There’s a wonderful opportunity next week if you are wondering if footage that you are considering using in your documentary film falls under the Fair Use Doctrine. Pat Aufderheide, who spearheads research on when and how documentary filmmakers can use footage without obtaining copyright license, is going to be speaking at a panel on Fair Use at the South by Southwest Film Festival that runs March 12-20th.

Here’s the deal.  If you would like expert opinion about the legality of the footage you are considering using in your documentary, Pat is inviting filmmakers to share their clips with her so she can present them on the panel. This is an amazing chance to get free advice that could save you a lot of legal headaches down the road.

If you don’t know who Pat Aufderheide is, you should.  I first met her when she presented at the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco, but I had been hearing about her long before then. A professor at American University, she always seems to be heading up an interesting investigation into whatever trends and issues are pressing in the documentary world. For example, she wrote seminal articles about the personal documentary when it was hot in the 1990’s.

Now she is doing filmmakers a great service by educating us about a topic that has cowed and confused documentary filmmakers for decades.  When is it legal to use footage that other people have created? Aufderheide freely shares a Code of Best Practices for Fair Use on the website of the Center for Social Media:

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/fair_use/

If you are interested in having Pat analyze your footage at SXSW, e-mail her today at paufder@american.edu.

Note:  Pat will also be speaking at an interesting panel with Michael Donaldson and others about monetizing mashups.

I’ll end with a plug for my popular course, which I just taught a few weeks ago at the San Francisco Film Society. It’s now available online. To learn more about innovative documentary storytelling techniques that will attract large audiences, check out “Editing the Character Driven Documentary” at http://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.

This year’s five Oscar nominees for Best Feature Documentary all seek social change. That’s not surprising. But what was news to me is that The Academy, in the words of Stephen Simon, head of the Spiritual Cinema Circle, “has become very aware of, and sensitive to, the fact that most Oscar nominations and awards in the last few years have been going to small, mostly dark, and non-commercial films.” Simon hopes that a “positive” narrative film will sweep the awards.

I must admit my bias. I subscribe to the Spiritual Cinema Circle, and after years of making and watching depressing social issue documentaries, I take my hat off to directors can make inspiring documentaries.  And I am elated when I see a documentary that tackles an environmental or social justice issue and allows me to leave the theater feeling good about humanity.

So, as well edited as Food Inc. is, my hope is that Cove will win the award. This wonderful documentary tackles a nasty injustice, the slaughter of dolphins, but draws us into a superhero, undercover and thrilling effort to change this terrible practice. I left the theater feeling good about my fellow human beings.

I’m teaching a webinar today about how to craft a great climax for your documentary. In preparing, I identified five criteria for an excellent climax scene. One of them is that the climax must show your protagonist in struggle.

In this context, I was thinking about my favorite documentary, “The Times of Harvey Milk,” and how the climax scene cannot possibly show the protagonist in struggle, because he has already been assassinated earlier in the film. What we see instead is the so-called White Night Riots in which the San Francisco gay community storms on City Hall to protest against the verdict handed to accused murder Dan White, who got off easy.

In this instance, the gay community serves as a “surrogate protagonist”, carrying on the struggle that Milk initiated. As the film’s title indicates, this is the story of the times of Harvey Milk, not a standard biopic about an individual. Milk as protagonist represents the gay community in the 1970s. After his death, the gay community carried on with his goal, to further advance gay rights. So the film really does serve the final criteria as we see the gay community in struggle at the climax.

If you’d like to learn more about crafting a great documentary climax scene, please check out my online course, “Editing the Character Driven Documentary”. Go to http://newdocediting.com/products/

If you’re going to be hiring an editor soon, you may be happy to know that we’ve just done a lot of the vetting for you.

Last month we put out a call for new editors to join our growing staff.  We reviewed scores of resumes and chose the best candidates to train in our narrative storytelling methods and virtual post-production process.  We’re excited to bring a few more select documentary projects, directed by passionate directors, to completion this year.

