Movie Maker - USA (2020 - Spring)

MOVIEMAKER.COM SPRING 2020 35

UNREST, A 2017 DOC WHICH NAHMIAS PRODUCED,

RECEIVED FUNDING FROM A NUMBER OF ORGANIZATIONS

INCLUDING SUNDANCE DOCUMENTARY FUND,

CHICKEN & EGG, AND THE HARNISCH FOUNDATION

HATTULA MOHOLY-NAGY HOLDS A PHOTOGRAPH

OF HER FATHER LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY WITH

WALTER GROPIUS IN ALYSA NAHMIAS’ 2019 DOC

THE NEW BAUHAUS

to watch—which a sizzle reel does not show.

Grant readers are trying to imagine from

your work sample what the full film will

be like, and so if the work sample is a real

mismatch stylistically or tonally from what

you want to make in the end, you’re doing

yourself a disservice. Grant readers don’t

want to see tons of beautiful shots in a row, if

your film is not going to be tons of beautiful

shots in a row.

You also want harmony between what’s on

the page and what’s in the work sample. If

they’re not in perfect harmony, there’s usu-

ally a way you can explain this in the section

that says, “Describe what we’re seeing in the

work sample.” But do your best to have your

words in the proposal reflect what people are

seeing in the sample, and vice versa.

UNVEILING THE CURTAIN

Don’t believe that your application will

be given sustained or special attention. Your

grant application’s first audience is usually a

junior staff member or a freelance reviewer—

perhaps a moviemaker, or someone else

working in the nonprofit art space. This per-

son usually reads a lot of applications, and

your application could be the first, 12th, or

the 30th of the day. You want to grab people’s

attention.

If the grant project scores well in the

first stage, it will be read again, by another

reviewer, who could be a senior staff member

or internal reviewer. Some grants are ap-

proved internally by a small group of people,

while other grant makers bring in an outside

panel to review the top candidates. That’s

when people are going to be having a conver-

sation about your film.

I’ve been on the panel reviewing for

grants, and I’ve seen that someone must re-

ally believe in a project for it to get past the

final phase. I was in a panel discussion once,

and we could pick four out of around 12 in

the final round. Interestingly, the ones that

everyone agreed were simply “good” ended

up being the ones that didn’t get selected for

funding. The ones that got picked were the

ones that people fought for, or which fit into

the organization’s grant mandate in innova-

tive ways. Moviemakers think somehow that

there’s some mathematical or objective way

that these things get decided, but when you

get in the room, you understand that’s not

the case; it’s subjective to a large extent.

Knowing your audience makes it easier to

deal with rejection, because you know that

it’s not necessarily that your project wasn’t

great—it just didn’t make the final cut. An

organization is figuring out what its final

slate of projects is going to look like, and try-

ing to balance geographical mandates, artist’

ages and backgrounds, subject matter, and

stage of production. All of these factors and

more come into play. The more you can be

clear about where your project is and what

it is, the faster the panelists can focus on the

things that most matter to you.

Grant making is an act of matchmaking, and

some projects are grant darlings. You have to

find the right organization, the right grant for

your project, and the right timing. Some films

find matches easily, but it doesn’t necessarily

mean that they’re better films, or even that

their applications were better written.

Keep at it. Just because you got a rejection

once, doesn’t mean that you won’t get a grant

the next time, especially if your project has

changed in a substantial way. You can also

be realistic about the best type of funding

for your film. Very few projects are funded

entirely by grants, and many films are better

suited for equity financing, co-productions,

or crowdfunding.

“CORE AUDIENCE” VS.

“TARGET AUDIENCE”

Just as you must have an audience for

your grant application, you also must have

an audience for your movie. For Unrest,

a documentary I produced, a large core

audience consisted of people who had the

disease that’s represented in the film. We

also had target audiences. We wanted doc-

tors, nurses, members of Congress, local

lawmakers, and scientists to see the film,

because they’re the ones who can enable

the film to make an impact in the world.

There are a lot of other ways to think

about audience: in terms of age, gender,

and geography, for example. All come into

play with both your core audience and

target audiences.

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD

The playing field is not level when it

comes to grants (or much else in this

industry). Those at an advantage include

experienced moviemakers, people who are

college-educated, people who have time

to write grants, people who can pay for

application fees, and people for whom

English is a first language. Grant makers

may try to work against this as read-

ers and evaluators, but it’s impossible to

ignore that the playing field is not level.

That’s part of why the documentary com-

munity—the grant makers and those who

have a direct line to them—have real work

to do to decolonize documentary, to be

inclusive in determining who makes deci-

sions and who receives grant funding, and

to deliberately work to include voices of

people who haven’t been included in this

space before, or who might appear to be

riskier choices for grant funding. We must

rethink how we define “risky.” MM