britdoc

The first masterclass of the day was on interview technique. It was hosted by BBC’s Kate Adie with a panel including a police interrogator, a forensic investigator and a QC: the subject in discussion was how to get the ‘real truth’ out of someone, an invaluable technique for the would-be documentarian.

Rapport and mutuality are both very important. make it absolutely clear who you are and what you are doing because if there is any confusion, then you won’t be able to get open or honest answers from them.

It’s kind of an obvious one, but background research is also essential. That way if you do know they are lying then you can have something up the sleeve to get the truth out of them. If dealing with a hostile or defensive contributor, lack of research will often lead to them outsmarting you, after which you lose the upper hand.

A nifty trick from the QC: when approaching the killer question with a defensive individual: rock out the negative to catch them out, i.e. instead of asking, ‘did you push her off the balcony?’ ask, ‘are you saying you didn’t push her off the balcony?’ Sneaky stuff.

After that I attended the screening of Heavy Load, a film about a punk band of the same name, made up of people with learning difficulties and their support workers. Director Jerry Rothwell followed them for two years, and the film depicts a portrait of their double lives: rehearsals, gigs and local fame on one side; group cooking, day-centres and lack of freedom on the other. I strongly urge you to see it when it’s released in October. It was a real Horlicks-for-the-soul experience, which had the audience screaming and laughing all the way through.

Following in the comedy vein was the final session of the festival, ‘Larry Charles in Conversation’. Larry has in the past produced and directed films and series including Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Borat. He certainly knows how to bring the funny. A packed house was treated to clips from his new documentary Religulous, starring Bill Maher, due for release this autumn. It’s incredible that people can now dismiss all religion as a silly, groundless pursuit and do it so succinctly, logically and thoroughly. You want controversial? Go and see this film.

“We are the last gasp of monotheism”, says Charles. This coming from a man who at one point wanted to be a Rabbi, so he’s obviously given it a lot of thought.

At the awards ceremony later, Heavy Load wins the Audience Prize, and to round the whole thing off the band play to a packed Keble College bar. Their rendition of I See You Baby, Shaking that Arsehole was simply top notch. I’ve learned a veritable shedload at this, my first Britdoc. I have a lot to be getting busy with, and fully intend to return next year, hopefully several completed films better off.

Fellow documentary-maker? Commissioner? Write to Chris at: chrisgbates@gmail.com

Film-maker Chris Bates blogs about his second day at Britdoc festival, pitching his film to commissioners.

A big day today. My first time pitching face-to-face to an actual commissioner.

Current TV is a great platform for first time filmmakers, and if I can get a few pieces on their channel, then that could provide some serious opportunities further on down the line. We met at 10, and informal as it may have been – sat on the grass outside the café – I was nervous. Had I prepared enough for this? It was a simple idea, but had I fully thought it through?

My fears were confirmed when I ran out of things to say. Current TV liked the concept – it was modern, linked to youth culture and urban social conflict – but it needed more development. Obviously being a documentary we do not know exactly what will happen during filming, but it is essential to have some knowledge of the film’s structure beyond the original concept, and this was my stumbling point. ‘Go away, think about it and come up with some structural ideas, then get back to us.’ Ok, let’s chalk that one down to experience.

So I had lost my pitching cherry, and it was all over rather quickly. But hey, it’s never that good first time round anyway, right?

Before arriving at Britdoc, I had arranged through the online delegate messaging system to meet with Brian Woods – 3-time BAFTA and 7-time Emmy award-winning documentary director and producer. He had been involved with films in Eastern Europe before, and if I could get his interest with my Bosnia project, then possibly he would act as my mentor, maybe even come in as executive producer.

Brian was fantastically helpful, but unfortunately here was more of the same: my story needed more character-based development: conversations, arguments, convincing, desperation to achieve the goal; and specific knowledge of how this was to be filmed.

Brian also said that the reason the pitch and proposal are so important to get right (which seemed obvious once he’d explained it), was that these things were all the commissioners had to make the decision whether to fund the film or not. If some details of the pitch end up different in the film, or even if the main character changes for example, that is generally fine, but you need the pitch to be good enough for the funders to agree in the first place, otherwise there’s no film.

I watched several screenings after this, all excellent documentaries. But for the most part I was distracted, thinking about what my next steps were for my Bosnia project. New pitch, proposal and trailer; character struggle, secondary narratives, arguments, build-up to a final event… I really have my work cut out.

Film-maker Chris Bates writes a blog from Britdoc documentary film festival.

Billed as ‘the most productive 3 days of the year’ for UK documentary, Britdoc festival in Oxford was an event that as a freelance film-maker I just had to visit.

I have several doco projects of my own that I am trying to take to the next level, and it seemed the hours of masterclasses, screenings, pitching sessions, debates and surgeries that were organised and hosted by the industry’s finest, would be invaluable to me.

The beautiful quads and sharply-mown lawns of Keble College, Oxford provided the location where over 900 doco-heads were to congregate for Britdoc’s third year. I had an agenda to keep - pitch my documentary ideas to as many potential funders as I could, and set up meetings with as many relevant people as possible to get advice on where to go next with my documentary set in Bosnia. I was looking for a mentor, who could possibly even become an exec-producer.

So with my game face on and clutching my newly-printed business cards, I arrived at Keble 9am sharp on Wednesday morning. First up was a masterclass with US-based Documentary Doctor Fernanda Rossi: how to make a Killer Trailer.

In recent years, as distribution of film funds has become ever tighter, the need for a trailer as a principal fund-raising tool has become paramount.

The ideal pitch comprises three ‘tools of persuasion’ - the Holy Trinity, as Fernanda put it, which are trailer, proposal, and pitch. These are the audio-visual form of the pitch, the written form, and the verbal form respectively, and they must work together seamlessly.

The trailer should be five to ten minutes long, and needs to have full scenes to show the story, how things will unfold, and to identify with the main character. It should answer questions in the commissioner’s head.

It should say something about you, too. What’s the style of the film? Is there a voice-over or not? And who are you to be telling this story?

Essentially, the trailer should be like a short without an ending. If it has an ending, the commissioner will probably congratulate you on a lovely short film and walk out the door. Having a hook makes them want to know what happens next.

Oh dear. So my trailer for a film about Bosnia which was shot before the project developed into a character doc, and thus contains none of him whatsoever, will probably be re-evaluated… One lesson learned, two days of the festival still to go.