Documentary films often generate empathy in audiences, illuminating new perspectives and activating powerful emotions, but what happens next? How can empathy created by effective storytelling fuel action?

A panel of filmmakers and industry professionals will come together to discuss how they’ve carried their messages beyond the screen to incite engagement from viewers and response to social issues and injustices. Subjects to be discussed include storytelling methods for inspiring action, building campaigns through multimedia platforms, and engaging with the journalistic community.

Chaired by:
Sarah Mosses, CEO of Together Films, a new agency working with social issue film content to reach new audiences. She helps filmmakers craft Impact Distribution Campaigns to increase both their social impact, audience reach and revenue potential. As an award winning producer Sarah’s debut feature documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First had its World Premiere at SXSW 2015. Sarah is a mentor for Documentary Campus, Eso Doc, Sheffield DocFest, working with filmmakers to identify strategies and partners for their films.

The panelists:

Riddhi Jha is a UK Producer/Writer, educated at Royal Holloway, University of London. She started her career working in post-production and later began developing programmes for major UK television channels. Her debut in production was on a Channel 4 documentary ‘Why Don’t You Speak English?’ which followed the lives of those who had settled in the UK for the first time. Riddhi has since worked on the popular BBC television series ‘The Great British Bake Off’, has cast contributors and worked as Researcher for several productions for the BBC and Discovery and has scripted several commercials. “Riddhi came on board as an Associate Producer on India’s Daughter with the sort of commitment, energy and passion that a producer dreams of having at his/her side”, Leslee Udwin has said of her. Riddhi has a feature film in development as writer/producer – the story of a child bride.

Callum Macrae is a filmmaker, writer and journalist. An Emmy, BAFTA and Grierson nominee, his output has ranged from current affairs investigations to observational documentaries to polemics and he has filmed around the world, including Iraq, Sri Lanka, Japan, Haiti, Cote D’Ivoire, Uganda, Mali, and Sudan on subjects ranging from international and civil conflict to sex-workers rights.  He headed the Channel 4 team nominated in 2013 for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on Sri Lanka which culminated in his feature documentary, No Fire Zone.  The product of a three year investigation, No Fire Zone is credited with playing a key role in convincing the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014 to launch a major international war crimes investigation into the events in the closing stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Patrick Hurley is Distribution Manager at Dogwoof, a leading film distributor and world sales agent specialising in high-profile feature-length documentaries. Primarily responsible for theatrical-release campaigns and audience-building, Patrick has worked on over 60 cinema releases for documentaries in the UK over the past four years. For this discussion, Patrick will share insights from Dogwoof’s campaign for Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish for which Dogwoof handled UK distribution, international sales plus website and social media.  Released in 2013, Blackfish has become a worldwide phenomenon, achieving an immense global audience and instigating a major impact on Sea World’s admissions and reputation for keeping orcas in captivity. Patrick will discuss how Dogwoof positioned and marketed the film to a broad audience while simultaneously leveraging support from key activist partners.

Heading to Sheffield Doc/Fest this year? Not only does the programme contain a fantastic selection of documentaries, but everyone with a full festival pass also has access to the diverse and inspiring conference programme. We have produced a conference session, Dangerous Storytelling: Documentary Filmmaking and the Safety of Subjects, which will place at the ITV Town Hall Council Chamber at 10:15 AM on Tuesday 9 June.

The relationship between filmmaker and subject is a topic hotly debated by film directors, academics, and journalists. Methods such as undercover filming, encrypted communication and Skype allow filmmakers to reach individuals who may otherwise be reluctant to speak or difficult to meet in person. However, unprecedented access to a compelling story can come with a risk to the individuals at the centre of the film. How can documentary makers without a journalism background practice safe investigative work? When the telling of a story has potential consequences, how can a filmmaker ensure the protection of their subjects? We will be joined by Orlando von Einsiedel, Kim Longinotto, Julianna Ruhfus, and Beadie Finzi to discuss circumstances in which the presence of a camera is risky business.

