As we’re drawing a close to our 3MW My Home Town competition, I’m sure you’re wondering what we’ve got up next for you. Well, we’ve teamed up with Passat, who sponsor documentaries across Channel 4, and sorted out a pretty amazing prize, and a new type of competition.
Instead of submitting a finished 3 minute film, we want you to pitch an idea for a longer documentary that you want to make, loosely based on the theme ‘beautifully engineered’. However, you need to make your pitch online! What we looking for is people who think filmically, so this is not the place to just talk us through your idea.
We want to see your style and flair, or meet your character, or understand a little of what the film might feel like. Rather than a taster tape, what we’ll be looking for is a visual mood board that will convince us that you’re a creative director with vision and a story, who needs to be let loose. Then, in November we’ll pick the best pitch, and give them £5 000 to spend on equipment to get the film made. How does that sound?
Comments
Is the winner expected to actually make the documentary? By the looks of it, it seems that pitching an idea but having no intention of shooting it does not contravene the rules. Pitching an idea for a completely fictional documentary seems tempting…
Also, would C4 have automatic option on the winning pitch or would the filmmaker be free to take it to whoever they like?
Hi Paul – the idea is to help a filmmaker make their film, by providing them with their own top notch equipment. The winner IS expected to make the film. What kind of real filmmaker with an idea and amazing camera wouldn’t want to do so?? Channel 4 won’t have an automatic option to buy the film, so it will be up to the winner what they do with it. However, we want more ambitious, experimental and creative ideas than the spots for TV docs house. So don’t get carried away with the idea that your film will be in a TV biding war. Hopeful it will play in some festivals, and work as a calling card to further funding and commissions. Does this soudn OK with you Paul?
Will the pitches be shown on fourdocs? I imagine most would prefer to keep their project from general view until it was complete.
Yep – some of the pitches will be shown online. You don’t need to give away the exact identity of your characters, or the whole idea for the film. Rather we want to see why you should make the film, based on your vision for it. I know it seems scary to share some of your ideas, but if you’re not in it, you can’t win it! That applies both to the camera prize and winning commissions and funding in general.
Hi RF.
How do you delineate what passes for a documentary, are there guidelines or is this about the perspective of the potential film maker?
Quote “We want to see your style and flair, or meet your character…”. This statement confuses me a little because I have always believed the documentary to be factual based rather than fiction. By meeting “your character” do you mean the personality of the documentary maker or a fictious creation? or have I missed the point? Can you clarfiy this for me please, regards, CLF
Hi Andrew – what counts as documentary is subjective, the only ‘rule’ is that it must be based on factual, not fictional or interpretive content. It might be journalistic, personal or artful in style – it’s up to you!
Hey Carly – when we say we want to meet your ‘character’, we mean the person your documentary is about – the real life star. I can see how the term could be confusing though – its just industry standard to refer to people within proposals as characters.
If you could also get across your own personality (or ‘character’) as a filmmaker in your pitch too, that would be great. A big question funders ask is why should this filmmaker be the person making the film. If you can explain why you are the best person to make the film, the proposal becomes about more than just the idea.
I have a documentary to pitch however it does not revolve around ‘beautifully engineered’. I am planning to film next year from April to the end of August. The documentary basically revolves around a saxophone player and a comedian on tour in the UK (although there is much more to it than just that). Who would be the best person to send the pitch to in this case?
This is confusing… This is a filmed pitch is that right? Of what you want to make your longer film about? How long is this expected to be and are mood boards part of what is filmed or submitted separately?
PS and for what length of longer film? 30 mins? An hour?
To clarify – we want you to submit a short video pitch describing the longer film you want to make (and there is no set length for this film). The pitch should give us an idea of the style and subject of documentary you want to make – we don’t want to just listen to you talk, as if reading from a proposal. If your main character is ‘larger than life’ can you capture that and include it please! We also want to understanding what your proposed film will look and feel like. Will it be handheld, tripod mounted or will you use more than one camera and cut between them? Are you going to use any special effects like animation, or will colours be important and emphasised in the edit, (perhaps to make some scenes appear more dream like, or else emphasise cold, harsh realities?) If you’re going to have a lot of music in your film, put some in the pitch. Remember there are more pitching tips on the competition page: http://www.channel4.com/documentaries/microsites/V/vwdocs/competition.html
It might look a bit like a trailer, or it could be a visual mood board, with photos and stills of where some of the scenes might happen. However, everything that you want us to see must be included within the short video. And remember, you can be creative to make your idea fit the theme. Chris – I think you can easily use a saxophone as an example of a beautifully engineered instrument.
What if you have a great vision, know from previous experience that you can shoot with flair and style, but have no equipment at all to shoot it on, except for a stills camera, and at the very most, a mobile phone with video capabilities?
Take stills and explain how the moving images will create a different feel, or mix it up with some low res phone footage by all means. What you need to show is that you have a solid idea for a film, which you will make in a way that is unique or interesting or apt. Maybe you could include a clip from some previous work to demonstrate your shooting style if you’re really stuck…
A friend and I tried to do the impossible and came damn close to achieving it… We have all the documentation from our enterprise… Could our documentary be a retrospective with us filming as reconstruction the real events that took place… It really was the impossible we tried to achieve… could we propose a documentary based on our event (it would involve us shooting reconstruction, or doing the entire thing as a mockumentary where we use our archive of material and film around it as though it was 12 months ago – i know that isn’t a documentary, but would that kind of reconstructed documentary pass muster. I guess what I’m asking is ‘would a script written as a documentary based on actual events be eligible…
my idea is to put me on an island for a month with nothing but fruit veg rice and a the means to fish, every week after that, i earn donated money for charity,if big brother contestants can go thay long, i could easy do six months on my own, for charity, be good viewing to see if i could make it
Hi, my subject is based in another country and since I’m not going there anytime soon I would like to supplement my existing visual material with a few images collected from the internet (mostly of landscapes, not people) but was wondering if I still need to get permission from the sources of all of these images so that I can include them in my pitch?
Cheers!
What if you have verbal permission but you don’t have written permission for use of recorded material? I have several people within my project and they have all said yes to use of the material and getting signed release forms isn’t a problem. I just don’t have them yet can I still submit a pitch?
If you know you have permission to use recorded material that is fine – you will need to tick a box stating that you do though. If you want to use images from the internet, it is best to use non-copyrighted ones – try a site like http://www.easystockphotos.com/
Will you recieve a confirmation email once you have entered?
My documentary could benefit from some sports clips, which would be easily found on YouTube. I was wondering what the standpoint of FourDocs is on using clips from YouTube?
You can use clips from YouTube, but really you should get in touch with the owners of the footage to see if they give you permission to use it and for what. Technically, what is posted is not covered under a creative commons license that would give anyone the right to do whatever they wanted with the footage. However, normally people are fine with this, as they have already chosen to exhibit their video online.
Hi,
I’ve just filmed my solo first descent by canoe of the 2800 mile Congo river in Central Africa. Took 5 months, amazing footage. Would I qualify to submit a project which may be finished/improved upon next year with improved equipment.
Phil
Sure you would Phil. As a tip, before you put together your footage, think about what type of film you want to make, and it’s tone. Then illustrate using what you have already, in a way that makes it clear what would actually happen in the longer documentary, and what the audience would be left thinking.
Hi there,
Could you just clarify what exactly you mean when you say the documentary should be loosely based on the theme “beautifully engineered”? Will this theme dictate the subject of the film?
Just want to make sure I haven’t misunderstood the brief. Thanks!
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