, promotion and distribution of Native media. NAPT also believes that support from NAPT can help open other doors for various forms of other funding.”

Projects in any phase of production are eligible to apply for funding with NAPT. Awards for research and development range from $5,000 to $20,000, awards for production or completion can be up to $100,000 and New Media awards range from $5,000 to $20,000.

Learn more about the 2012 Public Media Content Fund here.

I started writing this amidst the din of the one week orientation for filmmakers funded through ITVS’ most recent Open Call. I’m finishing it from the relative “quiet” of my Upper West Side apartment, save for the garbage trucks way below on 84^th - otherwise known as Edgar Allan Poe Street, the two-year-old running on the bare wood floor above me in 11B, and the hammering from somewhere in my pre- WW1 building.

The “din”: the walla walla of 20 independent producers, each in a different state of disbelief, gratitude, relief, giddy nervousness, tenacious “I can handle anything that comes my way” and “thank you but don’t touch my digital rights”.  It has since turned into a low comforting roar/buzz/oral memory playing in the background as I write up these reflections.

Our mission was to embrace the steps necessary to turn our 12 films-in-progress into PBS “90’s” and “60’s” and navigate our way towards a public television broadcast.

Being a “veteran” I was immediately asked – “What was it like the last time you were here for an Open Call orientation?”

Well, the last time I was “here” for an Open Call orientation was August 1995, when ITVS was still in Minneapolis, MN, the youngest of my current cohort of filmmakers was just 10 years old (and watching Full House not PBS), and the best I can recall, it was just a few days not a week.  There was no live tweeting, face-booking or You-Tube-ing and “digital” was an exploratory sort of key-note about the “future” humbly offered to us by the very brilliant Jim Yee (may he rest in peace).

My most cogent memory from back then (17 years ago) was my pride… as if I had done a public TV coming-of-age walk about and found my way home ONLY after getting to the Open Call panel four times in three years. I was “very, very close” three times, until the fourth time proved to be “the charm.”

I recall being grateful for learning how to use those “no’s” wisely, to fold all of that insightful, painful, and crazy-making “how dare you say that” feedback from the panel, back into my next Open Call proposal. So… by the time I received the electrically happy for me call from Emily Stephens about completion funding for A Healthy Baby Girl on June 28^, 1995 (my 30^th birthday and the weekend that my first film, The Uprising of ‘34, co-directed with George Stoney, was broadcast on POV), I had turned my 2.5 year “video diary” into a five-year longitudinal story with a “unique voice” and a very unexpected metaphor via my parents red wooden starter ranch turned blue vinyl-sided house, about what is private and what is public, what is forever, what is “toxic” and what it means to really ruin continuity with a BIG C. 

The small group and one-on-one meetings we had back then focused on: accounting and reporting, balancing expectations with deliverables, forging a working relationship between the filmmaker and the ITVS production manager/handler/therapist (thank you Emily Stephens), and learning about the byzantine process of getting a film, not just funded and completed, but into the PBS system and broadcast.  Back then the Internet — for average people like me — was relatively new, perhaps about five years old, and websites were more for “about the film/filmmakers”, timelines, campaign strategies and a few photos, than they were for rigorous campaigns with multiple platforms, streaming video easily or endless ways to connect in and out and back and forth.

Independent Producers at ITVS's latest round of Open Call Orientation

Back then the platform was your show on PBS, a basic website, and your “viewer guides” – which we were designing to be handed out, mailed by snail mail and printed. “Engagement” was not the norm, and really, in a lot of ways, it was in its infancy. It was much more face-to-face and on the ground than Facebook or online. ITVS was just starting to have regional, city-based coordinators in a handful of key cities, who were committed to organizing face-to-face community screenings around a broadcast, very much like the Community Cinema approach ITVS is taking now, but smaller, leaner, and in some ways “experimental”.  In fact I think the first group of “community engagement coordinators” were “sworn in” for a training by Suzanne Stenson O’Brien the same week I was there for orientation in 1995.

I must admit that these 2012 meetings were different than I expected, all due to a very diverse staff of story-loving, filmmaking savvy, committed individuals who are dedicated to putting the public back in public television  — many of whom are filmmakers themselves. The vibe was warm and generous and ready for the dynamic can-change-on-a-dime- nature of real-life and non-fiction.  It’s safe to say “ I don’t know,” “I am not sure about this,” “I am worried about giving up these rights.”

