How Do You Get on the Discovery Channel?

Anonym1ty asks: "My group of Amateur Radio Operators is planning a DX-Pedition in 2005 to an Island in Alaska. We are planning on operating a station for a few days to become the rare ham radio contact from the island. We already have sponsors, but we want to showcase this event and Ham Radio in some way to the public and were hoping to find some way to get PBS, The Discovery Channel or some other network to tag along with us and showcase what Amateur Radio is. In researching how to contact these I find a sea of red tape. The Discovery Channel Networks only take suggestions from scientists or production crews. PBS seems interested but the few stations I have actually received a response from seem to just mention how they have no budget. How do I find a production company and convince them this would be a good idea? It is important to note that we Ham Radio operators cannot make any money on this and any pecuniary gain would go to the production company."

How about Discovery Canada?

[Curtman]

Have you tried contacting the Canadian version of Discovery [discovery.ca]? This kind of Technology in the Arctic story is right up their alley.

What is the story?

[cpuffer_hammer]

The suggestions about filming yourself are interesting, if nothing else you will have something you can use yourselves as a promotional tool. I have help helped run small activities like this for the my local SCA group. The big thing is to have a story or narrative.

Set out your goals, getting to the site, setting up, whom do you expect to communicant with. What are the risks? What are the rewards? There needs to be tension. Set your goals high so that there is some risk of failure. If there is no risk there is no story. (I am not talking uncontrolled stupid risks.)

I would watch many "Junk Yard Wars" episodes to look at how they build a narrative around what would be otherwise boring. In some respects you are doing the same thing.

Then do it. Film it. Keep notes, like temperature and wind. Gets lots of comments and background on the people.

Then from all the film and tape build the documentary. You can even build more than one for different audiences. A outdoors story with radio, a radio story in the outdoors, a technical story, and so on. Finally test the documentaries and edit till you get good results.

Consider contacting a local collage to see if they have film or media students that need a subject to cover. The SCA documentaries I have helped with were filmed by students from a collage media program.

Charles Puffer

Find a freelancer!

[omarius]

I know very little about TV and filmmaking, but do have a friend who does freelance production. I've seen some of the work he's done on a "Insomnia"-like show which he hopes to sell to a network or cable channel.

So my suggestion is: find a freelancer who's willing and able to do a professional documentary, do it, and THEN hawk it to whomever you please. Depending on how well "sold" your idea is to this potential producer you might have to help finance the work, but it sounds like you believe in your idea; if he or she does, too, perhaps they'd even do it just for a share in the profits.

Good luck!

Re:put together a good crew

[stevew]

Having been on a few DXpeditions myself (to places you can take airplanes too) I need to comment that where these guys are planning on going I imagine there isn't going to be Pizza, running water, or maybe even standing buildings!

Think tents, some generators, and antennas on at a barren location.

What I WOULD suggest to the parties involved is to look into tieing into some naturalist activities. This way you can have a double edged story AND increase your possible audience at the same time.

There was exactly just such a production a few years ago, I believe the expedition went to Hurd Island (maybe some other place in Antartica...) They had a group of naturalists, mountain climbers and amateur radio folks that were each there for their own reasons. Made a pretty reasonable show - and was aired on PBS originally.

Do something along these lines and you might find sponsorship from National Geographic?!?

I work in the Film Biz

[microcars]

but that does not mean I can produce your project :~/

heed the suggestions to either find a Production Company or Make this Yourself under the banner of a Production Company you create just for this.

The Discovery Channel only buys programming. They may enter into an agreement to co-sponsor something with a Production Company that has a track record with them, but you have nothing right now.

One of the best suggestions so far is to do the NPR thing, its really cheap (sound only) and you can possibly use this as leverage to get a Video Production Company onboard to do the filming.

