[Documentary filmmakers sensitive to the unions aren’t quite
sure how to navigate the delicate subject of continuing to work
without dissing the unions in the process. “There’s no clear
message for how the nonfiction space can be supportive."]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS DON’T HAVE THE OPTION TO STRIKE FOR A BETTER
SYSTEM  
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Eric Kohn
July 15, 2023
IndieWire
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_ Documentary filmmakers sensitive to the unions aren’t quite sure
how to navigate the delicate subject of continuing to work without
dissing the unions in the process. “There’s no clear message for
how the nonfiction space can be supportive." _

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With a fiery speech from SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher
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Hollywood went into shutdown mode
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story. Since no specific union represents their needs, many
documentarians don’t have the option to strike
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of the same issues raised by the unions in their demands. 

Yet documentaries haven’t benefited from the production slowdown,
either. While there has been speculation since the start of the WGA
strike that studios would invest more in unscripted series or
nonfiction features to fill their slates, documentarians I contacted
this week told me they had yet to experience higher demand. 

“We have not seen the kind of uptick people expected,” said Dan
Cogan, who runs documentary powerhouse Story Syndicate with his wife
Liz Garbus. The pair’s recent successes, including Netflix’s
splashy “Harry & Meghan” miniseries, epitomize the documentary
gold rush of the streaming era that has settled around high-profile
subjects. Yet even Cogan admitted that it has been harder to get
projects made lately. “There has been this contraction that all of
the streamers have been dealing with,” he said. “The strike
hasn’t changed that dynamic.” 

Of course, it’s early days. When the last WGA strike lasted 100 days
between 2007 and 2008, broadcast networks leaned hard on reality
programming — and that may continue this time around. Some veterans
in the documentary community speculated that this could eventually
lead to greater demands for documentaries over time. That, however,
would create a dicey climate in which documentarians function as de
facto scabs for the industry. 

Documentary filmmakers sensitive to the unions told me they aren’t
quite sure how to navigate the delicate subject of continuing to work
without dissing the unions in the process. “There’s no clear
message for how the nonfiction space can be supportive,” one
documentary producer told me. “No one wants to cross a picket line.
At the same time, the unions aren’t saying, ‘Hey, don’t pitch to
Netflix.’ It’s just an ambiguous space.” 

The situation also draws attention to the absence of any real
unionization options for the documentary field. In recent years, the
DGA has admitted more high-profile documentary filmmakers into its
ranks, while the WGA has recently begun to work on unionization
contracts with documentary shops like Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw
Productions union, which covers 50 freelancers.

But these are exceptions for a field that has no precise standards for
pay equity, healthcare, and other key issues at the root of current
union negotiations. “Documentary filmmakers have been historically
so underpaid and undercapitalized,” said producer Beth Levison,
Oscar-nominated earlier this year for “The Martha Mitchell
Effect,” a Netflix short. “We are such a passionate group really
committed to telling our stories, so I would like to think we would
strike if we could. But _if_ we could strike is a whole other
question.”

Levison, who co-founded the 500-member Documentary Producers Alliance,
noted that many documentary productions would face irreparable losses
in the face of a work stoppage. “With a fiction film, you can put
that film on hold. Your actors can delay their schedules,” she said.
“If you’re making a doc, you often get one shot at the scenes you
need to shoot. Documentary filmmakers going on strike would have grave
repercussions for storytelling and grave financial consequences for
many of us.”

Even now, though, the absence of a union for documentaries means that
the profession lacks a clear foundation for stability. “We have no
support structure, nothing to fall back on,” Levison said.
“Producers are seen as managers so we don’t have a guild that
looks out for us. I understand that doc filmmakers are still trying to
make their work. There’s definitely a tension there. We are in
solidarity with the unions, but also trying to survive as much as we
can.”

The field has been in crisis mode for much of the year. Most of the
documentaries for sale at Sundance in January still haven’t closed
distribution deals. Streamers that once spent top dollar on a wide
array of projects have now doubled down on safe commercial bets. The
fundraising process for documentaries, which usually takes place in
the midst of production with filming underway, has grown more
complicated with fewer financing options. 

One producer cited the cancellation of this year’s Gotham Project
Market — which, as I reported last month
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was shuttered due to the WGA strike — as a major blow. “That news
has been devastating for the documentary community and its impact is
real,” they said. The market’s annual Spotlight on Documentaries
event, which enables documentary filmmakers to present new projects to
potential financiers, is “the only one of its kind that so many
members of the industry have typically attended to take a temperature
on the industry as well as seeing who’s working where.” 

Yael Bridge, who serves as co-president of the Documentary Producers
Alliance (DPA), told me there has been ongoing discussion about a
documentary union for years. “There are definitely conversations
happening,” she said. “I think the pathway of what a union would
look like is not clear. I don’t think anyone knows what would make
the most sense holistically. What I’m most interested in is how to
make the career more sustainable and equitable. A lot of the jobs
don’t pay or pay very little.”

Bridge has labor issues on her mind for other reasons. She called me
in the midst of production on a new documentary about the impending
UPS strike, which could wind up as the largest strike in American
history if the Teamsters union doesn’t arrive at a new contract by
August 1. (That seems likely: Talks broke off last week. Anderson
Economic Group estimated in a recent report that a UPS strike could
cost the economy $7.1 billion.) Per usual, she had yet to secure
financing for more than immediate production costs.

“The way documentaries are funded is crazy,” she said. “You have
to shoot while fundraising. You’d never do that on a fiction film.
Here I am working on a film with just a little budget to get through
the production. You have to put budgets on your credit cards, do
favors, and that’s not sustainable.”

Some documentary filmmakers feel that the writing aspects of their
jobs should provide a clearer pathway to WGA membership. “It’s
very frustrating,” said documentary filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough,
whose credits include “The Carter” and “The Upsetter.”
“Producers don’t want to give writing credits for docs. They want
to say it’s ‘part of your job’ as director. Studios and networks
don’t want to either, so they can avoid dealing with the WGA, who is
notoriously difficult to deal with. There should be a rule that if
there’s writing involved, the project becomes WGA signatory.”

Of course, that would require some clarifications about what writing
actually entails. “The problem is that there’s not the same script
delivery structure as with narrative projects,” he said. “We’re
often writing on the fly in the edit room.”

So what would it take, in the absence of a union, to create more
sustainability for documentary filmmaking? It may come down to a
chicken-and-egg problem for documentary production: Financiers must be
willing to support projects for the entirety of production and
post-production, just as they would narrative features. “I would
encourage funders to take more risks,” Bridge said. “The way
funding works, they want to see a sample. You have to be really deep
into production to get funding. I understand why. You don’t want to
pay for something that hasn’t happened yet. That’s a challenge
across the board for docs.” 

That leads companies to more conservative tendencies, as they favor
famous faces and high-profile subjects over projects that sound
compelling but don’t have anything to show for it. “You can trust
audiences to be interested in more than celebrity-driven projects,”
Bridge said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with them, just as
there’s nothing inherently wrong with Marvel movies, but it would be
great to see funders get behind more creativity and trust documentary
filmmakers.”

That’s not an easy ask in these risk-averse times. However, even if
documentary filmmakers struggle to unionize, they can still project a
united front. 

“If I were to wave a magic wand, the one thing I am genuinely
thinking about is this,” Levison said. “Do we need to build a new
platform? Expand a current platform? Do we need to take over a
pre-existing platform? I think there needs to be a large systemic
change with how films are distributed and financed. That’s my
hope.”

* Film
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* Documentary Film
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* SAG-AFTR Strike
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* Documentary Producer's Alliance
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