Newcomers Day
Do you want to work in documentaries? Want help making your first documentary?
Want to win a 9 month paid production placement at the BBC or a commission from Current TV?
Newcomers Day is a fantastic and unique opportunity to get into the documentary world. Hear from and meet execs who are hiring, commissioners who are buying and the directors who are inspiring the next generation of doc filmmakers. All participants can compete for the BBC placement and current TV commission.
Watch this space for more information on how to register for Newcomers Day 2008.
What happened at Newcomers Day 2007?
Newcomers Day Session 1 - The ABC of Factual Commissioning, including Monkey Tennis
Kate Vogel, Commissioning Editor for Channel 4's 3 Minute Wonders Strand, and Andy Glynne of DFG, guided you through the maze that is getting your first broadcast commission... with a little help from their commissioning friends and special guests attendees got inside tips on the highs and lows of the broadcast industry. Also, Lee Kern presented Monkey Tennis - a short film and presentation that captures his unique journey of pitching the wildest ideas to commissioners. This session was an absolute must for all those new to the festival circuit and keen to make their mark in the TV business.
Newcomers Day Session 2 - Self Distribution and the Online Opportunities
This panel offered dozens of practical tricks and tips about the future of short film self-distribution and how to make the growing number of broadband "channels" work for your film. With the broadcast landscape changing daily, it’s no longer sufficient for filmmakers simply to complete their projects and submit to the "old" channels: festivals, the usual websites and TV networks. The hunger for content from new broadband channels has opened up a world of revenue and distribution models. Obviously, it’s all getting confusing. This panel offered some light to young filmmakers about to embark on getting their film out in this murky new world.
With: Charlie Phillips, FourDocs, Ade Thomas, Green.tv, Simon Chambers, Filmmaker, Belinda Harris, Babelgum, Maxyne Franklin, Britdoc, Barry Gibb, FourDocs Filmmaker.
Newcomers Day Session 3 - BBC New Talent Opportunity: Impress The Panel
BBC New Talent gave five people the rare and exciting opportunity to take part in a session at Doc/Fest and the chance to secure a paid placement with BBC Documentaries and Special Features. The successful candidate spent 9 months working with Executive Producer Nick Mirsky, Executive Producer of The Armstrongs and The Week the Women Went.
If you're a documentary filmmaker or researcher who's got the talent, this is a great opportunity to gain invaluable and insightful training in researching and storytelling for documentaries. To enter you must be aged 18 years or over.
Newcomers Day Session 4 - The Current TV Pitch
Current TV ran a pitching session in which 8 lucky individuals got chance to pitch live to a panel of Current TV executives. The commissioners were open about their deliberations on stage and gave detailed feedback, the best pitch received a £1000 commission to make their pitch a reality, as well as 2 more commissions to make further pods for Current.
A pod is a factual film of no more than 8 minutes in length. It can be about anything - from sex and fashion through to politics and current affairs - as long as it's factual and absolutely compelling!
Current is the first TV network created by, for and with young adults. Founded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the network enlists its viewers to become creative partners, making it the first television network in history whose programming is supplied in part by the very audience who watches it. Current's award-winning content adopts what has made the Internet the medium of choice for young adults - audience participation and engagement.
Newcomers Day Session 5 - Mini-MeetMarket: A project development and pitching initiative for aspiring documentary makers
Got an idea for a must-watch documentary? Think it could be good enough for broadcast or alternative funding but don't know how to develop it or where to pitch it? At last year's festival around 16 new filmmakers were selected to brainstorm their ideas with executive and series producers.