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94 FILMMAKER WINTER 2013
stitute getting involved early on as a North
American partner. Sundance Institute Docu-
mentary Film Program Director Cara Mertes
told me in an interview, “This is a orum or
films that want to afect change, films that
want to have some kind o social or political
impact, which not every film wants to do. It’s
not meant to serve the entire contemporary
documentary field, and that’s a choice that
we’ve made because we do see more re-
sources, partnerships and, in a way, impera-
tive around this set [o films].”Good Pitch’s simple but radical idea is
that, rather than go to the same handul
o film industry unders, participants are
trained to conceive o a ar wider variety o
sources or not only unding but also screen-
ing and outreach support. These are sources
that haven’t been inundated by hundreds o
film pitches a year and who have as much
to gain by partnering with a film relevant to
their causes as the filmmakers do.
For invited filmmakers, the process begins
three months in advance o the event with sev-
eral conversations with Good Pitch Outreach
Director Sandi DuBowski, who pioneered in-
ventive engagement campaigns or his own
films (Trembling Before G-d, A Jihad For Love)
long beore “engagement” became the buzz-
word it is today. With palpable enthusiasm,
he starts the process by brainstorming a list o
organizations that can be invited to sit at the
filmmaker’s roundtable and, ideally, make a
commitment the day o the pitch.
Our film, Remote Area Medical, explores the
state o the American health care system by
documenting a ree pop-up clinic built or just
one April weekend on the infield o a NAS-
CAR motor speedway in Bristol, Tenn. Given
our subject, the benefit o being introducedto public health organizations around the
country was clear. But not only did DuBowski
turn our vague ideas about building relation-
ships in the medical community into a tan-
gible list o Good Pitch prospects, he also
helped us tease out less obvious thematic
strands in the film in order to identiy other
partnership opportunities. These themes in-
cluded volunteerism, which led to us inviting
VolunteerMatch to our table.
Lucy Walker, who attended Good Pitch
with her latest eature documentary The
Crash Reel, said o the process, “No matter
how coy or anxious you might be eeling
about reaching out to new partners, [San-
di will] find ways to encourage, or indeed
orce, you to get over any shyness or reluc-
tance and reach out. Leading up to the ac-
tual pitch day, we had months o gentle and
not-so-gentle pressure, which has netted
us some remarkably exciting partnerships
and laid the groundwork or a thrilling and
hugely impactul campaign.”
Some o the organizations we approached
with DuBowski had never participated in
a film event beore, or ever considered do-
ing so, and had to be convinced o the Good
Pitch philosophy, which insists that docu-
mentary films can be powerul tools or any
organization. Patrick Creadon, director o
participating film Studio H, said, “by the time
we headed of to San Francisco, I thought we
might be joining a cult, with this passionate
and fiery leader named Sandi DuBowski. He’s
very demanding o participants, in a good
way. He expects you to show up having done
When I learned that Remote Area
Medical, the film I am co-di-
recting with my husband, Jef
Reichert, was accepted into the 2012 Good
Pitch San Francisco, I was honored but not
entirely sure why. The event is such a new
phenomenon, such a twist on the traditional
public pitch orum, that it takes time to ully
wrap one’s mind around it.
For each Good Pitch event, six to eight
documentary films with strong, social-issue
components are selected to participate ina single-day pitch orum where filmmakers
have seven minutes to pitch their films and
show clips or trailers. Representatives rom
various NGOs, oundations, philanthropies,
brands and media, whose institutional goals
dovetail with films rom the lineup, then dis-
cuss the documentaries with the filmmakers
at public roundtables, while 200 to 400 more
representatives watch rom the audience.
The films are selected by BRITDOC and
the Sundance Institute. BRITDOC’s Chie
Executive Jess Search and Foundation Di-
rectors Beadie Finzi and Maxyne Franklin
created Good Pitch in response to narrow-
ing distribution and unding opportunities
within the industry, with the Sundance In-
Positive First Impressions
LINE ITEMS
Documentary filmmaker Farihah Zaman shares the secrets of the Good Pitch.
Good Pitch San Francisco 2012
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your homework and to have really bought
into what Good Pitch is and what it can be.”
