27-09-2008, 05:57 AM
Quote from: Magda Hassan on September 19, 2008, 05:52:43 PM
Many documentary makers are more into the mission of educating, informing and exposing rather than making a huge profit.
Magda - indeed. Wink
However, mininum production costs for an hour of, say, BBC or NatGeo documentary would be c£100k (c$185k). Once you get into the world of international filming, and drama reconstructions, production costs quickly double, treble etc. I've produced and directed drama-docs with a £400k production budget.
A lot of production costs are simply unavoidable - eg flights; location fees; craft-trained, camera crews (self-shot docs are a genre rather than the norm); an editor & editing software & hardware; archive footage of important historical events can cost £3k per minute (or part thereof) for world rights; post-production fees (delivering a film to professional broadcast quality can easily cost £20-30k), etc etc.
Those kind of production costs are hard to square with a model of free distribution on the net, and are a genuine barrier to the creation of genuinely independent documentaries.
The freedocumentaries website looks very valuable, and I'll certainly be using it! Grin
However, my suspicion is that many of the films were funded through grants and foundation money.
Many documentary makers are more into the mission of educating, informing and exposing rather than making a huge profit.
Magda - indeed. Wink
However, mininum production costs for an hour of, say, BBC or NatGeo documentary would be c£100k (c$185k). Once you get into the world of international filming, and drama reconstructions, production costs quickly double, treble etc. I've produced and directed drama-docs with a £400k production budget.
A lot of production costs are simply unavoidable - eg flights; location fees; craft-trained, camera crews (self-shot docs are a genre rather than the norm); an editor & editing software & hardware; archive footage of important historical events can cost £3k per minute (or part thereof) for world rights; post-production fees (delivering a film to professional broadcast quality can easily cost £20-30k), etc etc.
Those kind of production costs are hard to square with a model of free distribution on the net, and are a genuine barrier to the creation of genuinely independent documentaries.
The freedocumentaries website looks very valuable, and I'll certainly be using it! Grin
However, my suspicion is that many of the films were funded through grants and foundation money.