ITVS at 20: Grateful and Hopeful for Independent Filmmakers

In celebration of ITVS’s 20^th anniversary, President & CEO Sally Jo Fifer introduces the ITVS Indies Showcase. The online festival, which runs from July 25 through September 23, will stream 20 groundbreaking documentaries by award-winning independent filmmakers.

Independent filmmakers, compelled to reckon with meaning and truth, often surface opposition to the general order of things, hoping to make our democracy better.

At ITVS, we are proud and grateful to work with some of society’s most vital storytellers, and very proud to celebrate their legacy with an online showcase of films spanning our 20-year history.

Each of these works — culled from the more than 1,000 that ITVS has supported over the last two decades — represents a personal vision in service of the public good.

The artistry and innovation of independent filmmakers drive ITVS — thanks to them, our audiences, and our partners in public broadcasting, we have become the most productive funder and presenter of independently produced public interest documentaries in the country.

Mandated by Congress and incorporated in 1991, ITVS took up its mission after a decade-long effort by independents and their supporters to ensure that Americans would experience diverse stories otherwise unseen and unheard on commercial and public television broadcasting.

Independent documentary producers emerged en force in the 1960s from a resolute determination to set the record straight on the new, all-powerful medium of television — a medium suddenly made approachable by a new technology: the Sony Portapak camera.

Without the ballast of studio cameras or sponsoring advertisers, independents swarmed the streets to find their stories — not unlike the 19^th century Realism painters who dispensed with royal portraits to capture farmers in the fields. Public television provided the distribution strategy that encouraged foundations to invest in these storytellers as agents to invigorate and inform our democracy.
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Tags: film festival, independent films, independent producers, ITVS Indies Showcase, Sally Jo Fifer

DOC TALKS Teleseminar to feature Independent Lens Series Producer

Lois Vossen is the series producer of Independent Lens

What does it take to get your doc on Independent Lens? How is the Emmy Award-winning series curated? Don’t ask us, ask Lois Vossen, series producer for Independent Lens and Vice President at ITVS.

Lois will be answering questions by phone via DOC TALKS, a teleseminar hosted by DocuMentors, an online documentary resource and learning center. If you’ve watched our video excerpts featuring Lois  on how the series is produced, the teleseminar will provide an opportunity to get all your burning questions answered on how to get your doc on the series.

The teleseminar is set for Thursday, October 14^th at 5PM Pacific for registered participants (click here for more info). The call will be recorded and available for replay for 24 hours, and  after Friday, October 15th at 6PM Pacific, it will be archived in the DocuMentors members area.

If you missed the video excerpts on how Independent Lens is produced and the services provided by ITVS in support of the broadcasts,  check out the video below.

Tags: doc films, doc talks, docs, independent films, Independent Lens, live chat, lois vossen, PBS, producing, public television

Pitching at IFP this week?

IFP kicks off this week, and if you’re already en route to New York’s premiere indie filmmaker gathering, you’ve probably been working on your pitch for weeks. While you may already have your iPad loaded with a bevy of digital delights to wow whichever executive you’re pursuing, there’s still much to be said for the old-fashioned approach to pitching.

In the video below, Richard Saiz, senior programming manager for ITVS, lays out his dos and don’ts for effective pitching.

Founded as a satellite program › Continue reading

Tags: IFP, independent films, indie films, ITVS, PBS, pitching, public television

ITVS Teams Up with All Roads Film Project at Nat Geo

Michon Boston, Community Cinema’s Regional Outreach Coordinator in Washington D.C., updates BTB on a new partnership between ITVS and the All Roads Film Project at National Geographic.

My first community partnership experience with the All Roads Film Project at National Geographic was in 2007 when ITVS and All Roads co-hosted a special screening of Miss Navajo for the All Roads Film Festival.  We brought in filmmaker Billy Luther, and the film’s star Crystal Frazier (and her mom) to join the Q&A moderated by Francene Blythe, the festival’s director.  The National Geographic special events team hired a vendor to make fry bread on the spot during the after-party on the patio.  It was a night to remember; especially the fry bread. Additionally, ITVS International content has appeared on the National Geographic Channel in the past. The two organizations also partnered up this past summer for the premiere screening of Bhutto in Washington, DC and back in 2007 around the film Please Vote for Me.

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Tags: all roads film project, independent films, indie films, ITVS, nat geo, PBS, screenings, Washington DC

Lessons from the IndiesLab: Digital Survey in Review

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

This month, IndiesLab is launching a new feature, “Lessons from the Lab,” a regular blog with new marketplace data and observations about what’s working and what’s not in the digital space for indies. This month, we are building on the knowledge gleaned from our 2009 ITVS Digital Survey which polled nearly 1,000 independent filmmakers about their attitudes and strategies towards digital distribution and promotion. Here’s what we found:

Survey Finding: Only one in five respondents generated any revenue from digital distribution, and those who did reported income in the low four figures.

Lab Report: Although it is true that the revenue we are seeing for the average-performing film is very modest. The overall revenue generated by our library is increasing as a result of careful branding under the newly created “PBS Indies” brand, the addition of high-quality titles, and the growing consumer adoption of devices suited for long-form viewing, like iPads.