Ater finishing the process o prepping
with DuBowski and populating our roundta-
ble, Jef and I ocused on the demands o the
pitch day itsel, only to realize we had given
little thought to the campaign development
workshop beorehand. As it turns out, likethe submerged portion o the iceberg, the
intensive prep (two days ollowed by a day
o rest beore the pitch, though most o the
filmmakers used this time to continue refin-
ing their pitch on their own) is the most sig-
nificant part o the Good Pitch experience.
Many pitch orums and conerences will
do brie sessions on how to pitch, but ew
events workshop how a film is presented
with such rigor and ocus.
As we settled into a circle around a coner-
ence room at the Bay Area Video Coalition,
Dubowski announced that he was “literally jumping out o his skin with excitement.” He
introduced the rest o the team, and then
we started by giving the “pub version” o
our pitch, talking about the film the way we
might to a riend at a party. A lot o the new
material that Jef and I wound up adding to
our pitch came rom this seemingly humble
warm-up, rom details that we thought too
idiosyncratic or slight to be part o a ormal
pitch, but that others ound incredibly mem-
orable. Examples include the use o the word
“pop-up,” sharing how the 20 members o
our crew all stayed in a house together, and
the perspective I gained on America’s health
care crisis coming rom Bangladesh, one o
the poorest countries in the world.
Then there was a cycle o ormally pitch-
ing to the room, receiving eedback, and re-
turning to the hotel to lick our wounds and
rewrite or the next round. The advice rom
the filmmakers and organizers involved ev-
erything rom making basic concepts clearer
to wording and order o ideas to what per-
sonal elements to include in the pitch and
how to crat certain phrases so they catch
the attention o particular unders. Some o
our filmmaker colleagues even recut their
trailer or everishly created new animation
over the course o the prep days. The result
o this two-day session was that we talked
and even thought about our film diferently
— and more efectively.
Anthony Arnove, who is producing the
highly anticipated drone strike exposé Dirty
Wars with Brenda Coughlin, said o the peer-
to-peer process, “There were a number o
times when [ellow filmmakers] said some-
thing better than we had said it ourselves,
and we incorporated it into our general way
o talking about the film.” Indeed, while
having mentors like DuBowski, Search and
Mertes in the room was an incredible oppor-
tunity, it was the filmmaker powwow that
really made these sessions special. There is
no reason why someone who doesn’t have
the opportunity to go to Good Pitch couldn’t
recreate that at home with a group o like-
minded ellow filmmakers.
Jef and I had pitched Remote Area Medi-
cal at three other events over the past year
(at the Sundance Documentary Fellows
Program, Sundance Creative Producers
Summit and IFP’s Independent Film Week)
in one-on-one sessions, to some degree o
success, but many o the issues that came
up in the Good Pitch workshop we had never
considered. There are things that make or
a good pitch in any context, and then there
are things that make or a good Good Pitch
pitch.
First, personal inormation is ar more
crucial to a room ull o nonfilmies. I’ve been
under the impression that while people like
to know what brought filmmakers to a proj-
ect, that personal note shouldn’t be dwelled
upon. But at Good Pitch, where many or-
ganizations don’t customarily review film
projects, that inormation is o particular
value. It makes it clear to them why you are
the right person to tell the story you’re pre-
senting. Seeing your personal investment,
your dedication, makes them confident in
your ability to ollow through. Things that I
tend to mention in passing — the act that
we volunteered at a clinic beore deciding to
make the film, or my background in distri-
bution — were now the things that people
commented on at the reception ollowing
the main event.
By the same token, some o the tech-
niques I’ve learned about pitching in one-
on-one or small group sessions needed to
be thrown out the window in a public pitch
environment, particularly one with time
constraints as stringent as Good Pitch. For
example, I considered the ability to adapt
a pitch based on reactions — to “read the
room” — a strength. Is the exec at the other
Good Pitch’s Jess Search and Sandi DuBowski
“Good Pitch revolves around a belie system. A belie that flm can changethe world, in the power o small detailsto create big ripples.”
P H O T O C
O U R T E S Y
O F G O O D P
I T C H
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end o the table not that interested in the
description o your film as predominantly
vérité? No problem, delve into the act that
it is character-driven instead. At Good Pitch,
however, consistency was ar more impor-
tant than adaptability.
