Part One: Story Development
Part Three: Shooting and Editing
Part Four: Distribution

Why are you making a documentary? In other words, who do you want to see it? As with every step of filmmaking, you have to ask yourself, "Who is my audience? How do I reach them? How do I impress them/hold their attention long enough to get them to the credits?" It's easy to say I am going to make a documentary on Antarctica and its going to air on The Travel Channel. Making that video and actually having it aired, anywhere, is a much bigger challenge. In part two of our four part series on How to Make a Documentary, we look at funding, financing and budgeting.

The True Cost of Filmmaking

If your dream is to have a piece on PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, will you need to employ an online editor and what will that cost you? If your dream is to compete for an Oscar in the feature length documentary category, does The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences require that your film run in a movie theater and for the final print to be in celluloid? You need to know these requirements and you need to know what they will cost you.

The answers to these questions can be found from our friend the Internet. But even if your aspirations are more humble, your doc will cost money to produce. Tape stock, hard drives, gear you don't own (e.g. Lavaliere mics, lighting gear), unique accessories for your camera, (e.g. protective rain coat, wide angle lens), compensating those who help you, (if only with a meal if you are not paying them), travel costs, stock footage, music rights... The list goes on and on. Even if you are a Jedi master of the low budget, you will eventually incur costs. So we need to plan every step of our production, we need to know what each step will cost and we need to figure out a way to fund it.

The Budget

Before we start kicking the wall yelling, "show me the money!" like Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, 1996), we're going to need to put some numbers to paper. Why bother? For a number of reasons: It helps you pre-plan and understand what you are going into, helps others understand the cost of financing your work and it shows funders that you know what you are doing. Depending on your needs, your budget might be half a page long typed into a word processing document or it can take the form of a forty page, itemized spreadsheet. If you are asking your mother for money, the first model may suffice. If you are applying for an ITVS (Independent Television Service) grant, you better use the latter.

There are many excellent books on budgeting. Michael Wiese Books have a number of budgeting and financing resources as well as free, downloadable sample budgets at the Virtual Film School area of his website. Adjust his spreadsheet and plug in your own numbers.

How to Make Them Part With Their Cash

Here is a question for you: Will you give me $60,000? (if the answer is yes, please contact Videomaker immediately and ask them where you can send me the check). Chances are you answered, "no." Or at least you were hesitant and questions popped into your head such as, "will I get the money back?" Is the subject of the film something I believe in? Or simply, "What's in it for me?" Getting any amount of money out of anyone is a challenge, and it should be. Why is an individual or organization going to empty their wallet or bank account to give their hard-earned money to you? Put yourself in their shoes.

You can ask your Uncle Jerry for the money. After all, he is loaded. But put yourself in his loafers. Why would he do this? Or you could write a letter to multi-million dollar corporation and ask them for money. But what is in it for them? Lets look at a few funding models that have actually worked.