The panelists:

Beadie Finzi (Chair)
Beadie Finzi is one of the founding directors of BRITDOC, a non profit film foundation supported by Channel 4 Television, Ford Foundation and Bertha Foundation as well as a number of US and European foundations. Having worked in documentary for the past 20 years, Beadie is in heaven in her role at BRITDOC – whose mission is to befriend independent filmmakers, fund great films (120 to date), broker new partnerships, build new business models, share knowledge and develop audiences globally.

Kim Longinotto
Kim Longinotto is an award-winning and critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Best known for her unobtrusive observational style and focus on female subjects crossing a multitude of international boundaries, Kim was the subject of a two-week career retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2009 and was awarded the Inspiration Award by Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2010. She has directed 20 documentaries, a selection of which include Eat the Kimono (1989), Rock Wives (1996) Divorce Iranian Style (1998) and Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go (2007). Rough Aunties (2008) won the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. Her most recent films Pink Saris (2010) and Salma (2013) are set in India.

Orlando Von Einsiedel
2014 saw the completion of Orlando von Einsiedel’s debut feature length documentary, VIRUNGA, focusing on the conservation work of rangers within Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Winning 40 international awards, it showcases Orlando’s ability for drawing out intimate and personal stories in challenging locations. Orlando previously directed award-winning films spanning Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Arctic, covering a diverse range of stories. He has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Directors’ Guild of America Award, and an Independent Film Spirit Award.

Juliana Ruhfus
Juliana Ruhfus is the senior reporter for Al Jazeera’s ‘People & Power’ investigative and current affairs strand where she has worked since 2006, when her film on Liberian ex-combatants launched the channel’s programming content. Nearly 30 films later she has gone undercover in Turkmenistan and in Cambodian orphanages, produced the five part ‘Corporations on Trial’ series, and her two-part investigation into the trafficking of Nigerian women into the Italian sex-trade is one of the most-watched People & Power shows in its history. In 2010, she was awarded the Ochberg Fellowship, and in 2011 she received a scholarship for Harvard’s Global Trauma Program. She is currently on the European board of directors for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma. In 2003, and again in 2007/08, Juliana has also worked as an expert consultant for the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee monitoring violations of the arms embargo on Somalia.

This blog has been dormant for a while and the publication of Digital Media and Reporting Conflict: Blogging and the BBC’s Coverage of War and Terrorism is the right time to formally close it.

It’s been an amazing journey over the last five years or so and I’ve really enjoyed working on the project, documenting it on the Frontline Club website, working with people at the BBC and meeting people throughout the media industry.

I’d like to thank all the people who made this book possible – my family, my friends, my PhD supervisor at King’s College London, everybody at the BBC who gave up their time to participate, the Frontline Club and the countless people I interacted with online.

When I decide to do something I put everything into it. I hope the book testifies to the high standards and hard work that I tried to bring to it.

But perhaps more than that I hope the book and the hundreds of blog posts I wrote continue to be a useful resource for students of warfare, media, journalism and the BBC.

I took most pleasure from knowing that other people found my work useful and that it contributed in a small way to public understanding of the changing nature of reporting war and terrorism.

Achievements come at a cost and over the last couple of years in particular I invested a lot of myself, my time, my financial and physical resources into seeing the book through.

I also spent a lot of time banging at academic doors that I found were closed to me or only open if I was willing to work for free which I sustained for far longer than I should have done.

In hindsight, all this effort was too much and I really burnt myself – not giving up is a great strength and a terrible weakness. I think it’s a sacrifice I am only willing to make again in a different context.

A wise man once said that you have to give up your life in order to save it. And it’s time to leave a road which had become intolerably tough and start something new.

I’m not entirely sure what that looks like yet but I have long been involved in Christian ministry and I’m pretty sure it involves achieving a lot less and loving other people a lot more. In the meantime, I need to rest, heal and rebuild my strength.

