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The Genius In Michelle Obama Documentary
August 21, 2020
Michelle Obama’s opening appearance this week at the U.S. Democratic National Convention called to mind the genius in the 2020 Netflix biography Becoming, which yesterday received four Emmy nominations. In the documentary Becoming, (same title as her 2018 memoir), Obama’s physicality comes through the screen in a way it can’t through print: she spontaneously dances, chats up students in her down-home locution, and pounds out a popular jazz tune on the piano. Interestingly, Indiewire labelled the film “bland”, in the sense that director Nadia Hallgren’s interviews and verite footage of book signings didn’t reveal the deep inner workings of a…
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Film Grant for US Producers of Color
August 11, 2020
ITVS has just opened applications for its Diversity Development Fund. If you’re a film producer of color and need seed money to develop your non-fiction film for television, you can apply for $25,000. What are your chances? Five percent of applicants are funded. My staff writer and I are here to help you make the best impression with an exceptional story that inspires dialogue about a topic rarely seen on television. Many thanks to director Stacey Fitzpatrick for the testimonial below about our grant consulting services. Email me if you are interested in learning more! “I am profoundly grateful for…
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Biggest Mistake Documentary Filmmakers Make
August 5, 2020
We’ve been helping several filmmakers in pre-production, and I expect they will all avoid the biggest mistake that filmmakers make. What’s that? “Using the camera like a fire hose,” is how PBS producer Jon Else put it. In other words, overshooting. I fell into this nasty habit myself with two of my early documentaries, shooting more than 200 hours of footage for each. I spent months logging. By the time I was ready to edit, I’d lost perspective and passion. Years later, I have a few suggestions to help you avoid this creative morass. Use the attached DOVES exercise to…
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ITVS Deadline is July 24th
July 20, 2020
Quick announcement: The ITVS Open Call deadline is July 24th. We currently have capacity to help two more filmmakers before then, so please email me if you’d like to know more about our grant consulting services. (It’s new and not on our website).
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Get Help With ITVS Application
July 12, 2020
The ITVS Open Call deadline is July 24th at midnight Pacific time. And we’re available to help with your application, including the budget. I have a brilliant staff writer who has already helped several directors create a boilerplate proposal. “Her writing is simply beautiful,” said director Lonnie Frazier, who full testimonial is below: “I contacted Karen when I was struggling to write a better grant application. Her insight and advice were invaluable. I also learned so much working her staff grant writer. Her writing is simply beautiful. She took my confused scribbles and the ideas I shared in our phone call,…
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Inside Bill’s Brain: A Hagiography?
July 7, 2020
I recently watched Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates, a 2019 Netflix release. Critics panned it as a hagiography. Some knocked director Davis Guggenheim for not pressing Gates “toward true openness or self-examination.” Initially, I gave Oscar-winning Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) the benefit of the doubt for his fast-fire questions that yielded one-word answers. We learn that some of Gates’s favorite things are “dogs”, “hamburgers,” and “coffee”. Maybe the famous director was just warming up the former child nerd? Ultimately, Guggenheim doesn’t ask hard questions, for example, about Microsoft being busted as a monopoly. But he does reveal what social…
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FILMMAKING Seminar Special Ends Tomorrow
July 4, 2020
Happy Independence weekend to my American readers! For all my readers, tomorrow is the last day to take advantage of the two-for-one special on my acclaimed documentary filmmaking seminars. Buy Editing the Character-Driven Documentary here and get The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary for free (valued at $97.97). Please email me for special instructions on how to purchase if you live outside the U.S. When you buy these seminars, you’ll also get 33% off on my story consulting fees. Why? Because we’ll already be on the same page about story structure, which makes my job easier! Here’s what one…
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Documentary Seminar – Independence Day Sale
July 3, 2020
To celebrate American Independence Day, I’m offering a two-for-one sale on my popular documentary seminars. Buy Editing the Character-Driven Documentary here and get The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary for free (valued at $97.97). If you live outside the U.S., please email me for special instructions on how to purchase. Thank you! Here’s what one Emmy-Award-winning director had to say about Editing the Character-Driven Documentary: “This class was invaluable for bringing into crystal clear focus how to bring a 3-act structure to a documentary film. Karen is inspiring and the documentary clips she screens are extremely useful.” -Paige Bierma,…
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Two Deadlines for Film Funding
June 19, 2020
Yesterday, Chicken and Egg Pictures extended their deadline to apply for the 2021 (Egg)celerator Lab to Monday, July 6, 2020 at 3:00 pm EDT. And they’re waiving the application fee! That gives you two extra weeks to apply to this awesome film workshop. They focus on “self-identifying women and gender non-conforming filmmakers” working on a first or second documentary feature. Next up, ITVS, America’s largest funder of documentary films. Their Open Call submission began last week. Deadline is Friday, July 24, 2020. We are currently helping five filmmakers with our popular new grant consulting service. Need to pump up your log…
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Two Popes Bridging Fiction and Non-Fiction
June 16, 2020
For my 59th birthday, I took some time off, got a free Netflix account, and watched The Two Popes, a narrative film with interesting ideas for documentary filmmakers. The Two Popes explores the unlikely friendship between conservative Pope Benedict (outgoing) and progressive Pope Francis (incoming). “I disagree with everything you say,” the traditionalist Benedict character says to his future successor. “While their conversation is marked by deference and decorum,” notes New York Times critic A.O. Scott, “The temperamental and ideological gulf between them seems unbridgeable.” That bridge by itself was interesting enough, just as Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s trans-partisan friendship with…
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