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Hello!

I am merely an amateur who is just getting into filmmaking. My real passion lies in Social Media. I am the Social Media Strategist for a nonprofit organization called Working Films. We work with a lot of documentary films and help create audience engagement strategies so that their films can really have an impact on the social issues they are about. I am really interested in seeing how filmmakers are using social media to get the word out about their films and to engage their audience.

Are there any filmmakers here who have been using social media tools in their film campaigns?

In reply to Richard Eisenstein's post on Mon 23 Mar 2009 :

Rick – sounds interesting. Just make sure to include a montage of a baby carriage rolling down steps.

Welcome Richard, Rob and Lynn.

Lynn, you might want to browse thru the Marketing and Distribution topic, where a number of filmmakers are discussing social media and networking tools (most lately, Angela Alston).

Greetings,

I'm a reformed network news producer who has spent the past 2.5 years shooting in India, Pakistan and W. Africa for a broadcast-length doc called SOLD:Fighting the New Global Slave Trade. It's about three courageous people who defy death threats, carry out daring rescues and challenge powerful interests in the battle to end child slavery in the 21st Century. It's not another film about what's wrong with the world, it's a film about a Christian, a Hindu and a Muslim who are kicking butt and making a difference. (I'm still trying out my loglines ... as you can guess).
Mira Nair has just signed on to be our narrator and we are working with several NGO's on our outreach campaign. I'm navigating the foreign broadcast sales world right now and look forward to the wise counsel of those who have already trod this thorny path ....

Jody Hassett Sanchez

Okay, I already screwed up. Was trying to insert that odd picture into member slot. Figured I'd let you guess which one is me. – Jody

far and away the best self-portrait in the dword to date – welcome Jody, and glad to see us spicing things up

and Ruby, greetings across the Pacific

Jody, clearly you're the one humping the column, right? Smart undercover disguise, I say. Good luck with your film, sounds kick-ass, for sure. And welcome to The D-Word.

Yeah, that's me. Same outfit I wore while filming in central Pakistan. Got several requests for the head cover.

Greetings everyone,

My name is Brian Lio, and I am excited to have found a community of so many established documentary filmmakers. I just recently got into this space about a year ago when I founded a small production company with my friends and left a job in marketing to see if we could strike out on our own and make something work. I had not so much as held a camera when this whole thing started, so it has been quite the whirlwind learning process for me along the way.

We have been shooting a weekly documentary reality show called Jet Set Zero that follows the lives of a core cast as they attempt to start from nothing and fund their travels around the world living, working, and interacting locally.

Our goal is to try and tell the stories of what it is like to really live in a culture though personal experiences, and show that it an accessible dream to everyone by having a cast that funds themselves and opening the finances. We have been filming and releasing content for the past 9 months and have been shooting in Seattle, Saigon, Bangkok, Tokyo, and now Seoul. Its been an amazing experience and I am lucky to have a great team to learn from.

I look forward to getting feedback from everyone here and learning about what it takes to make a documentary series really successful. You can check out my work at www.jetsetzero.tv.

-Brian

Hmmm, great content + great promotion = successful series. As long as we don't talk about funding, how's that for a formula, Brian? Anyway, sounds like a great idea and loads of fun (if you're young). Welcome to The D-Word.

Hi Everyone,

I am an aspiring filmmaker (is there a word like "aspiring filmmaker"?). I haven't done any productive work yet. I was looking for some guidance to start and do it. Can someone suggest which camera (new or old) we need to making short movies? Any other suggestions for aspiring filmmakers? :)

about cameras for short films / low budget – I'm a big fan of the Panasonic DVX100A.

Hi everyone
Just joined following a link from dvinfo.net. I am a very new documentary film-maker who has just jumped into the deepest of deep ends. I have two huge projects going on at the moment: one of which, considering my location, is politically sensitive and so will remain a mystery, but the other one I am keen to get some input on.
Basically over the years I have worked in many different capacities at a big Harare arts festival called HIFA. The festival is a complete miracle considering the economic and political context and I want to capture the sense of wonder and incredible achievement as the directors of the festival battle with the worst inflation in the world (over a sextillion percent), a cholera epidemic, a shattered economy, terrible phones and internet, arrogant foreign artists, indignant local artists, highly demanding corporate sponsors, difficult diplomats, etc. It is an exciting project, and I have just begun it. Started filming on Saturday – I have about 6 weeks before the festival starts. The real good footage will come in the last few days before the festival starts, but in the meantime I am laying the groundwork, trying to get some b-roll, building trust (a huge exercise, even considering my many years successful relationship with the organisers), practising some run and gun handheld shooting, etc.
Any recommendations, ideas, tips?
I am pretty worried about the millions of releases I am going to need. The dance rehearsal I just shot had 30 dancers in it! and that is only day two of shooting. Also, worried about incidental music appearing in shots, and the whole host of problems associated with clearing rights for that kind of thing. Seeing as this is an arts festival there will be a huge amount of artistic copyright issues I imagine.
Also I am trying to get as much observational stuff as possible and not interview people formally if I can avoid it. so what seems like a good shooting ratio in this kind of scenario, 60:1 ? I am trying to make a saleable end product which will have the duration of a tv hour – about 50 minutes. I am hoping to try and sell to tv stations etc, as I believe the topic will at least have some novelty value, and it is theoretically current affairs related as well. Anyways, any thoughts from anyone, any pointers as to possible difficulties I am going to have, warnings, tips?
This is my first post here, so this is almost certainly not the place to ask such detailed stuff, anyway – at least you know who I am and what I am up to!
Oh, I have a Sony EX1 and various mics etc. i don't have enough media or batteries, but maybe you never do?
Simon