These ideas o being personal and being
rehearsed speak to the theatricality o the
event; the Good Pitch team has consideredevery single detail in terms o organization
and production, rom the theater-in-the-
round design o the room (the “architecture
o collaboration” as DuBowski calls it), to
the inclusion o break times when people
can connect. While we filmmakers agonized
over our pitches, the stunningly charismatic
Search, who served as emcee o the event,
and DuBowski strategized about things likeFarihah Zaman and Jef Reichert’s Remote Area Medical
TOP 10 PITCHING TIPS FROM THE 2012 GOOD PITCH SAN FRANCISCO CREW:1 Invest yoursel as much as possible during the workshop in the other films, filmmaking teams and pitches. You are all in this together
and can really help each other make the most out o Good Pitch. — Gillian Caldwell, producer/engagement strategist, Citizen Koch. Caldwell
has a more in-depth list of tips available at the Good Pitch website
2 Make it personal and real. Try not to sound scripted. — Suzan Beraza, director, Uranium Drive-In
3 Be un, pithy, memorable, and above all clear and specific. Cut out every single boring word. Present all your basic inormation in a clear
way. Practice about 10 times more than you think you need to. — Lucy Walker, director, The Crash Reel
4 Pitch it to your teammates and then pitch it to people who don’t know anything about you, and listen to the questions that those people
ask you. — Patrick Creadon, director, Studio H)
5 Personal connection is so important. Potential partners in the room have to understand why to invest in a filmmaker or in a campaign.
They have to eel the passion or the story and or the work that the filmmaker and their team will do with their project in the world. We
have to eel the impact. Why will this film make a diference? — Sandi DuBowski, Outreach Director, Good Pitch
6 Telling the story in the first person, living your story as you’re telling it — there’s nothing more powerul than seeing your certitude
and your belie and your passion; your commitment to the story and your knowledge about the story. — Cara Mertes, director, Sundance
Institute Documentary Fellowship Program
7 Don’t orget that you’re able to show clips rom your film. Letting your film speak or itsel is important. You’re there in service o your
film, and the burden isn’t just on you making a really compelling presentation. Understanding that your film can do a lot o the work or
you takes a little bit o the pressure of and also takes you back to the space o why you’re doing the work you’re doing in the first place.
— Anthony Arnove, producer, Dirty Wars
8 Make sure your trailer is clear and emotive, but it doesn’t have to tell the whole story. It just has to get people interested in hearing the
whole story. — Cara Mertes
9 Consider approaching one o your donors that will be joining you at the table and asking them to make a challenge grant rom the
table at Good Pitch with a time-limited duration to spur additional giving rom the audience. Apprise the Good Pitch team about the
pledge in advance, and ask them not to announce any matches made right away so as to maximize donor possibilities throughout
the day. — Gillian Caldwell
10 It is about being very clear about needs. We encourage filmmakers to just articulate what they need. Be clear about money, be exact
about money. And think big. — Sandi DuBowski
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placing sympathetic audience members
near a floor mic to encourage them to speak
up, or calling on an already-committed
advocate at the table beore a newcomer
so that the latter would be convinced by
the groundswell o support accumulating
around the project. Occasionally Search
and Dubowski would know about a recent
development in a film’s situation and askthat it be publicly announced or the first
time during a pitch in order to heighten the
sense o drama and urgency. While we had
been privately inormed in advance o the
event that we had been given a Pare Lorentz
grant rom the International Documentary
Association, Good Pitch invited a represen-
tative rom IDA to sit at our table and an-
nounce then and there that they were com-
mitting to supporting Remote Area Medical.
Search announced midway through The Yes
Men’s pitch that the Kickstarter campaign
or The Yes Men are Revolting had gone liveand stats suggest that films that receive a
certain amount in donations within the first
24 hours are extremely likely to reach their
overall goal. This prompted a flurry o audi-
ence members to donate to the campaign
on their smartphones, then announce they
had done so to the room and via social me-
dia, creating a delicious eedback loop o
buzz. It should be noted that The Yes Men
did, in act, raise nearly 50 percent more than
their goal o $100,000.
More than at other pitch events, the film-
makers are the entertainment here. This
means they can and should do things like
bring the subject o their film, as Walker did
when she introduced snowboarder Kevin
Pierce to an audience o people still tear-
ul over seeing him sufer a devastating
accident in her trailer. It also means that
sometimes pitch suggestions are made that
sel-conscious types might find gimmicky.
