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catalogs from distributors of films in your genre or subject area, conversations with experts in the field, lists of programs aired on PBS, and the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).

      Keep in mind that when you make your initial pitch to funders, whether or not they articulate it out loud, they will be thinking, “I know another film or two that’s about the exact same subject — how is this any different?” The filmmaker must be ready to differentiate her project from all others that have already been created. She has to be ready to say, “My program is different from all others in the following ways...”.

      Here are some areas where a filmmaker can make a case for significant differentiation from another similar project:

      ♦ Timing: The project is much more current than anything previously created, and contains brand new information.

      ♦ Depth: The project is longer and goes into much more depth on the subject than any other previous film.

      ♦ Content: The project covers issues and aspects of the topic that have never been covered before and/or from a different perspective.

      ♦ Style: The project will be the first animated/narrative/vérité documentary on the subject ever made.

      ♦ Audience: the project will be made for a particular audience (the elderly, young children, illegal immigrants) that has never had access to this information.

      The idea is a very simple and basic one: Make sure the project is significantly different from anything else currently available. Be able to convince potential donors that there is a genuine need in the world for this film, because it has something important to say in a way that hasn’t been heard before. When I cover the elements of the perfect written proposal, I will be advising the inclusion of a whole section on this topic in the grant.

      One important principle to remember when differentiating your project from others is to never say anything negative about other films and/or filmmakers. It is a mistake to differentiate the program by saying “My film will be better than the others because they are all substandard works of filmmaking, and mine will be a beautiful and professional work of art.” Even if this is true, saying this only places the filmmaker in an unflattering light.

AUDIENCE/ COMMUNITY

      Sooner or later the filmmaker wants the work to reach an audience. Deciding who that audience will be is something that should happen as early in the project as possible. If I ask a filmmaker who her audience is, I usually get the following answer: “Everybody!” Unfortunately, not only is this answer inaccurate and implausible (no film ever made could possibly appeal to everyone), this answer will not please funders, and it keeps the filmmaker from creating a program that is likely to really appeal to specific segments of the population.

      Whom does the filmmaker want to reach? What types of people are most likely to be interested in the project? Among whom does the filmmaker want to make an impact?

      Start by trying to draw circles of broad audience types, including but not limited to:

      ♦ Geography

      ♦ Age

      ♦ Race

      ♦ Gender

      ♦ Sex

      ♦ Sexual Orientation

      ♦ Religion

      ♦ Lifestyles, Hobbies, Leisure Interests

      ♦ Occupation

      ♦ Income Level

      ♦ Educational Background

      ♦ Political Affiliation

      The filmmaker can begin to define the particular demographics and psychographics that make up the audience to be reached. For instance, a documentary might be geared to upper-middle-class women over thirty who live in urban environments throughout the U.S. and who are at a high risk for breast cancer, or the film might be targeted to young black males between the ages of thirteen and eighteen who come from single parent households.

      There are important lessons to be learned from this exercise. The first is that the program’s content and format might need adjusting so that it is better suited to the correct audience. Another lesson might be that the intended audience cannot afford the program, so funds for distribution will have to be added to the fundraising budget. The filmmaker should consider if this list has already begun to lead to ideas for finding support (e.g., prominent individuals and affinity organizations).

      For the filmmaker who sincerely believes her film is being made for everybody, I suggest a process of elimination — a reductio ad absurdum. Start making lists of just the narrowest audience types imaginable who would in no way be interested in the film: Bedouin nomads, children under six, people who belong to religions that forbid watching television or movies. Eventually this process will help the filmmaker to back in to the audience.

      Occasionally a filmmaker might embark on a project and actually not know who the potential audience is; the filmmaker only knows that the topic is compelling and that somebody out there must want to see it. In that case, I advise creating a process to start finding the audience as early in the process as possible — ideally well before the project reaches completion. This can be done in any number of creative ways, including:

      ♦ holding works-in-progress screenings with different focus groups

      ♦ circulating the treatment or script to people the filmmaker trusts

      ♦ consulting with experts in the subject area of the film

      ♦ talking to distributors and exhibitors

      ♦ social networking on the Web (blogs, special interest Web sites, MySpace, Facebook, etc.)

      It will be very difficult to get funding support from sophisticated funders until the filmmakers can articulate just who she hopes to reach.

      Here is an example of how the Web and blogs can help you find your audience:

      When Curt Ellis began working on King Corn, a documentary about the role that corn plays in the American diet and economy, he wasn’t sure who the film’s core audience was. Ellis was a co-producer and co-star of the movie, in which he and his friend Ian Cheney move to Iowa to grow an acre of corn. Ellis’ cousin, Aaron Woolf, was the film’s director.

      “They always tell you, ‘Think about your audience from Day One, before you ever pick up a camera,’” Ellis says. “We weren’t. We were busy trying to figure out how to tell a really complicated story in a way that’d be relevant and interesting for our audience — whoever they turned out to be.”

      But along the way, as Ellis and his collaborators began to conduct interviews, people introduced them to groups like Slow Food International, foundations dealing with agricultural and dietary issues and bloggers writing about sustainability and the environment.

      “We realized that all those people are naturally interested in our film, and started connecting with that built-in audience,” Ellis says. Some bloggers, he says, suggested people who’d make good interviewees — or who might provide a promotional boost to the film when it was ready.

      — From an ITVS case study of King Corn by Scott Kirsner, www.itvs.org (reprinted with permission)

      More and more, funders are interested in the “community” you plan to reach — how you plan to create a community around your film. Here is what Todd Dagres, producer (Transiberian) and venture capitalist, had to say about this subject at a recent DIY Days Conference in Boston:

      “The key to success producing content for the new medium, the digital web, is ‘community.’ If you’re a traditional TV or film person... you think of ‘audience,’ you think ‘I’ve got to make something that this demographic

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