Just a quick update to let you know that I’m in the very early stages of planning for a new spiritual documentary. I’m not ready to reveal the subject matter yet, but I can say that it looks like this may take me on a journey through Italy, France, and even Egypt. In it I will be taking a contemporary look at biblical and medieval history through a spiritual lens.
My initial findings from the spiritual research I’ve already done on this topic has surprised me, being both unexpected and further reaching than I first thought. This is likely to shake things up a bit. – Mark
The Cost of a Free Documentary?
At this stage though I am wondering how best to fund this project. As you know all the work I do is “not-for-profit” and I cannot accept corporate sponsors or advertising to preserve impartiality and neutrality. So I’m pondering the route of crowdfunding versus donations (or both!). Ultimately though I’ll “Let go and let God” and be guided on the way forwards. If it’s meant to be then it will happen. If it’s not meant to be then I’ll accept that too. So I’m excited to see where this goes, as I don’t know the destination either.
I’d love to hear from you on your ideas about funding these projects. Have you ever crowd funded another documentary, book, or film? To give you an idea of what’s involved, the Stonehenge project cost in the ballpark of £5,800.00 which I self-funded. Fortunately I did all the filming, editing, 3D work, compositing, score, and artwork myself which kept the costs down, but it was on average 10h a day for about 3 months!
The Next Steps to Making a Documentary:
For me it’s quite an organic process, and as time goes on then things solidify. So what I’m recording here is a loose guide to how I’m going about things:
Idea for the documentary [Done]- Initial research reviewing papers, websites, other documentaries, eyewitness testimonials, old books etc. [Started]
- Specialist books/articles/scrolls etc… obtain and read
- Spiritual research, from within the greater state of stillness and neutrality, “enquiring” into these events to bring down new/hidden information [Started] – done many hours of this already for this project, which has convinced me of the need to go further with this
- Record findings:
- Write out documents to record findings of 2. and 3. [Started]
- Draw sketches to capture what is perceived within the spiritual research (3.)
- Create a draft script/storyboard
- Pre-Production (Plan the filming)
- Key locations & Logistics – travel, tickets, guides, visas etc
- Specialist equipment? Hire/purchase
- Witness/expert Interviews?
- Identify royalty free/stock images and supportive media?
- Permissions needed to include other footage etc.
- Production (Filming)
- 3D Modelling
- Editing
- Compositing (putting 3D models and 2D effects into the film)
- Grading (colour)
- ADR (Narration etc)
- Score (music and fx)
- Export/render
- Artwork and supportive materials
- Launch
Writing that out was actually really helpful to help me plan, so I hope it was at least interesting for you. Perhaps giving a little insight into the process of making a feature length documentary.
If you’d like to be kept in the loop then there’s two things I’d do: 1. Come back here from time to time as I’ll use this news feed to update you. 2. Sign up to my official newsletter which is completely free and is the main way I let people know important announcements as well as updates.
Have you watched my last documentary? Stonehenge: Into the Light