A few of our films have broken out. These exceptionally good films share another characteristic: filmmakers who thought about digital distribution and promotion from day one. Their production workload included managing a blog, growing a Facebook page, building a Twitter following, and creating digital enhancements as part of production activities. Our survey indicated that nearly 40 percent of producers have a blog, and 35 percent of domestic producers use Twitter, compared to 23 percent of international producers.

Lesson: Keep in mind, the people who follow you during production will be the film’s future marketers and market. If you wait until broadcast to think digital, you lose valuable audience-building time.

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Tags: digital distribution, documentary, independent films, Social Media

Our New Website: What’s in it for ITVS Filmmakers

If you’ve been funded by ITVS, you’re already familiar with the resources we bring to bear in support of your project. The new ITVS.org takes it one step further, putting our reach and resources into your hands directly.

It’s all about leverage, and ITVS.org offers new ways to engage your audience. For the first time ever, you will be able to post your own screenings, making ITVS.org an extension of your current marketing efforts. (You should have received an email last week explaining how to post your screenings. Contact us if you need it resent.)

The new “Related Films” feature (at thew bottom of each film overview page) allows like-minded fans of other similar films to discover yours, and by linking your film’s page to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, we enable you to attract and engage these new fans, building a base you can convert when trying to fund your next project.

In addition, your film pages are also now a one-stop shop for all your promotional materials, turning ITVS.org into the perfect electronic press kit (EPK). Just point your adoring press to ITVS.org and you can be sure they receive all the info they need for that great review.

Got questions? Post them here in the comments and we’ll answer them.

Tags: documentary, film funding, filmmaker resources, filmmaking, independent films

(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?

It’s that time again, indie film people. We’ve got a slate of international documentaries for the new season of Global Voices just itching to get all over your eyeballs. Global Voices was the first original series to launch on PBS WORLD three years ago, and we think it’s really hitting its stride.

The season debuts on Sunday, May 9 (Happy Mother’s Day!) on PBS WORLD (check local listings) with Teacher, a lyrical new documentary by Leslie Wiener-Legrand and Nick Hector about a former drug addict in Ho Chi Minh City who is now dedicated to helping the homeless street children of that city battle HIV and AIDS.

"Teacher" premiering Sunday, May 9 on PBS WORLD

We’re not going to lie, the lineup this season is pretty impressive. The films cover the globe from Serbia, Jordan, Romania, Armenia, Qatar, and beyond, offering viewers in the U.S. a chance to look inside the lives and hear the perspectives of people whose experiences are utterly different from their own. In a time of myriad global challenges, it can be helpful to get to know our global neighbors and rediscover our common humanity. And while there are plenty of serious sociopolitical topics covered in these films, there is also a healthy dose of humor, too. (Keep up with the series on our Global Voices Facebook page.)

Watch a preview of Teacher airing this Sunday, May 9th on PBS WORLD >>

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Tags: documentary, Global Voices, independent films, international

Stay Connected with ITVS for the Latest on Indie Film

Are you a big fan of Beyond the Box blog? Since launching a year ago, we’ve brought you regular updates about ITVS productions, funding opportunities, highlighted news articles, streaming video and audio, as well as announcements about upcoming projects and film events.

Don’t miss out on any of our daily updates by subscribing to our daily RSS feed.

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ITVS also produces a monthly e-newsletter, which highlights our filmmaker’s work, upcoming projects, funding opportunities, and various projects from the field. Join the monthly newsletter >>

ITVS is now on Facebook.  Stay connected and join our fan page>>

Tags: Facebook, film funding, independent films

OPEN CALL: Inside the Minds of the Panelists

ITVS’s Open Call funding initiative provides finishing funds to independent producers. Programs selected for funding are supported by ITVS’s production team and broadcast on public television. For the past two days, the Open Call panel–made up of peers in the independent film and public media community–has been convening to recommend eight to ten projects for ITVS funding from a slate of 30 finalists. The individual identities of readers and panelists are not disclosed for each initiative, but below is a short Q&A with our current Open Call panel to give you some insight into their review and decision-making process. We asked them to answer the question, “What do you look for in a successful documentary proposal?” Here are their answers:

“I am always looking for stories that connect me to the awesome drudgery, romance and absurdity of modern life–that elusive factor known to fans of Stephen Colbert as “truthiness”–that makes documentaries spring to life and create change first in the mind and then in the world.”
– Public Media Professional

“I think it is very important that the producer clearly explain why an audience will care and feel invested in their work. If someone who knows nothing about the subject matter ends up engaged and caring about the story after reading a treatment, then the project has a good chance for success.”
– Station Programmer

“What I look for in a proposal is a great story premise, well-developed characters who go through some kind of transformation as the story progresses, and an appropriate (hopefully surprising and fresh) filmmaking style. The work-in-progress should showcase at least the main characters if it’s a character-driven piece. Or it should feature a couple of scenes or sequences that give us a sense of how the main themes in the project will be addressed, both content-wise and stylistically.”
– Independent Filmmaker

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Tags: film financing, film funding, film resources, independent films