Hi,
I just joined the forum to see what stuff is being made everywhere!! And to be able to chat with James Longley of course!
Hi James!
p.

Hi Pablo.

Hi James,

Its awesome to be in a forum with such great filmmakers as yourself. Ok, so Ive had something that ive wanted to tell you for a couple of years now. It all started about 3 years ago when I watched Iraq In Fragments. At that point I was on my 1st year of Film School and although I was learning about the sensitivity in storytelling, I was more impressed with camerawork. When I saw that film I was blown away. At that point I thought it was only the camerawork what was amazing and I managed to find your contact at DVX user and I sent you a note asking you ONLY about the presets you used to achieve these images. You replied in no time with all the numbers and I punched them into my newly purchased DVX 100A as if those numbers alone would aquire those pictures.
Now.. for all of these years i have regretted enormously just having asked you about those presets.. I have grown out of the tech freak school mentality and I can watch your film now without focusing on shutter speeds, or framings or whatever. That film has taught me lots of things. I go back to it once in a while to learn when Im feeling stuck creatively.

Ok so all of this is to say.. sorry for just asking what the numbers in your DVX setting were, when you had made such an amazing, human piece.

pablo

Thank you, Pablo. You're very kind.

But if you're looking for humanity and sensitivity, there are a lot of filmmakers who've been able to capture that better – and a lot of them are on this forum. Take a look at Doug Block's film 51 Birch Street, just for instance.

Hi. My name is Preston Hart. I am a Brooklyn based composer and producer of music for films and have scored a couple of documentaries by DC's Eidolon Films. I am looking for new projects so please feel free to contact me.

Welcome, Pablo and Preston!

Thanks, James. I'll trade some humanity for your presets, though.

These are okay:

http://dvfilm.com/maker/dvx100settings.htm

the settings are nothing special – keeping the iris open is more important. Oh yeah – and get close to your subject and shoot wide.

Hi everyone,
Stumbled upon this site via 2-pop and so glad that I did. I am currently working on a feature length doc working title: Jimi Hendrix: The Early Years
It's about the time right after the Army when he and Billy Cox were living in Nashville. It's about him but it's also about the thriving R&B scene in Music City at the time. It's a side of Nashville that really hasn't been told.

I finished the interviews (30+) and currently working in FCpro, researching archives, licensing, figuring out to pitch it etc.
I ran out and got the interviews first because these guys were not getting any younger...3 have already passed away that I got including Larry Lee last October. I have an hour interview with him and it was probably the last one he did.
I shot everything on a GL2 & an FX1 in SD Have gathered a few more people to help and things a moving forward. I'm sure I will have lots of questions. Grateful to have a place like here to ask them. Looking forward to getting to know some of you.

Glad you found us, Valerie. Sounds like a fun project, hope it all works out. And you find the money for those music rights ;-)

thanks, luckily most of people i interviewed have their own cd's so won't be using much (if any) hendrix tunes. we'll see. you know they did a documentary about bluesman robert johnson (at the crossroads) and all they had was a photo. we'll see...haven't approached Janie Hendrix yet but have a feeling it would be way out of my budget.

happy to be here with the d-word. I'm a filmmaker from a book background which means I'm still learning to work with a more engaging visual style. I've got my first documentary CONNECT USA premiering at the FirstGlance Film Festival in Hollywood next month. Much of my work until now is oral history based (interview heavy), and CONNECT USA is the story of me traveling across the USA interviewing people over a game of Connect Four (see the trailer at www.bodegavision.com)

Going forward as I look to make more documentaries, I look forward to not making it in the woodshed like I did this one, but among a community of doc filmmakers.