fundraising

Director Mark Landsman will guide participants through the process of marketing their work. At each step of the creative process, indy filmmakers must know how to attract potential backers, crew members, distributors and exhibitors to their project. Landsman will use his current project of adapting a documentary to a narrative feature as a model. Please submit a brief description of your project prior to the workshop.

In this special topic lecture, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor will take the class through a case study of New Muslim Cool, her award winning documentary about Hamza Pérez, a Puerto Rican rapper who changed his life from being a street hustler and started down a new path as a young Muslim. From the initial steps of production fundraising and researching the subject matter to synthesizing the story and character developments, Ms. Taylor will share the experience of over four years of production and editing. She will also talk about the process of national distribution, local and national marketing techniques and how social networking has played a part in this film’s development.

Have an idea for a video documentary project? This intensive workshop is designed for people who want to work in small-format video (DV, miniDV and HDV). We will focus on how to creatively develop and break down your idea into a one-page treatment and introduce materials to create project production schedules and a sample budget. This is the ideal workshop for first-time videomakers at the start of their projects.

Have an idea for a video documentary project? This intensive workshop is designed for people who want to work in small-format video (DV and miniDV). We will focus on how to creatively develop and break down your idea into a one-page treatment and introduce materials to create project production schedules and a sample budget. This is the ideal workshop for first-time videomakers at the start of their projects.

Foundation commitments to funding independent media have changed but not evaporated. There are foundations seeking out media projects to support. But how do media makers navigate this fluid environment? Longtime advocate of independent filmmakers, Alyce Myattwill introduce participants to current funders who are supportive of media and offer recommendations on how to determine if a funder is right for your project and ways of establishing relationships with potential funders.

The producers of Made in L.A, Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, will use their film as a case study to tell the story of how they raised the funds to make this feature length documentary film. The film, which took 5 years to complete, grew from a short video to expose deplorable working conditions faced by immigrant workers in the garment factories in L.A. into a much expanded story of the struggle of recent immigrants to get a foothold, to learn their rights and to assert their voice in our society.