News
Final Pitching Workshop & Session - A Retrospective
The fourth and final workshop of 2009 was held as usual in Leipzig, where our participants assembled to work on their pitches under the creative guidance of Tue Steen Müller, Leena Pasanen from YLE and Rudy Buttignol from the Knowledge Network Corporation. While they worked in groups, Sibylle Kurz our pitching expert, was on hand to work long hours with each person, ensuring that each pitch was polished to perfection.
The culmination of all this hard work took place on October 24th and 25th when commissioning editors, documentary directors and producers once again flocked to the annual pitching event of the Documentary Campus Masterschool held at the MDR Headquarters in Leipzig. The Final Pitching Session took place on the two successive mornings, an arrangement from the previous year that worked out very well. Up to 40 commissioning editors, distributors and experts from around the world were present to hear the proposals, and their responses were very positive. The delegates were presented with the pitches of this year’s 16 Masterschool projects, two surprise pitches and one guest pitch. All filmmakers received valuable advice how and where to best finance their projects, and for the first time they had the opportunity to follow up on the commissioners’ comments in pre-scheduled one-to-one sessions in the afternoon, which allowed the projects to be presented in more depth. The Best Pitch was awarded to Michael Krass with his project Soldiers of the Lord. Lunch and coffee breaks provided ample space for networking and business talk. The pitching event once again took place in what was perceived by everyone as an extraordinarily supportive and creative atmosphere.
As a tribute to the retiring Head of Masterschool Peter Symes, a farewell dinner was held at the Intendanz of the MDR on October 24th, 2009. With his well-deserved popularity in the profession, Peter Symes spent a great evening with all delegates attending this year’s Final Pitching Session. The happy crowd filled up more than 20 tables and the buzzing and exciting scene reflected how deeply Peter Symes was loved and respected by his colleagues, friends and Masteschool participants in the doucmentary filmmaking business. The Campus Team arranged a nice evening programme with funny video clips from Masterschool participants and tutors recorded for Peter to bid him a fond goodbye.
Other sessions on these two exciting days included a panel discussion titled “Let’s Talk About Money” organised by Leena Pasanen (YLE) and Stefano Tealdi (Stefilm). During this panel Christian Beetz, Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion, Martichka Bozhilova, Agitprop and Femke Wolting, Submarine gave us an insight view on how a small company makes a living when broadcasters are asking for more and giving less and where to find money in the current media environment with a lot of opportunities but no business models. Before interviewing these producers, Prof. Dr. Claudia Loebbecke from the University of Cologne gave us a keynote speech. She holds the Chair of Business Administration, Media and Technology Management and therefore was the right person to tell us how small companies can react to the rapidly changing and challenging markets.
“The Art of Pitching” was organised in cooperation with the 52nd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film and the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR). The Documentary Campus Masterschool 2009 is supported by: MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Bavarian State Chancellery, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, MFG Filmförderung Baden-Württemberg, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and Saxonian Foundation for Media Training.