They are even open and know how to roll with unanticipated changes to a film’s story, agreed upon shooting days, or even a budget, in the face of the narrative demands of everyday life, politics, democracy and tyranny changing the story. Richard O’Connel explained this via two immediate up-to-the-minute examples:

“In the wake of the violent and life threatening coup in the Maldives, ITVS and Independent Lens are in conversation with the filmmakers of award-winning Island President (scheduled to have a theatrical release in a few weeks and on IL in the future), and we are willing to support the filmmakers in any way they need to use the film to rally support and safe-guard the ousted democratically elected President Nasheed and if need be, and it will, open up the film to add this context and recent turn of events. And on the other extreme, Kristy Herring, Director/Producer of The Campaign, is missing on this first morning of Orientation because she was out shooting the press conference where the State of California announced their decision on the passage of Prop 8 (which had been a vote to overturn the legalization of same sex marriage in CA) and they ruled it unconstitutional and a violation of federal equal protection law.” 

Honestly, my Co-Producer Fenell Doremus and I had come with the fear of g-d in us, as we had not finished dotting the i’s, crossing all the t’s, and completing certain spread sheets. We’d come with things we did not know yet and hadn’t figured out — like narrative strands that were key to our story and needed more attention, more research, more shooting and more time in the editing room. I was relieved to not only find a “have no fear, we are here for you” atmosphere that turned that 5 LB book of deliverables, criteria, rules, lexicons, templates, tech specs, MOU’s and PBS standards into stark, vivid, not so scary relief – but a group of colleagues that were willing to negotiate, listen, justly spar and compromise on the issues and concerns I was passionate about.

The give and take, exchanging of skills, stories, and digital technical know-how between peers, regardless of age, was a constant throughout the week. Imagine a twenty-something digital natives showing us elterin (older ones in Yiddish), during the meeting with the accounting maven in charge of teaching us how to report all costs/budgets, how to use [The Neat Receipt] receipt scanners that go directly to your iPhone – instead of into a “baggy”, a shoe-box or a folder and left to FADE.

As for getting back here… well, with four films under my belt and the last two broadcast on HBO and Sundance, it still took me the same amount of try’s through the ITVS Open Call process to secure funding for Cooked. Four Open Calls, getting into the finalist round [AND CLOSE] each time, with the last one, the fourth, being the charm. All the same principals applied as well. There were some “wise no’s” that I was determined to listen to and did. And when I was so pissed off by the whole process, I forced myself to listen louder to the critiques and feedback. Finally we determined that getting to the finals and showing 10-minutes would never cut it. We would always be CUT. The only way to ever get this through was to submit a rough-cut.

And…. it worked. And along the way… I found the film’s “voice”—which conveniently is mine.

When I told my mom (who was the one to accept the Peabody Award for A Healthy Baby Girl, broadcast on POV in ’97, and which I only bring up because I had to walk by it to enter and exit the ITVS office each day of orientation) that Cooked would be on public television, she gasped, “REALLY… on PBS? So everyone can see it! That’s the perfect place for you to be trying to get extreme poverty redefined as an official disaster. That’s WONDERFUL honey.” I agree.

Filmmakers Jamila Wignot and Sierra Pettengill (Town Hall)

In the late spring and early summer of 2010 we made a leap of faith. With a bit of savings, a borrowed car, and friends/family to provide us shelter, we abandoned the highly structured and familiar world of commissioned television documentaries and struck out on our own, on a journey to understand an emergent new breed of American conservatism. We were guided only by our own personal curiosity and belief that the contours of this emerging political movement were about something deeper than left and right, republican and democrat, red state and blue state.

A year and a half later we find ourselves and our film Town Hall welcomed into the ITVS family. All along we were working with the hopes of our film finding it’s way to public television, but how exactly that would happen and what it would mean if it ever did was a fuzzy picture, situated way off in the distance.

