December 2005

I am a sociologist who conducts historical research on race and social policy, so my work has something in common with a documentary filmmaker’s attempt to uncover some version of “the truth” (however defined).

Dear Doc Doctor:
I’ve been asked for a business plan for my documentary. I thought those types of things were only for fiction films. Do I really need to write one?

A couple of years ago, I decided to take a break from New York, and headed out to Tempe, Arizona for graduate school. I imagined I was moving to a quaint little college town perched along the edge of the Sonoran Desert, dotted with vernacular straw bail houses, maybe, or adobe ranches.

At the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, Steve Savage and Susan Margolin, the two minds behind New Video, a New York-based entertainment marketing and sales company, watched as tickets for documentaries were snatched up left and right. They witnessed audiences line up to get into sold-out theaters. They saw documentary after documentary screen with standing room only.

At the opening reception for Kara Walker’s multimedia project “Song of the South” at downtown LA’s REDCAT Gallery, the artist adopted the eerily detached voice of a little girl playing with her dolls. “Help us!

So your documentary has commercial interest and high revenue earning potential.