If you are interested in exploring a collaboration with one of our talented editors, please reply to this email to schedule your free consultation.  We are uniquely qualified to understand your vision for the film, and we can help you better articulate the documentary that is shining in your mind’s eye.  Given how important it is that your post-production team is completely in line with your vision, our editors are personally trained by me to help you realize your goals, and they are schooled in the latest innovative storytelling strategies. You can learn more about our approach here:

www.NewDocEditing.com

I invite you to read what a few of our pleased directors have to say about our editing and story consulting services, and determine if New Doc Editing is right for you:

“I recently retained the services of New Doc Editing to create a trailer for my upcoming documentary Across The King’s River.  It was not only amazed by how swiftly they helped craft the introduction, but by how artfully it was done as well. While it’s true that some editors had lower rates, I liked the satisfaction of knowing that I defended the integrity of my vision by hiring the right team.  In addition to Karen’s sharp storytelling instincts, it was a pleasure to work with her staff.”

– James Weeks, Producer, Across The King’s River

“Karen Everett is a fantastic story consultant. Not only is her advice so valuable and insightful, but the clear way that she communicates her input through her notes, her video commentary and plot maps is so helpful. I can’t recommend New Doc Editing enough.”

–Tiffany Shlain, Producer/Director, The Tribe

“Karen’s insight and guidance refined our film into a more compelling character-driven story, which helped us receive a $50,000 grant from the California Council of Humanities!  We hope to continue using Karen’s expertise as we see the film through production.”

– Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan, Producer/Director, Forty Winters

As a special gift this Spring, I am also including a FREE copy of my new ebook, “Documentary Editing”, a practical guide that outlines key structural approaches to storytelling, to complement the work we’ll do on your project.

I look forward scheduling your free consultation and to working on your next project.

The function of the third act is to ramp up suspense to a crisis that is so unbearable that the protagonist must call forth a supreme effort.  Screenwriters know that at the end of act two, things should be as bad as they can imaginably get.  Then in act three, they get even worse.  This crisis, the story climax, will answer with finality the film’s central question:  did the protagonist get what she desired?

Sometimes the central question is answered immediately, as in The Story of the Weeping Camel.  When the camel allows its baby to nurse, we know how the story ends.  Some resolutions, however, occur after the climax scene.  I call these “delayed resolutions”. In Tarnation, for example, the protagonist does not come to terms with his mother’s mental illness (his goal) until after he has time to process the climax scene, in which he confronts his grandfather about abusing his mother.

For more information on how to craft a satisfying climax for a character-driven documentary, check out my six-part online course at http://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.

A production house with finishing funds recently turned down an interesting documentary project that we’ve been editing.  The owners liked the story of a young man in search of his ancestory, but cited the lack of actual events, real scenes, and the overabundance of talking heads as the main reasons for passing on the project.

Ninety percent of the film has been shot, but there are still two remaining key interviews that need to be filmed.  On Friday, I will be on a conference call with the editor, consultant and director to talk about how to shoot these remaining interviews.  I would like to find a way to turn these additional talking heads shoots into genuine scenes.

What constitutes a scene?  My definition includes three criteria.  First, a scene is captured at a particular place, at a particular time.  It has temporal and geographical boundaries.

Second, something happens.  An event unfolds in front of the camera. This is critical.  Rather than having people blather on, let’s see some action.  “Something happens” can range from a job interview (a conversation) to a road race (objects move across the screen).

Third, and this part manifests in the editing room, a scene moves from one emotional polarity to its opposite.  Simply put, if a scene starts out with a positive feeling, it should end with a negative feeling.  For example, the promising job interview turns sour.  The casual encounter reveals startling information. The runner who stumbles at the starting line ends up winning the race. This emotional transformation keeps the viewer engaged.

