Documentary Pitching, Pre-sales and Funding: Succeeding in a Transforming Digital Landscape

This practice-led DCI thesis identifies and examines a series of contemporary funding models, including conventions and industry expectations, and the pitching processes being employed by practitioners in a dynamic and uncertain documentary filmmaking marketplace. In the context of digital disruption, the proliferation of TV channels and online broadcast platforms and increasingly limited funding sources, practitioners must be more innovative at the business end of the production chain. In response, a key output of the research project is an informed and informative handbook for practitioners entitled A Documentary Filmmaker's Guide to Pitching