For those of you who want to remain in touch my current email address is mail-AT-dsbennett.co.uk.

The paper is a case study of the BBC’s adoption of live text commentary to report breaking news. Indeed, Mumbai was the first time the BBC had used a ‘live-blogging’ format to cover a major terror attack.

I’ll be giving the talk at Westminster University’s ‘Global Media and the "War on Terror"’ conference on 14th September.

Abstract

The emergence of instant global communication technology has placed pressure on competing media organisations to publish news information at great speed (Gowing, 2009). In the event of an ongoing breaking news crisis, online journalists have begun to adopt live updates or live blogs as a way of disseminating news information quickly from a variety of sources (Newman, 2009).   

The BBC’s use of this format during the Mumbai attacks in 2008 was the first time the organisation had used live updates to cover a major terror attack. The BBC’s coverage won an Online News Association award and appeared popular with the online audience. The live update pages, however, raised a number of editorial questions both within (Herrmann, 2008) and outside the Corporation (Sutcliffe, 2008).

The inclusion of audience material from Twitter was a particular concern. Based on a content analysis of the BBC’s Mumbai live update pages, interviews with journalists who worked on the story and internal documents, this paper considers the impact that ‘live blogging’ a terror attack has on the BBC’s editorial process and journalism. 

The paper demonstrates that the imperative of ‘getting news out there’ meant BBC journalists often published news material on the live update pages on the basis of a single source using attribution to distance the BBC from the accuracy of the information.  

It also argues that the concept of ‘news as conversation’ is limited by the context of a breaking news security story where a serious tone is expected and careless reporting might jeopardise human life. Although the ‘live blog’ format did facilitate the inclusion of audience comment, the extent to which it should be included was contested both on practical and editorial grounds.

Suitable for all those wishing to embrace the fundamentals of documentary and newsgathering production capabilities in broadcast television, corporate promotions and Web publication.

• Multimedia researchers
• Print Journalists
• NGO’s
• Corporate PR’s – and all those wishing to enter the video production sector.

This 4 day course over 2 weekends will introduce the basics for producing documentary and newsgathering programming and promotional information videos.

The first weekend will cover: industry standard research, writing and pitching techniques; UK broadcasting guidelines on sex, race, violence and the interpretation of the terms; interview techniques including cut aways, ‘crossing the line’, ‘noddies’; covert filming: uses and abuses and legal issues; legal requirements when shooting in public and private places; permits, release forms and other considerations; insurance issues: public liability; personal insurance etc… ; copyright protection; ownership of materials and developing relationship between all those involved behind and in front of the camera. You will also learn how to prepare an industry standard production budget, a production and post-production schedule.

During the intervening week, in your own time, you will be required, working in teams of 2 – 3, to research a 5 – 10 minute production idea of your choice, write a production treatment, prepare a production budget, a production schedule and a verbal ‘pitch’.

The second weekend you will ‘pitch’ (a verbal presentation) to the tutor and, as is common practice, must be prepared to justify your idea verbally towards an objective and coherent production. You will be able to finish or otherwise modify your treatment, budget and schedule after which your written treatments will then be evaluated along with your budgets and schedule details. Your submissions will be evaluated by your tutor along with staff members of the Frontline Club. There will be no grades awarded but your treatments and the clubs’ evaluations may be published on the Frontline web site. You will also be provided with a certificate from the Club stating that you have completed the course successfully and references can be provided in the event of a job interview.

Tutor: Mike Dodds.

Experienced documentary filmmaker; first as a DOP on current affairs series ‘World in Action’, ‘This Week’ and ‘Panorama’ in the UK and ‘60 minutes’ for CBS and arts programmes for WNET in the USA; later a director of an independent production company functioning as director/producer or executive producer for some 40 hours of programming for Channel Four and the BBC in the UK. Awards include: RTS, EMMY, and Prix  Italia. Past teaching experience: European Film College in Denmark; Westminster University; Thames Valley University and the NFTS.