documentary film

The final application deadline for docXchange, an initiative of Hot Docs and Filmkontakt Nord, is this Friday, March 4.

The program provides professional development and financing opportunities for interactive documentary projects. A maximum of 24 projects will be selected for a three-day workshop at Hot Docs. From there, a maximum of 10 projects will be selected for a one-day financing forum at Nordisk Panorama in Aarhus, Denmark.

docXchange is looking for projects:
* with international appeal
* produced with a user-friendly, interactive digital media inventiveness
* clearly described and well-researched
* by a team with a proven track record in either the field of documentary or interactive digital production
* in development or pre-production

Participant Media, the studio behind the education documentary, “Waiting For Superman”, leveraged the combined strength of more than 200 organizations to help with the film’s digital marketing.

The wall-to-wall promotional efforts were coordinated, in part, through Take Part, an independent online community owned by Participant Media. Organizations involved included Microsoft’s Bing, American Express’ Members Project and online charity Donors Choose.

Take Part has run successful advocacy campaigns for other Participant Media properties, including the 2010 Oscar-winning documentary, “The Cove”. This campaign has received mixed reaction with many calling the film a propaganda piece for charter schools and business-model reforms.

Participant Media was founded in 2004 by Montreal-born Jeff Skoll.  The studio has financed, produced, and distributed an ambitious slate of socially relevant films and documentaries — from “An Inconvenient Truth” to “Syriana”. “Waiting For Superman” examines the crisis of public education in the United States and is directed by Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”).

Genre: Documentary Film
Broadcaster: Vision Television

Can a sacred plant from the Amazon heal our minds and spirits? For centuries, indigenous people of South America have used ayahuasca, a psychoactive plant medicine, to cure all manner of psycho-spiritual ills.

Today, thousands of Westerners, seeking healing and spiritual awakening, attend ayahuasca ceremonies around the world to drink the vision-inducing tea and experience dramatic transformations in their lives.

Vine of the Soul is a documentary that explores this brave new world, offering insights into the nature of faith, mystical experience and self-healing through a heightened state of consciousness. Filmmaker Richard Meech follows key protagonists as they journey to Peru –- and back home –- capturing in verité style both the life-altering epiphanies and nights of terror encountered after drinking the sacred brew.

GreenHAT Digital has worked with the filmmaker to develop alternative distribution strategies, organize community screenings, and help generate word-of-mouth through social media.

Highlights:

• Consulted with the filmmaker on alternative distribution and sales strategies, including non-theatrical, semi-theatrical and community screenings; and direct-to-consumer DVD and digital download sales.
• Recommended online store service; and consulted on set-up and design.
• Recommended changes to Website; optimized Website and social media channels for search.
• Moved filmmaker to a Tumblr blog and coordinated integration of service into Website; coached filmmaker on blogging “best practices” and trained him on how to use Tumblr.
• Developed social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and coached filmmaker on content “best practices”; recommended software and services such as HootSuite to help manage channel updates; linked all channels to Website hub and back again.
• Coordinated community screenings and assisted at the film’s launch during MAPS: The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies conference in San Jose.
• Designed and wrote an e-newsletter; integrated with Flowtown customer insight service; consulted filmmaker on set-up and management of database.

Results:

• Filmmaker has a new understanding of film marketing and has been able to actively participate in the distribution and promotion of his work.
• Filmmaker has been able to manage his own social media channels and has been updating regularly to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
• Filmmaker has been able to screen the film to core audiences on the West Coast and to make enough money from exhibition sales to finance the screenings.
• Filmmaker is successfully selling extended DVDs and digital version of film directly from the Website.

Go to the Vine of the Soul Website »

Genre: Documentary Film
Broadcaster: OMNI Television

The doctor shortage is getting critical and one town is desperately trying to recruit physicians. At the same time, three internationally trained doctors are trying to get licensed to practice medicine in their new country.

This is the potent story documented in The Big Wait, a new 1-hour documentary film produced by Joanne Jackson for Brilliant Red Media and OMNI Television.

GreenHAT Digital worked with producer and filmmaker, Joanne Jackson, to develop a Website and search engine strategy prior to the broadcast launch of The Big Wait on OMNI Television in April 2010.

Highlights:

• Built a customized WordPress Website that allowed for easy updating and supported a basic Internet marketing strategy, which included blogging, in-bound links, and search engine optimization. The idea was to keep the process as simple as possible so that the filmmaker could manage regular content updates.
• Emphasis was placed on posting local news content that supported the issues raised by the documentary.  It was important that the site became a credible source of information on the doctor shortage in Canada as educational and government sales were a key component of the distribution strategy.
• The Website as well as individual Weblog posts were optimized to support searches related to the key issues raised by the documentary.
• Built and optimized a YouTube channel, which featured interviews with the three doctors profiled. Additional curated videos were added to the YouTube channel, providing additional content and pushing views in a narrow subject area.
• Built an online press kit to support the broadcast launch. Set-up a del.icio.us page to track and share online media coverage.
• Set-up a listening strategy and trained producer in blogging “best practices”.

Results:

• Producer has been able to stick to a regular blogging schedule.
• Site is ranked on first page of Google SERPs for the keyword phrase “doctor shortage canada”.
• Steady build in traffic to the site since launch; time on site trending above industry average.

Go to The Big Wait Website »