Living
INTINERARY
5
- producción
- dirección
- guion,
- dirección de fotografía
- sonido
- montaje
- color
- grafismo
- diseño sonoro
- mezcla
- música
- distribución,
- agencia de ventas
- programación
The first stage of producing a film begins with the selection of a project and the identification of its specific characteristics and its possibilities of financing and artistic-creative proposal and innovation. The following steps require taking into account the dimension of the project in order to plan a sustainable budget and tailored financing. The documentary can be approached in different ways depending on the model it represents, from artisanal, industrial or self-production.
The first stage of producing a film begins with the selection of a project and the identification of its specific characteristics and its possibilities of financing and artistic-creative proposal and innovation. The following steps require taking into account the dimension of the project in order to plan a sustainable budget and tailored financing. The documentary can be approached in different ways depending on the model it represents, from artisanal, industrial or self-production.
Schools: between formal and non-formal
- Did you attend a film school or specialized documentary studies?
- Where would you say you learned film, in an academic institution and/or in another place/s?
- How much of your training would you attribute to experiences outside of formal education?
- What has been the most fruitful experience/person/relationship or discovery in terms of teaching about film?
- Can you share any examples?
- Do you think that film can be taught/learned?
- How?
Experience as a continuing school
- It is well known that experience is a degree in terms of mastery and expertise.And in terms of learning?
- What aspects do you continue to learn about film as you make (or think about) films?
- What is the most important or revealing thing that life experience and film practice has taught you about film and documentary film in particular?
- What aspects, if any, of what you knew or thought you knew about film when you started or when you left school have you abandoned or have lost value for you over time?
Other disciplines: expanding creation
- Do you have training in any discipline outside of film, before or after your film career?
- Have you practiced that other practice?
- Whether or not you have specific training in another area: how have other disciplines influenced your cinema?
- How do they influence the creative process or are they reflected in your work?
The performance of a creative activity such as filmmaking must be healthy and compatible with life inside and outside of work, like any other professional performance. However, it is necessary to raise a deep reflection on this subject. Physical and mental health in productions, care within work teams or reconciliation with personal life are essential aspects in this sense. Sometimes, the precariousness of documentary film production is incompatible with vital and economic stability, forcing many professionals to seek other means of livelihood. All these factors and others can lead to the abandonment of film projects and a certain frustration. In this chapter we delve into the essential well-being of filmmakers.
Health, Care, and Work-Life Balance
- How do you balance an organizationally unstable activity like filmmaking with other aspects of your personal life?
- Which aspects of documentary filmmaking are most likely to destabilize your well-being and health, both physically and mentally?
- How do you prevent burnout from filmmaking: instability, long hours, team coordination?
- Can you share some strategies?
- Do you contribute to creating spaces for mutual care in your filmmaking work?
- How?
- When did you discover this need?
- Have you ever had to abandon or give up filmmaking for work-life balance reasons?
- Can filmmaking and work occasionally be a refuge from an overly saturated or even critical personal situation?
Economies: Making a Living from Documentary Filmmaking
- A simple question: what do you do for living?
- Have you been able to build a life/earn a living from your documentary filmmaking work?
- If you make a living from filmmaking: do you make a living from producing, directing, teaching, programming, all of these activities?
- Do you think there's little talk about money or how those of us who make documentaries make a living?
- If you're a producer or have your own production company: how do you organize the different productions to make the structure viable?
- We'd appreciate you sharing examples, past or present. If you're a director: do you balance this with other professional activities, in this or another sector?
- Do you work as a director on other productions or commissions, for documentaries or other film or audiovisual genres?
- How do you incorporate or evaluate this situation?
- If you're a screenwriter, director of photography, editor, sound engineer, composer, etc.: Do you turn down many offers or do you take on most of the shoots or projects proposed to you?
- Do you have a preference for practicing your discipline in documentary filmmaking?
- Does it influence the work you accept?
- How does joining and leaving different films influence your creative practice?
Attempts, abandonments, and learning experiences
- How many of the film projects you've started have been shelved?
- For what reasons: not knowing how to approach them, not getting funding, not finding the right crew or production company?
- What have you learned from these abandonments—about filmmaking, about your own abilities, about the industry?
- Have you ever revived a project you'd abandoned?
- Describe this specific example. How did you revive that film, and what had changed?
The geographical territory from which the filmmaker operates is another fundamental axis that determines the practice of documentary film. The imbalance between the peripheries and the epicentres, which have powerful audiovisual ecosystems and consolidated cultural policies, condition the size of the productions and the possibilities of disseminating the films. At the same time, the place of residence and creation determines the options for building communities and networks that allow the filmmaker a collective and shared reflection in relation to his cinematographic practice.”
Territories, Peripheries, and the Geopolitics of Cinema
- Where do you create or produce from? If it's not a peripheral territory or outside the production epicenters: what factors determined the decision to operate from there?
- How does the place where you produce influence your cinema?
- Would your cinema be different from another location?
- In what sense: more or less free, easier or more difficult to produce and finance, more recognized and/or better distributed...?
- Does the place where you produce add value to your cinema?
- Does it attract a certain interest at festivals, markets, and other events?
Communities and Networks
- Are you a solitary filmmaker or do you feel surrounded by a community?
- What is the community from which you make films like? Is there a specific cinematographic community, both in terms of access to programming and filmmaking practice?
- What other organizations and agents in your community influence your cinema, both in terms of the themes you address and the way you work?
- How do you value the How important is it to have a support and work network in developing your filmmaking practice and in its continuity and coherence?