In our situation, the protagonist is going to revisit a pivotal event in his childhood by interviewing a good friend.  How can we turn this conversation into a scene?  First, we will take the two buddies back to the scene of the crime, in this case, a mining town in Colorado.  We will be sure to film “ins and outs”, that is, greetings and goodbyes.  It’s important to capture visuals like a welcoming embrace, doors opening or closing, cars pulling away, etc. to provide the editor with the necessary elements that give the scene forward motion.

Second, we need to set the two friends up for “something to happen” beyond just a recounting of what occurred years ago.  This is the challenging part.  Move on that in a moment.

And third, in the editing room, we’ll want to craft the scene to start at one emotional polarity and ending with another.

With regards to setting up the scene for something to happen, the filmmaker/protagonist can go into the scene with some catalysts in his pocket.  These catalysts ideally relate to issues that are current in his life. Here are a few ideas:

• Does the protagonist have any anger towards his best friend for betraying him years ago? If so, he can express that anger on camera (in a healthy way) and invite a response.
• Does the best friend have any residual feelings about the fact that he was a bully?  Does he have regrets?  The filmmaker/protagonist can ask this question.
• The filmmaker/protagonist is currently experiencing tension with his great grandmother.  He could ask his best friend for advice, ideally, about a specific concrete situation, such as the fact that his great grandmother has not signed a release form yet.

My final suggestion is for the two buddies to plan to do something, so that the scene will have some physical animation.  Maybe they are helping grandpa in the mine, or waxing their snowboards, or shooting pool at the local tavern.  While the emotional juice will not come from these rather mundane actions, the physical action will lend some kinetic energy to the film.  The conversation may happen in the context of such an activity, or not.  Ideally it does, but sometimes people have a hard time processing ideas and feelings when they are involved in an activity.

For more information on how to craft real scenes for a character-driven documentary, check out my online course at http://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.

I’m excited to share with you the video of a packed documentary seminar sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society last week. This seminar breaks the myth that funders, especially ITVS, are only seeking character-driven documentaries. But much more than giving filmmakers permission to “Think Outside the Doc Box”, the seminar also presented several innovative ideas to spark your thinking for your own documentary projects. Access the video, as well as other free resources, here:

http://newdocediting.com/documentaryinnovation/

No matter where you are in production on your film, it’s never too late to start thinking outside the documentary conventions. Strong, innovative ideas will catch the interest of funders, create a buzz for your film, and most importantly, cause your audiences to lean forward and pay attention.

For example, consider a standard documentary convention, such as the “talking head”. Imagine that you’re making a film about a famous dead person. Sure, you could get scholars who could comment on your subject’s life and personality. That’s the standard talking head approach. But what if you did something different? Something entirely out of the box, such as casting an actor to play your subject, and then interviewing the actor? According to Richard Saiz, a senior executive at ITVS, this is exactly the genius that delivered big funding and a prime-time broadcast slot on PBS to a biography about Emily Dickinson (Loaded Gun:  Life, Death and Dickinson).

The seminar presented many more ideas for approaching your topic with innovative cinematic, narrative, structural, and graphic innovations. If you are frustrated that your film does not seem to fall into the conventional television approach, or if you’re just looking for a fresher way to convey your material, you’ll thoroughly enjoy this “Thinking Outside the Doc Box” event. You can download the video of the seminar, as well as an “Innovation Worksheet”, at …

http://newdocediting.com/documentaryinnovation/

Also, if you would like to talk to me personally about innovative ideas for your project, please e-mail me at Karen@newdocediting.com for a free half-hour story consultation.

I recently spoke at an event in San Francisco aimed at getting documentary filmmakers to “Think Outside the Doc Box”. I invited the audience members to consider common documentary conventions, such as narration, and ask themselves, “How could I turn this convention on its head?”.

Spoken narration has fallen out of favor in the last decade or so because filmmakers are loathe to invoke the so-called “voice of God”, an omniscient, authoritative male voice of exposition. This traditional convention has largely been replaced by title cards to deliver necessary information.