For instance, Casey Nay, co-editor and co-
producer o Uranium Drive-In, was cajoled by
Dubowski and Search into wearing a cow-
boy hat rom his very real days doing rodeo
so that the audience could visualize his con-
nection to the film, which is about the de-
bate surrounding the opening o a mine in
a tiny, struggling rural town not ar rom the
one he grew up in. Nay said, “I actually loved
wearing my rodeo clothes. The business-
man in me didn’t want to wear my hat at
first. Sandi and Jess won out though, as soon
as it was decided that we should include my
story. It was almost like an extension o the
film because people don’t see that culture
up close every day.” Andy Bichlbaum, one
hal o The Yes Men, struggled to determine
whether he should pitch as his Yes Men per-
sona or as himsel, or some combination o
the two. In the end he gave a straight pitch
in a hilarious “survival pod” rom a previous
perormance piece, allowing him to both
take the pitch seriously and show the audi-
ence his team knows how to address an is-
sue with playul humor.
Documentary filmmakers are not neces-
sarily used to being the entertainment, and
nervousness among the Good Pitch teams
was palpable on the day o the event. Be-
ore our pitch, I rocked back and orth in a
corner, rehearsing it to mysel in a slightly
unhinged ashion. As a first-time filmmaker,
being sandwiched in the schedule between
Lucy Walker, Academy Award-nominated
filmmaker and pitching pro, and The Yes
Men, who have spent the entirety o their
careers perecting how to be both unny
and thought-provoking via public peror-
mance, did nothing to calm my nerves. At
least I knew people were unlikely to leave.
But in many ways, Good Pitch is a ar riend-
lier room than other pitch events because
participants are made to anticipate both an
inspiring show and a brave new venture or
their business or organization. Unlike some
film unders, they are not there thinking,
how am I going to eliminate projects rom
this list o promising films so I can make my
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“Good Pitch is ultimately like a great frst
date or flmmakers, but you have to work on the relationship i you want itto turn into something more than that.”
see page 108
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1 08 F I LM M AK E R
WINTER 2013
can independent ilms. They do a lot o
Latin American movies and French movies.
We were at New Directors/New Films and
Marian Masone introduced me to [head o
sales and acquisitions] Eric [Schnedecker]
at a brunch beore our movie was about to
screen. I was like, “Just go see it. Here’s two
tickets.” And he was like, “I want to watch
Mad Men all day.” I said, “Go see the movie.”[Aterwards he said], “I love this movie. We
don’t really do independent American mov-
ies, but that could help. We can say to ilm
estivals and international distributors, ‘You
know us, we don’t normally do ilms like this.
This isn’t just an indie hipster movie. There’s
something really exciting and resh about it.’”
And you’ve had good sales? We’ve had good
sales. We have this great French distribution
deal with Diaphana, and it’s coming out Jan. 2.
We have a great U.K. deal with Soda Pictures.
Have there been surprises, things you didn’t
plan on during this process? I didn’t plan on
a French distributor lying me out to Paris
three times to do press and to have it come
out on 40 screens in France.
What about the process of filmmaking?
What did you learn? What it conirmed or
me, which I already knew, is that I do not
produce. I don’t know what is wrong with
you guys, [laughs] but I love directing so
much. And I hope this doesn’t sound preten-
tious, but, obviously, I believe in mysel. You
don’t do this i you don’t believe in yoursel.
I really thought I could do it. I’m nowhere
near a master cratsman. But I think there’s
no doubt I’m a much better ilmmaker now
than I was a year and a hal ago. I do not,
however, think that I’m a better ilmmaker
because o Cannes or because o an Inde-
pendent Spirit Award [nomination]. It’s
through the process o making the ilm that
I learned so many things. I read interviews
with ilmmakers, whether they are Robert
Altman or even Steven Spielberg, who say
that they are always learning. They learn
something rom every project. And that’s
one o the things I really love about it.■
ALL AT SEAfrom page 87
the action would be accompanied by a gasp-
ing sound recorded on the sync soundtrack.
