By Simon Kerr
Channel 4 in Britain, known for its public-service attitude, and often heralded for its high-quality programming, recently launched 110 hours of documentaries with the lowest ever per-slot budget for British network TV. "The Other Side" is a series with no specific theme, the only commonality between each program being that they are all fifty-minute documentaries, shown late at night, and commissioned by a division of Ideal World Productions, an independent production company more renowned for their light entertainment programming than for documentaries.
The associate producer for "The Other Side," Maddy Carberry, explained that, "Initially the idea was to have checks for £1000 (about $1600) lined up on a notice board, and each filmmaker would turn up with their finished, edited film and get their check. But it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that."
The series comes alongside a wave of advances in technology which means that TV documentaries can now be made with cheap production equipment (lowering the costs), and smaller crews. "The Other Side" pushes this approach to the limit. Each project is intended to be turned around in one month from start to finish, inevitably cutting back on research time and turning the production process into virtual crisis-management, run by knee-jerk reaction and ambitious scheduling.
It seems that cheaper camera technology in this case means that the rest of the budget is cut proportionately. Like any nonfiction reportage, documentary production depends on research, and documentary makers do some of their most important work in the editing room, where hours of footage are selected and combined to tell a story. These are exactly the areas where Ideal World's production scheme forces filmmakers to cut back.
Commissioning of the series began in summer '99, when Channel 4 tendered 60
late-night slots to Ideal World at a total unit cost of about £5000 (about $8000) a pop. After paying each filmmaker's flat £1000 fee, the rest went towards the production costs. Out of this total, Ideal World provided digital video camera equipment and basic editing facilities.
So what were the results? The series was a combination of stories: a few refreshing, some appalling, some banal. On the whole, many filmmakers used their hour of exposure for a trudge down the deeply gouged path of the docu-soap bandwagon. This formula has been popular in Britain, where members of the public are selected according to their entertainment value and willingness to play out their real-life stories in front of the camera. This is then edited into a plot inspired by soap-opera structure. This approach provides one of the cheapest routes through the documentary production process. Perhaps low cost is the main reason for this genre's overwhelming popularity amongst British TV commissioners.
In any case, after evaluating the viewing figures for "The Other Side," Channel 4 decided that there were enough eyeballs for these late-night documentaries to commission 50 more episodes. Predictably, there were no increases made to the budget for each program.
Who were these filmmakers creating 110 hours of programming for Channel 4? Well, the call for proposals suggested that some directors should be "new talent," they also called for "established directors," and "members of the public".
All those selected must have been desperate to tell their stories; Ideal World accepted proposals for films at any stage of production. Off the shelf, or partly-finished projects were popular, because projects that were in their earliest stages would have to depend entirely on the minimal budgets and tight schedules offered by Ideal World.
Thus, some filmmakers, desperate for distribution for their projects, inevitably brought in funds (and time) from other sources, in effect subsidizing Channel 4 by providing a mostly finished work without getting reimbursed for original production costs. This could be more easily stomached if Channel 4 were a struggling public access cable channel, but they are, in fact, one of the richest British TV networks.
I met Ideal World after recording 30 hours of footage for an investigative story about a city council's alleged mishandling of an urban regeneration program. Once they had grilled my proposal, footage, and stylistic intentions. I was promised only transmission. And a check for £1000.
The series editor, Darren Bender, persuaded me, before I had a deal, that the series was a "ground-breaking experiment" to challenge conceptions about the documentary form. He seemed to be genuinely excited about it. On reflection, my experience after finishing the edit felt more akin to a working in a sausage factory than to involvement with a creative broadcasting experiment.
Knowing that the time Ideal World had allotted for an edit would be insufficient, I raised sponsorship for 7 days of the editing time from other sources. Ideal World offered me 3 days to finish editing. (10 days to edit an hour of documentary from 30 hours of footage is narrow by any television standard). At the end of the 8th day of editing (the first day under Ideal World's budget), the series editor said he "was happy with it," and that I didn't need to do any more work on it. I disagreed. Was this a creative editorial decision on his part or simply another cost-cutting measure? I was not happy with the final result, but the stakes were too high to withdraw it completely. Like the other "Other Side" filmmakers before and after me, I was willing to compromise on time and funding, even on my artistic standards, to have my piece broadcast before a national TV audience. Fortunately, I still own the raw footage and I intend to re-edit.
Despite under-compensation, familiar to most documentary makers, there are more pervasive issues at stake. Ideal World and Channel 4 developed this series with the premise of providing up-and-coming filmmakers with a new opportunity to break into television that wouldn't otherwise exist. If this is Channel 4's primary motivation for the series, then it is a positive opportunity, a back door into the often impenetrable fortress of British television's commissioning system. But my experience throughout the production made me more inclined to think that this is a less charitable initiative, manipulating documentary makers into subsidizing Channel 4's air time with their time, fundraising, and ambition. It appears to be working. Broadcasters are in full knowledge that there is no shortage of eager and talented storytellers who would do virtually anything to bag a prestigious slot.
The fact that the series was declared a success is a blow to members of technicians' unions who said that it couldn't, or that it shouldn't be done. It is also a blow to the quality and content of other documentary series, as it has probably lowered the bottom line for what is an acceptable budget.
Underlying the assertion that broadcasters are advocating slots for new filmmakers, and the democratization of television, may lie a serious cost-cutting drive. Rather than empowering talent, and providing access for new voices, this is undermining the practice of research, journalism, and storytelling.
Young and inexperienced filmmakers are forced into a precarious position where integrity seems to be far lower on the list of priorities than unit-cost. It's my guess that costs per film would actually increase if TV commissioners were genuinely attempting to broaden the range of voices heard by TV documentary viewers.
- Simon Kerr worked as an independent documentary filmmaker and lecturer in
Leeds, in northern England. He has produced and directed work for Channel 4,
and many governmental and educational organizations. He now lives and works
in New York City.
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