However, I predict that spoken narration will make a comeback, partly because narration is so who effective at conveying what we need to know to understand the story, and partly because we as human beings love to hear the human voice.

So what will this new spoken narration look like? Prompting my listeners to think outside the box, I asked, what if your narration was delivered in a child’s voice? Or, what if your narrator was a famous politician rather than a famous actor? And what if the politician was a conservative right-wing Republican and your documentary’s POV was left-leaning?

What if your narration were song? What if it was animated text? Graffiti?

I’m working with a director now, Tiffany Schlain on her film “Connected,” and we are experimenting with narration. As part of this film is a personal documentary, Tiffany’s own voice will be used to narrate her story. Alongside that, she is developing another narrator, a female BBC-sounding commentator. This voice is a humorous spoof on the “voice of God” narrator. And we are experimenting with the two voices of narration interacting over time. I’m very curious to see what we come up with!

Here are some more ideas to spark your own thinking: what if you could see your narrator in the sound booth recording the narration, making mistakes, emphasizing different words? How would that change your experience of the narration as a viewer? Or what if the narrator were alive at the screening of the documentary, speaking into a microphone? As bizarre as this may sound, I recently saw Sam Green narrates his own film at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, “Utopia In Four Movements”. The results were extremely entertaining, especially when Sam stumbled or interacted with the audience. This “live” documentary is a wonderful innovation on the documentary convention itself.

For more information about how to think outside the doc box, please check out my website. We are developing an “Innovation Worksheet” which will be available in my book, “Documentary Editing”.

Go to http://newdocediting.com/products/documentary_editing_ebook/.

I had the pleasure of having a former psychotherapist in my recent weekend seminar, “Structuring the Character Driven Documentary”. When we began our story focusing exercises, he was picked to be the guinea pig. One of the documentary story exercises involves filling out three simple sentences, which provide the skeletal backbone for acts one, two and three.

For example, the first sentence reads, “When _____ happens, _______ (the protagonist) wants ___________. The idea is to try to pinpoint act one’s inciting incident, protagonist, and quest. For the film “Man on Wire”, for example, the sentence might read “When he sees a picture in a magazine of the Twin Towers, Philippe Petit (the protagonist) wants to walk across a tightrope stretching from one tower to the other.”

My former psychotherapist, let’s call him John, read his first sentence to the class. It went something like this, “When he becomes depressed, the protagonist seeks a deeper meaning to life.” Then the class members took turns commenting on this sentence in terms of its ability to help him focus his story. As you may expect, most of the critique focused on how vague the sentence was. An inciting incident is just that: an incident, or event, that is a catalyst toward a quest. So “becoming depressed” needs to be more specific. What caused him to become depressed? Was it a breakup? Was he not meeting his business goals? Of course depression does not always have a trigger event, and in that case the storyteller needs to find what editor Ken Schneider calls a “representative anecdote”.

The problem with the end of this sentence is that it is equally vague. Seeking a “deeper meaning” could mean many things. The more concrete the goal or quest, the better it works in terms of focusing and engaging the audience. So what would a sense of a deeper contact with the vitality of life mean for this individual? Is he a 50-year-old man contemplating fatherhood for the first time? Is he seeking a mystical experience, but without this time without the help of a drug trip?

As we class members started thinking like screenwriters, concocting events from our imagination that would satisfy the structural mandate of finding a specific catalyst event and then a concrete object of desire, I noticed that John was looking a bit puzzled. It dawned on me that this thought process was a bit foreign to him. He was used to dealing in the realm of feelings and the language of psychotherapy and transformation.