In another auspicious and thoroughly bi-
zarre instance o accidental sound/image
occurrences, Karel noticed that in one par-
ticular shot, as a seagull crosses in ront o
the moon, the mic recorded a sizzle as i the
bird was momentarily immolating.
While most sound designers might have
discarded the “compromised” GoPro sync
soundtracks, Karel instead sought to maxi-
mize their expressive potential, bringing
out the resonant requencies and keeping
the accidental “sound artiacts.” (The pur-est example o this occurs at the very end
o Leviathan during a two-and-a-hal-minute
shot o seagulls disappearing into blackness,
which is the one piece o “music” composed
or the film.) However, even ater Karel’s nu-
anced mix, the soundtrack remained abra-
sive. According to Ribicof, the filmmakers
questioned how much assault the audience
could realistically take, especially given that
the soundtrack is primarily abstract. At what
point would the audience lose the sense that
they were on a ship? Ribicof’s work ocused
on keeping the audience in the present mo-ment by building out a robust sonic land-
scape and pumping up the horror elements
to dramatic efect. He added sound efects in
nearly every scene (including some limited
oley or water sounds), enhancing textures
and isolating specific sound events. (I you
are alert, you may catch the one sly musical
reerence, which appears diegetic but was
added in post.) Ribicof, taking ull advan-
tage o the 5.1 mix, sculpted dynamic sonic
arcs that key into the dramatic arcs o each
scene. Just as the cameras continually move
through space, the film’s sound continually
moves around the theater, giving a palpable
sense o dimensionality to the soundtrack.
The film, which is set or a March U.S.
release rom Cinema Guild, is about to take
on new lie at this year’s Berlinale, where
the filmmakers will unveil three versions o
the film to be exhibited as installations. The
main piece, provisionally titled Abyssal Loss,
will screen once daily or the duration o
the estival as a six-hour version o the film
without sound in which we view the film at
one rame per second. During the process o
editing Leviathan, the filmmakers discovered
spectral figures appearing in single rames,
primarily in the underwater shots. These
apparitions may be the visual analog to the
mysterious resonances — that is, digital ar-
tiacts recorded on the camera’s sensor. But
just as the film is seemingly haunted by orc-
es that remain just out o view, we can take
comort in the act that not knowing may be
much more useul than knowing.■
POSITIVE FIRST IMPRESSIONSfrom page 97
limited grant budget count?
At one point, when my partner was shar-
ing the story o how our unconventional
distribution strategy or Gerrymandering, his
first film, helped overturn unjust redistrict-
ing practices in the state o Caliornia, peo-
ple actually applauded. For a moment, I wasstupidly perplexed. I didn’t understand that
they were clapping or us. I thought, “There
are places in the world where people ap-
plaud you en masse or making a dent in an
arcane and conusing piece o legislation?
And in what parallel universe are distinctly
unamous filmmakers, like mysel, essential-
ly bum rushed ater a presentation, so eager
are people in very powerul positions to talk
with us about our film?”
There was no better evidence o the suc-
cess o the Good Pitch method o approach-
ing and preparing an audience than theenthusiasm o the audience throughout the
day. Amped-up participants aside, however,
I know the incredible reception o our pitch
was due also to the workshopping process.
A ew points o the Remote Area Medical
pitch have been around since the beginning,
like the succinct statement that this is a film
about people, not politics, and that it is as
much about shedding a light on the ignored
communities o rural America as it is about
health care. We have been lucky enough to
have a strong trailer that boasts all the bene-
fits o a sound mix and color correct, thanks
to the unding o the Cinelan/GE partner-
ship Focus Forward, which commissioned
a three-minute Remote Area Medical short
(available on the Focus Forward website).
Many o our most efective points, however,
were brand new. Although elements o the
pitch’s content were geared toward a more
politically charged audience, and elements
o its delivery don’t seem appropriate or an
audience o two rather than two hundred,
the presentation o Remote Area Medical
that emerged rom Good Pitch San Fran-
cisco is basically how we now pitch the film
in situations ranging rom casual conversa-
tions to film estival applications.
Jef and I went rom starting of with an
explanation o what the organization Re-
mote Area Medical does, a pitch more or
the group than or the film, to the more pro-
vocative statement, “Everything you need to
know about health care in America can be
learned by attending just one ree medical
clinic.” We went into the act that we de-