Now, as the ITVS orientation draws to its close, we must confess we are still pinching ourselves — and also, seriously overwhelmed. We’ve always (and unoriginally) compared filmmaking to child rearing — which is particularly ludicrous since we don’t even have children, but try and bear with the analogy. We have been struggling to raise our baby, alone, isolated, and yeah, making it up as we go along, and suddenly we’ve got ITVS coming in to help — it’s glorious, it’s a relief, we feel like we might get one night of restful sleep, but at the same time, we’re a little bit reluctant.  I mean, ITVS kinda knows our baby but do they love our baby?

After four day’s worth of orientation meetings, we can confidently say that our concerns have been more than calmed. Every staff member we have met are not only familiar with our project, but are excited and have thoughtful, challenging, and insightful input to offer. It’s been a constant stream of smart and relevant feedback, from every level, like when a member of the graphic design team came over on his break to share a radio interview he heard last week that reminded him of our film.

Our experience here has proven a couple of things. First, we feel tremendously supported in our vision and approach and couldn’t be happier to find ourselves working in collaboration with an organization that is as concerned about fair and balanced storytelling as we are. Secondly, we are relieved to know that ITVS shares our desire to bring the strongest possible story to the screen — it’s not about ratings, the expediency of the current moment, or commercial interests. Most importantly, ITVS exists to support the filmmaker. Being given the opportunity to spend four long days with 20 other filmmakers, working on very different projects and coming from very different backgrounds, sharing experiences and plans and words of warning, has been a very rare and invaluable experience, and one that feels very unique to ITVS.

The DDF provides up to $15,000 in research and development funding to independent producers of color to develop single documentary programs for public television. Projects should speak to the ITVS mission to serve underserved audiences with programs that take creative risks, explore complex issues, inspire dialogue and express points of view seldom seen on commercial or public television.

Funded activities may include travel, research, script development, preliminary production for
fundraising/work-in-progress reels, or other early phase activities.

DDF accepts:

• Projects that have not yet begun production
• Programs that can become eligible for ITVS production funding initiatives as single programs of standard broadcast length (half-hour or one-hour). In rare cases ITVS will consider feature-length programs.

DDF does not accept:

• Proposals for completed projects seeking distribution
• Series proposals or fictional dramas
• Projects intended solely for theatrical release

Find more information about guidelines and how to apply on our website.

Calling all independent media makers (yes, we’re talking to you filmmakers!). Do you want to explore new ways of telling your story? Do you have an idea that takes advantage of both traditional and digital media? Then take a look at Localore, a new initiative from our friends at The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), that’s designed to fuel public media’s capacity for innovative storytelling and journalism.

Through Localore, AIR will recruit talented radio, TV, film, and online producers to lead 10 public station-based projects, blending approaches to broadcast and digital platforms. This means mixing traditional media with mobile applications, online video, digital games, data visualization and maps — anything that will help to bring stories to the public in new ways beyond broadcast.

Interested producers are invited to submit proposals until November 10th at Localore.net.A second round of vetting in December will call on producers, matched with incubator stations, to submit final proposals.

Watch the station runway video (above) to see which public stations are interested in partnering with Independents. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get your innovative project considered for this game-changing initiative.

Welcome to the first in a series of updates on the production side of the public media world at large — in particular at ITVS, where our production team is working with filmmakers on more than 150 programs scheduled for public television. Topics will range from technology advances to marketing strategies and trends, and to ITVS policies.

Our goal has always been to listen and serve producers in a spirit of collaboration, and so I hope you will share your ideas for continuing the partnership. Throughout the past few years, ITVS has been hearing from more and more of you about the enormous fiscal challenges of producing longitudinal projects. We have been studying the marketplace, reaching out to past and current ITVS-funded producers, conducting interviews, and looking for ways to help. Effective October 1, ITVS will allow recoupment of verifiable, approved, producer paid out-of-pocket expenses from first ancillary incomes. The change applies to open programs and newly funded programs in the future.

Orientation

This summer we brought 22 producers of 11 programs to San Francisco for a four-day intensive orientation workshop about working in public media and with ITVS.  The producer orientations are scheduled several times during the year as decisions are made about production funding/licensing.  Here are some highlights from our orientations in 2011:

Please look out for future blog posts on crowdfunding and its implications for producers working in Public Media, a webinar on rights clearances with archivist and filmmaker Kenn Rabin, and a closer look into our P360 Basic and Enhanced initiatives for funded filmmakers.