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.