However- the bad thing about being your own Production Company is that you have to find all the funding yourself and if you decide you can just make the Video yourself and you have no experience, you may end up with just an expensive home movie.
Your project will have to fit into a pre-determined format and time frame (under 60 minutes, probably under 30 and in reality, it may just end up being a 5 minute bit as part of a newsmagazine show.....).

I don't have any recommendations for Production Companies to go to though, watch the credits carefully on some shows and look for name of the Production Company who actually produced the piece. You will find the same ones listed again and again.

Paying for airtime on PBS

[Phronesis]

I don't know about commercial networks, but the biggest hurdle in getting something on PBS is not getting editorial interest, but raising the money to pay for the air time. It is very expensive to get a documentary aired on PBS and the money comes from the film production company, not from PBS's operating budget.

My uncle and aunt have a film production company that has made several documentaries that have aired on PBS and they tell me that the cost of airtime is a lot more than the cost of producing the movies.

The best way to get something on air on PBS is to find a way to raise money for the production and the air time. Ken Burns's approach to this, from what I hear, is that he's a wizard at getting large corporations to sign on to sponsor the production and air time.

You might go after some RF engineering companies to see if their charitable giving or public relations divisions would be interested in sponsoring a short broadcast documentary.

Re:Easy, DIY

[pherris]

As someone that use to make a living shooting video (all news) I'm both in agreement and little bugged by the parent posting. While HuggybearVT brings up a very good overall point but there are a few details missing.

Just film it yourself. Buy a digital video camera, get lots of footage, and edit a demo tape.

While high quality, easy use, low cost gear has allowed many more people to shoot video (a very good thing) the quality has really sufferred. If you really want to shoot someone for resale then I'd suggest:

Practice with your gear. Shoot, shoot and shoot. Unless you have at least a few hundred hours shooting usable footage your stuff will look like typical amateur crap.

Hang out with other shooters. Talk to them and look at their stuff. There are just some tricks that only experience will teach you.

Watch well shot ENG/EFP video. Check out CBS Sunday Morning. While the quality has dropped over the years it's still one of the best shot weekly news shows. There's a lot of good stuff on PBS but editing can hide a lot of mistakes. ENG work allows you see what can be done when time is everything.

Find an experienced producer you can trust. Interest in radio and the project first, experience second. Only work with those that have actually sold a completed project to a broadcast outlet (if that's your final goal).

Shoot a dry run. Try to locally simulate the trip and head out for a few days. This will help you work out many issues like charging batteries, lighting, what you really need and what you really don't need.

Get a Mac. Hey, I'm writing this from my gentoo box but macs IMO are the way to fly for cheap video production. A bottom of the line eMac works great. iMoive will allow to you to easily put together a demo to be shopped around.

Seek alternative distribution channels. Most likely you're stuff will never see any large scale public broadcast. If you want others to see what you've done then get creative. Think about licensing the project under the GNU FDL and let others move it around. Honestly, your chances of getting this on Discovery of very, very, very slim. Forget PBS, 'cause that will never happen.

Did I forget anything? Yup, about 99% of what it takes to pull this production off.

It's very possible that you might shoot it and take years to getting around to editting so don't try to stay on a strict production schedule. Don't get pushy about getting people to do anything on cue. The goal in this case is to be invisible. Luckly the cost is pretty minimal, maybe under $10k USD for an usable prosumer camera, eMac, batteries, et al.

Should you shoot it? Sure, why not. Will it ever make broadcast? Most likely not but you will learn a lot. A few productions under the belt will make all difference. Do it because you want to tell a story and you want to shoot it. The chances of it making dollar one are extremely slim.

If the goal is to save a few dollars by shooting and editting the project yourself for the main purpose of broadcast resale then you're SOL. You'll end up with something that looks like a local ad insert on some cable channel or "local access". Shoot it because it's a story you really want to tell.

film departments

[cryptozoologist]

contact university film departments around the country. their students are always looking for projects. here is a link for my alma mater.
http://www.wright.edu/academics/theatre/pr ograms/m otion_pictures1.html