Access to archival media is often the result of the invisible work of teams of archivists and technicians who preserve content on fragile media and provide it to the public. Accessing archival media can be a financial challenge for documentary filmmakers because preservation of media is as time consuming and expensive (sometimes more) as shooting new footage. Logistically, making this material available is time consuming, expensive, and requires skilled team members to coordinate. Our upcoming research study, Mapping the Magnetic Media Landscape, a project of BAVC Media, examines U.S. collection holders’ needs and how we might support them. Because of our decades of work with and for filmmakers, we can put it bluntly: All of these costs are ultimately passed on to the filmmaker.
Research
To counter the decentralization of local film production, BAVC Media (Bay Area Video Coalition) has just released the Bay Area Film Production Memo
During Ranell Shubert’s first eight-year span on staff at IDA, she has had the opportunity to work across many departments, giving her a unique
A candid assessment of the current landscape for documentary filmmakers, this opening plenary lays the groundwork for three packed days of programming
Documentary production, distribution and audience consumption have shifted further into the mainstream than ever before, with original documentary
When filmmaker Dawn Porter was approached to produce and direct a new documentary about Robert F. Kennedy and his 1968 presidential campaign, she
My career in documentary film began when I was brought on as a production assistant for Lyn Goldfarb and Alison Sotomayor's Bridging the Divide: Tom