I shared my insight with the class. I explained that although I didn’t know much about John, I suspected he needed to reverse engineer the thought process that many therapists go through in their work. (Having watched several shrinks do this to me, I feel I can comment on this.) Therapists listen to the events in their clients’ life and then draw meaning from them. For example, my therapist heard about my breakup, and then clarified my own need (quest) to be more self-sufficient. Or they heard me complaining about being stuck in a dead-end job, and determined that I was in need of transforming into a more self-confident person.

What John needed to do was to start with the language of psychotherapy and then think backwards to the concrete and sometimes mundane life events that generated his “diagnosis”. Rather than seeing just his protagonist’s depression, he needed to pinpoint the concrete life conditions and events that gave rise to it. Likewise, the desire for a deeper sense of meaning in life will look differently for different people. So what could it look like for his documentary’s main character?

Reverse engineering the language of psychotherapy or transformation is not only for therapists. Many of us tend to think in terms of the inner meaning of our characters life events. But when plotting out a story, we need to then think back to the specific life events that uproot our protagonist’s world and set them on a quest toward a concrete goal.

For more information on how to structure a character-driven documentary, go to http://newdocediting.com/land/editingdocumentaryecourse/.

I saw a documentary at the Sundance Film Festival that disturbed and ultimately inspired me. Reed Cohen’s “8: The Mormon Proposition” investigates the Mormon Church’s hidden activist involvement in California’s “Yes on 8″ campaign, which would only allow a man and a woman to marry. What disturbed me was the film’s tone, which pointed the finger at Mormons (understandably so) but without the degree of compassion for which I was hoping.

This gets personal for me. As some of you may know, I am bisexual and have made several documentaries about and for the gay community. What you may not know is that I used to be a Mormon. I converted at age 14 and left the church seven years later when I embraced my attraction to women. It was the most difficult experience in my life.

I’m grateful that “8: The Mormon Proposition” will inform many people about the Mormon Church’s alleged abuse of their tax-free status. It’s a well-made documentary and I urge you to see it.  And… I think that we as filmmakers can do better, certainly better than my own film about gays and Mormons (”My Femme Divine”), and better than repeating images of sobbing, heartbroken gays (which I saw as people stuck in feeling victimized), or red-faced angry gays accusing Mormons of hate, or Mormons who engage in electroshock therapy to change gay people.

So what would an even better documentary about this topic look like? What kind of film would I like to see? And perhaps produce some day? This documentary would not shy away from the pain of queer people who are rejected by their families and denied civil liberties. But it would also show the anguish of faithful Mormons who are struggling with the fact that their friends and relatives are gay and their church sees homosexuality as a sin.

We on the left may think that these believing Christians have a lot of work to do in coming to terms with this painful contradiction, and we would be right of course. What we may not realize, however, is that we have a lot of work to do.  To be most effective in facilitating change, we need, in my opinion, to move beyond our own self-righteousness and enter deeply, with curiosity and compassion, into the experience of a faithful Christian.

The documentary that I would love to see would seek to understand the experience of believing Mormons.  This might include the conversion experience, the joy of moving beyond one’s limited ego to embrace a power greater than oneself, and — what may be most difficult for many of us — the experience of living in line with one’s principles–what Mormons call “obedience”. A great example of this kind of filmmaking is Jill Orschel’s “Sister Wife”, a film about polygamy that debuted at Sundance last year.

I invite filmmakers to exploit what the documentary medium does best: take us somewhere we’ve never been before, and show us what it’s like to be “the other”. I know this is no easy task, in part because I have a sister who gravitated toward a fundamentalist view on life. It is difficult but I think worthwhile for me to go back into my own experience as a 14-year-old of embracing God, so that I may relate with heartfelt understanding when she objects to my female partner and I showing affection in front of her kids.

I am excited that the documentary that I want to see, one that can help heal this iconic, polarized American experience of Christians vs. Gays, is brewing out there somewhere, and possibly even in production today.  If so, I’d love to hear from you, so I can donate to your film, and from others who are seeking to end the divides (bipartisan or otherwise) that have disturbed us human being on both sides.