Crass Commercial Documentary

Crass Commercial Documentary
It was a bit of punch to the guts really - the accusation that we'd somehow damaged documentary in New Zealand by crassly commercialising This Way of Life. To us it was marketing. You know, that essential part of the life cycle of an independent self-funded film that hopefully ensures you can continue producing and pay the rent. I know some filmmakers feel marketing is a bit beneath them. For others it's a mystery - a skill set so different from filmmaking as not to be part of the process. Except it is. For us it all begins with "who are they?" those magic people who will watch our film and then tell others to watch it too. Is it crass to exploit any and every angle you can think of to get your film in front of an audience? Can you be an auteur and love PR and marketing at the same time? Did we go too far in marketing This Way of Life? What do you think?

Berlin
If you've been following here you'll know we've been busting a gut to get Yolanda's Last Portrait ready for the Berlin selector here in NZ early October. But as they say 'changes in travel plans are dancing steps from god'. Our editor found herself between a schedule rock and a hard place. So we've had a change midstream. Will this be good for the film - we'll soon find out. Certainly we are very confident - more on this soon. The travails of editing would fill a whole book. Or perhaps it's just us.

THIS WAY OF LIFE updates
As independent filmmakers we're always wanting to do everything ourselves. But when you have a good distributor who knows their end of the business it's all good. We went with ZED out of Paris for our broadcast sales. So far they've sold This Way of Life to: Iceland, Asia TV, National Geographic, Catalunya, ABC Australia, France TV, TV Cultura, Viewcom NV, Noga Communications and High Fidelity. They have another new deal waiting to be inked too.
While closer to home we just sold the film to Air New Zealand. Better late than never.

For those wanting an update on the Karena family - they are doing good right now. The new baby (a perfect and as yet un-named girl) is really as perfect as baby can be. The older kids spent their school holidays with their dad in the mountains. We hope to soon bring you a little announcement on a great new development too.

COMPOST TO SAVE THE WORLD
In our spare time we recently honoured a promise to Peter Proctor, the hero at the centre of the documentary One Man, One Cow, One Planet. The short instructional DVD Perfect Compost on how to make compost the biodynamic way is just 25 minutes but packed with how-to from the master himself. It goes perfectly with Peter’s new book Biodynamics for the Home Garden. The DVD and the 82-page manual (published as an ebook only) are here: http://perfectcompost.com/
If you’re into home gardening and starting out on the biodynamic pathway then this DVD is useful. (note to One Man, One Cow fans – Perfect Compost is an instructional so does not have the filmic qualities of a big screen production)

Looking for...
Cloud South Films is looking for that special someone to help us with our websites. If you're comfortable with php, wordpress, css, and photoshop and love documentary and can handle panicked last minute demands and abuse over the phone then we'd love to hear from you. Email Sumner: sumnerburstyn@gmail.com (I'm really very nice on the phone)

Coming this Saturday on Rialto TV in New Zealand The Insatiable Moon. Tune in and be amazed. The Insatiable Moon was made using the Simple Cinema(c) technique. How did they do those brilliant locations on so little money? That is the question.

And coming to a cinema near you just in time for Fathers Day - the heartwarming Steam Of Life. Bring your Dad and a hanky.