Welcome to Confessions of a Documentary Producer

Episode 1: Let's save the world and have some fun (yikes!!)

“The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.” Rebecca Solnit

I've spent my professional life trying to make documentaries, but now it feels impossible. Is it time to stop?

The goal of this newsletter is to share great documentaries with my readers along with interviews from the teams behind them about how they made their films and got them out into the world. My hope is that these case studies will educate and inspire audiences and makers to watch and make more docs. I will also share news and musings on the world of documentaries.

While I am a veteran documentary film and television producer with scores of docs under my belt, and my main goal is to keep making films, I also wanted to start writing about my practice as a filmmaker. I worked for the New York Times for eleven years, and now I am charting my next chapter as an independent producer. But this new chapter of my career is coinciding with a tectonic shift in the way documentaries are made and distributed. I am not going to give up on my career because of this. (Though I did think about other careers: ceramicist? parenting coach? dog walker? Oh wait I am bad at all of those things!)

Here we go….

Like the rest of the world, the field of documentary filmmaking is undergoing a profound shift. The path to earning a living making artful, political nonfiction films – the kind of work I’ve been making and want to continue to create – has been washed away by the tidal wave of change that is reshaping everything from technology to politics to institutions.

In the world of documentary no one talks about anything else but the seemingly impossible task of funding and distributing our work. Indeed, The New Yorker just published this perceptive essay Documentaries of Dissent about how the films Union and No Other Land have not been distributed by any major companies. I doubt the public at large will catch on to this, but the truth is that many of the most timely and profound documentaries that call truth to power are not widely released anymore. And it did not used to be this way.

Part 1: My story

My career in docs began in 2007 with a Craigslist ad for an internship with a company called Jigsaw Productions. A quick Google search revealed that the director Alex Gibney, who had made the doc Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, owned Jigsaw. I rushed to apply (I was their first applicant!), and I landed the gig. Shout out to the woman who hired me and became a lifelong friend Alexandra Johnes.

While I worked there, Alex won an Oscar for Taxi to the Darkside, a film that spoke truth to power. I wanted to be part of this thrilling world. I wanted to make documentaries like Taxi—urgent, topical stories depicted with an artful, cinematic approach.

The Salad Days in Docs

Making a living in documentaries was never easy. I interned for free for a few months for Alex and soon was able to parlay that experience into a paid gig with Jehan Noujaim. My career took off from there. I was scrappy and did everything from archival research to field producing. I learned to shoot and edit. That way, I could earn money doing either. Even though I wanted to direct, I could never manage to get my projects off the ground and earn a living at the same time. Besides, I discovered that I really loved working with teams on a range of projects. And, I was earning money to boot on projects for iconic companies like HBO, IFC, and WNYC.

After freelancing for a few years, I landed at the New York Times Op-Docs in 2013.

At that time, the series was ramping up. Legendary filmmakers Errol Morris, Laura Poitras, Roger Ross Williams, Heidi Ewing, and Rachel Grady contributed to the series. I met new talents like Lance Oppenheim and Garrett Bradley because they wanted to work with Op-Docs. I got to produce Garrett and Lance’s first feature documentaries, Time and Some Kind of Heaven, both of which premiered at Sundance in 2020. I was doing exactly what I had hoped to do with my life.

Ok, caveat: it wasn’t all champagne and gold statues. While working harder than ever in my profession, I also had two babies during my first four years at the Times. More on work/life balance another time. My motto is ‘You can do it all, just not at the same time.’

During my eleven years at the Gray Lady, I produced hundreds of short docs (all for Op-Docs except for one made with HBO), five feature documentaries, and two television series. I won four Emmys. Three films that I executive produced were nominated for the Academy Awards.

Back when I was an intern, I could hardly have imagined all of these experiences and successes.

Free Fall

Today, the industry I love is in a downward spiral. Since COVID, the market for documentaries has been contracting. The pandemic hammered the last nail in the coffin for the theatrical documentary business because no one watches docs in theaters. Streaming, as well as theatrical and linear broadcasters, have pulled back the number of films they acquire and/or produce while also narrowing the scope for the types of films they will buy.

