Author Archive
Monday, September 26th, 2011
I am writing this from the crowded “lobby” area at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, where the Spotlight on Documentaries forum is going hot and heavy. The noise in this room is beyond description. It is such an overwhelming cacophony that try as I might, I can’t eavesdrop at all. This is disappointing, because eavesdropping is one of my most favorite pursuits and would surely have given me great material for you, dear readers. Alas.
As promised, now I will share some key lessons from the original self help masterpiece, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I admit that allowing people in this Sophisticated Documentary Crowd to see me carrying around this book is pretty embarrassing. I like to imagine they can tell I’m going for a jokey, cavalier attitude. But it is likely that everyone checking me out right now thinks I’m a total tool.
On the book jacket (my edition’s cover screams, “FULLY UPDATED FOR THE 80s!”), Dale Carnegie promises that, “I Can Take Any Situation I Am In – And Make It Work For ME!” Carnegie also admonishes me to remember, “There IS Room At the Top, When You Know… HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE!” Yes, people, yes! I can feel it already!
So anyway, here are my Top Ten Hot Tips for Filmmakers in Pitch Type Environments, Adapted From Classic Advice From Good Old Grandaddy Dale:
1) Don’t criticize, condemn or complain (about anything).
2) Give honest and sincere appreciation. Every human person has a deep need to feel important and valued, but most of them can also tell if you are insincerely flattering them.
3) Arouse in the other person an eager want.
4) Get the other person saying, “Yes, yes,” and nodding as soon as possible. If they aren’t nodding and smiling, change it up until they do.
5) Appeal to the nobler motives.
6) Try honestly to understand the other person’s opinions, needs and ideals.
7) Never argue. The only way to win an argument is to avoid it.
8) Let the other person feel … Read the rest
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
Day One of Film Week is complete! Wow, did we ever get better at talking about Our Nixon today. Ten back-to-back 30-minute meetings with brilliant people who are really interested in your film will do have that effect.
Did Our Nixon make a true love connection? Who knows, but sparks were definitely flying. And it’s all about getting to the second date.
We came into this week with a lot of meeting requests, and although I was fairly flabbergasted by the interest we elicited, I really shouldn’t have been. Because Our Nixon has a really fantastic premise: it’s a feature doc composed of never-before-seen Super 8 home movies filmed by three of President Richard Nixon’s closest White House aides. The home movies offer an astonishingly intimate glimpse into the Nixon presidency through the point of view of some of his staffers. Our Nixon treats the three home movie makers (H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin) as the protagonists, and charts their personal trajectory from idealism and hope to disillusionment and betrayal. These three men gave up everything to devote themselves to Nixon, loyally followed all of his orders, and because of the President’s actions ended up in prison. Their story is a reflection of all Americans who believed in Nixon only to be betrayed by him in the end.
So you see, it’s a film that appeals to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. It’s a funny film and a serious film and it’s very political without being ideologically rigid. It’s rich in historical interest, it’s about RICHARD FREAKING NIXON who is possibly the most fascinating man ever, it’s got a lot of 1970s celebrities and sweet kitsch Americana stuff, and did I mention it’s pretty funny?
So getting people to the table isn’t hard. But then what? Ah, yes, watch how the tables will turn! The sweet irony is that those very strengths, the very same things that make it stand out from the crowd in the first place, can now be feasibly seen as weaknesses! “It’s… so unusual!” “But how will it work, … Read the rest
Monday, September 19th, 2011
Next week, my husband Brian and I will take our first documentary feature (Our Nixon) to Independent Film Week. I’ve never been to this event before, or to anything remotely like it, so I would describe my state of mind as Excited Anticipation, tinged with a slightly lesser amount of Bemused Bafflement.
For the uninitiated, here is the little that I know about Independent Film Week (I should say more specifically the Project Forum): if you are selected by IFP to participate, you upload information about your film to a top secret server run by elves, and then various species of “industry” people (producers, distributors, agents, programmers, etc.) register to get access to that server. They review all the film projects and request short meetings with the filmmakers they are interested in talking to. IFP gives you the resultant schedule, and then for four days in late September, you dash madly about from meeting to meeting, repeating your carefully rehearsed pitch designed to make everyone in the world think your film is the best thing since sliced bread or whatever.
Actually, I have no intention of carefully rehearsing anything. Personally, I can’t stand people who spew rapid-fire auto-pitches at me while I tiredly gaze into my glass of crappy complimentary wine at “networking” events. (Note to self: do not accidentally get drunk off the crappy complimentary wine.) Actually, the very word “networking” gives me hives. My big fat self-promotion plan is to be a normal human being who is generous, passionate and genuine, and then see what that leads to. Maybe it won’t lead to anything, but I’ve never believed that rabid self-promotion leads to very much, either. Seriously, nobody likes those people.
I do confess my fear that it may be challenging to be a normal person is such an unnatural environment. How does one prepare for something like this?
I decided to consult some Speed Dating experts. I quickly found my Yoda. Her name is Amber, she owns her own speed dating company, and she is mesmerizing. I recommend her YouTube channel, especially … Read the rest
