MipDoc keynote speaker Dawn Porter is coming to Cannes to discuss not only the challenging doc marketplace, but also how to work and prosper within it.
In the last few years the doc industry has favored a handful of big-name filmmakers, like Porter, who are commissioned to make one-off films or docuseries. Over the last 12 months two of Porter’s docus were released: “Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court” which was financed and distributed by Showtime and “The Lady Bird Diaries,” which was financed and distributed by Hulu/ABC News.
But budgets for commissioned projects, even those with well-known documentarians attached, have diminished significantly since the pandemic, due in part to corporate consolidation. The shrinking number of nonfiction distributors has hit directors of independently made docs especially hard. The major streaming services, who were spending millions to acquire indie fare five years ago, lost interest in garnering titles out of festivals.
In the last few years the doc industry has favored a handful of big-name filmmakers, like Porter, who are commissioned to make one-off films or docuseries. Over the last 12 months two of Porter’s docus were released: “Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court” which was financed and distributed by Showtime and “The Lady Bird Diaries,” which was financed and distributed by Hulu/ABC News.
But budgets for commissioned projects, even those with well-known documentarians attached, have diminished significantly since the pandemic, due in part to corporate consolidation. The shrinking number of nonfiction distributors has hit directors of independently made docs especially hard. The major streaming services, who were spending millions to acquire indie fare five years ago, lost interest in garnering titles out of festivals.
- 4/6/2024
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
Busy documentarian Dawn Porter will debut her latest project, “The Lady Bird Diaries,” March 10 at SXSW. The all-archival doc, which will bow on Hulu later this year, relies on 123 hours of personal and revealing audio diaries that Lady Bird recorded during her the presidency of her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson. The tapes, which were not publicly released until 2017, reveal the critical role the former First Lady played in Lbj’s White House as a close advisor and trusted political partner.
Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson began her recording diary shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and kept recording through her family’s departure from the White House in January 1969. Julia Sweig spent five years researching the diaries for her 2021 biography “Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight,” which she turned into an eight-part podcast that formed the basis for Porter’s 90-minute docu, produced by Trilogy Films for ABC News Studios.
Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson began her recording diary shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and kept recording through her family’s departure from the White House in January 1969. Julia Sweig spent five years researching the diaries for her 2021 biography “Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight,” which she turned into an eight-part podcast that formed the basis for Porter’s 90-minute docu, produced by Trilogy Films for ABC News Studios.
- 3/9/2023
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
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