So while Netflix, HBO, Peacock, Amazon and Hulu still want documentaries, the kind of films they want is narrowly defined. As one steaming exec recently told me, companies can only buy docs that they believe ten million people will watch. So what kind of docs are those? True crime (The Tinder Swindler), pop culture investigations (Framing Britney Spears), celebrity bio pics (Martha Stewart), and sports docs. There is nothing wrong with these kinds of docs and I watch them too. I understand the need for a major steamer to be in the mass entertainment business. But what about those of us makers who aren’t aiming for Wall Street to cosign on our content strategy to make money for investors?

Part 2: Is it just impossible?

Consider three big pre-pandemic hits that made money in theatrical and then went to streaming: RBG (about a liberal judge), Three Identical Strangers (a stranger-than-fiction tale no one had heard of), and Free Solo (a niche sports doc). Would they get made today?

Let’s play a game. If we were pitching these to streamers or investors, would they bite? What would they say about their chances for distribution success?

RBG “A liberal judge. Too political.”

Three Identical Strangers “No baked in audience for a story about three men no one has ever heard of. Too bad there isn’t a murder. And uff the suicide angle...”

Free Solo “Sports docs do well but rock climbing doesn’t have a big enough audience.”

Maybe I am being too pessimistic? Comment below and tell me if you think I am wrong here!

Part 3: Let’s find some hope

There is now -- and there always will be -- an audience for true stories that are provocative, emotional, probing, and rigorously made. Lots of people love documentaries. According to new research from The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, the potential audience size for independent documentaries is one-quarter of American adults. 77 million people. And that number does not account for the audiences who turn out for documentary series!!

So lots of Americans, maybe even a hundred million Americans, love docs.

So, what can those of us who want to watch and make these films do?

Part 4: Ok, Let’s Do This!

Well for one thing people are doing this right now. Lots of filmmakers are taking matters into their own hands and getting their films out there without any help from traditional distributors. (Future newsletters will be devoted to how films are doing this.)

From my Op-Docs days, one thing I know how to do is curate great movies. And I am going to do that curating right here in this space – a regular newsletter where I will celebrate amazing films and projects in need of eyeballs and support. And I will talk to the teams behind these projects to learn how they have been able to make their films during these challenging times and how they are getting them (or not) out to audiences.

I also want to use this space to talk to my fellow documentary lovers and stakeholders about where we go from here. I’m fortunate to know a lot of wonderful, smart, talented people who love to make excellent docs. I will feature interviews with my comrades-in-arms about what they love to watch, where we can go from here, and what is working in the doc space these days.

So, welcome to Confessions of a Documentary Producer Newsletter.

Next up: An interview with the team behind Zurawski v Texas. Why make a documentary about abortion now? How did they navigate making a political doc? How did they get the film out into the world without a major streamer to distribute it? Spoiler alert: They started filming in April 2023 and premiered at Telluride in September 2024. For those of you who don’t know about how long it usually takes to make a doc they worked at LIGHTNING speed.

Stay tuned for more.

Please reach out if you want to talk! And thank you for reading.

P.S. A few things I recommendations from me to you

An interview from with Channels with Peter Kafka with Chris Balfe. The talent Balfe works with may very well have helped re-elect Donald Trump ( Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly) and he is also the creator of CrimeCon. So while the media and entertainment businesses are both suffering, here is a guy who is winning at it. While his content is not everyone’s jam to say the least, he says a lot about how to think about different distribution channels, audience, and monetization that is worth chewing over.

RIP Quincy Jones. A few days before his passing, I saw his daughter Rashida Jones’ excellent short documentary for the Los Angeles Times and POV Shorts called A Swim Lesson. Watch Here. The film is a profile of a swim instructor whose unique approach to teaching kids to swim turns into a meditation on life and parenting. Profiles like this work well in the short documentary format, where you don’t necessarily need a plot or a conflict to keep audiences hooked. Meeting a great character can be a completely satisfying experience, and this film is a wonderful example of that. (Other examples from my Op-Docs oeuvre include The Happiest Guy in the World The Bull Rider)

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