Politics, Sausage, & the Messy Art of Documentary Filmmaking
Saleha Ghani

Alex Kronemer is a Co-founder of Unity Productions Foundation and a Co-Executive Producer of Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, www.upf.tv.

Saleha Ghani is a freelance writer from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Mark Twain once remarked that there are two things you should never see being made, Politics and Sausage, because if you knew how they were produced, you might lose your taste for them. Alex Kronemer, co-founder of Unity Productions Foundation, adds ‘documentary filmmaking’ to this list of disenchanting processes.

On the other hand, how many politicians and sausage-makers feel so attached to their work that they compare the production process to the growth of a child? In a recent interview, Kronemer, creator and co-producer of Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, remarked that finishing a documentary broadcast makes him feel like his own child is graduating from college.

“Anyone who approaches the job with less passion than you bring to child-rearing is not likely to complete a film,” he said. “In other words, if you are not absolutely convinced that the project is crucial, you can’t generate the excitement you’re going to need to see it through.”

What’s more, documentaries are not “equityheavy” projects, he pointed out, so filmmakers must rely on personal passion to bring their project to completion. Making a full-length documentary and bringing it to a national broadcast is an arduous process that requires continuous and unpredictable fundraising, sleepless nights, high anxiety and hard work.

The first step is to find an idea that will appeal to a broad audience and spark the interest of a broadcaster as well. “Filmmakers have to consider who the audience is, why they are watching, what their questions are, and how you are going to keep their fingers off the remote control for the next two hours,” Kronemer explains. It is this early stage of development of a film that Kronemer parallels to parenting a growing child. “It can be anything at this point and you believe all the ambitions you have for it can be easily realized,” he said.

Once a broadcaster is involved and your conception of the film is as clear as you can make it, the fundraising begins. This, Kronemer said, is often the hardest and longest phase. These days, the average cost of a first-rate historical documentary film, one with production values worthy of a national broadcast, is between four hundred thousand and six hundred thousand dollars per hour. No wonder then, if it often takes two or three years to collect the funds for a quality production.

Once the pains of gathering money are over and the film has been properly budgeted, the “Preproduction” phase begins. This period, according to Kronemer’s child development scale,
covers ages three through grade school. “Your project possesses a lot of energy, but you’re still in control of it,” he said.

Preproduction involves countless preliminary steps, including scouting trips to potential filming locations, sample interviews with scholars to see who works best on camera, and finding potential artwork to license for the film. At this point, a lot of the crew is hired too, and a visual palette is adopted that will help determine how the film is going to look. Although this phase may be equal to ten years of child-rearing, for most documentaries it may take from three to six months to complete.

Then, the shortest phase of the film begins, though ironically many people think it is longest: Production, or Filming. At this point, the project hasn’t quite yet created enough momentum to threaten to take control, or as Kronemer put it, “hit adolescence.” Depending on the length of the film, actual production-time may run from 30 to 40 days of shooting over a span of about three months. Once the film has been shot, the Production phase is over and the film has officially moved into its teenaged years, or Post Production. “Now it begins to exert its own personality, it resembles what you hoped it would be, but is still not completely formed. In some ways, it is still awkward and worrisome,” Kronemer said. Post-production may involve as much as nine months in the editing room. In addition, on any given day one may be involved in everything from writing voiceover narration to selecting background music, to working with broadcasters and finishing labs, where the color correction and sound balancing process ensure that in the end we will have a first-rate film for national broadcast.”

“It’s hard to make a good film. It’s a constant process of selection, refining all you the film you have, all the ideas you have, all the possibilities before you into a program that is as nearly perfect as you make it,” Kronemer explains. “In a typical film there is a 40:1 ratio of unused to used footage.”

And finally, one day, there comes the equivalent of college graduation, when the film is
broadcast. “The film goes out into the world and does what it’s going to do,” he said. “It’s no longer yours. It’ll develop relationships with other people, people who don’t know its makers yet have a strong passion or relationship with the film.” And as often happens in a family, even before one documentary has stepped out into the world, you are already busy moving the next one forward, too.

“At some point, you realize you are a shepherd to a process that’s much, much bigger than you are.” Kronemer said

Alex Kronemer is a Co-founder of Unity Productions Foundation and a Co-Executive Producer of Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, www.upf.tv.

Saleha Ghani is a freelance writer from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Copyright Ó 2006 – Unity Productions Foundation