I swore I wasn’t going to write you this week.
Last week, on the occasion of my one-year anniversary on Substack, I patted myself on the back for keeping to a schedule of cranking out weekly posts the entire past year. Over fifty posts in all, not too shabby.
Then added that it’s unsustainable.
I’m a busy boy with a full dance card, I said, and writing a Substack is a far bigger time suck than I imagined. I explained that I need to scale down to bi-weekly posting mainly to free up the time to create a radically reinvented version of my feature doc (re-titled The Search for Betty & Henri) designed exclusively for Substack.
Ok, I also hoped you’d miss me.
Maybe it was having a wee bit of extra time on my hands, but these past few days I got to thinking about my paying subscribers.
I didn’t start a Substack for the purpose of making money. I mean, I’m not against it, but it was never the driving force. I enjoy sharing my knowledge with my documentary peers, and I’m used to it. I also consider it something of a mission. As many of you know, I’m the founder and co-host of The D-Word, a online community for documentary professionals worldwide, which is all about the sharing of accumulated wisdom and information. And for the 27 years of its existence it’s remained entirely free for its members.
That said, I have a paid subscriber tier for my Substack, and it’s not a huge list. That’s because up until now I haven’t given much incentive for anyone to become a paying subscriber, other than as a show of appreciation. So l want to make it clearer what special benefits I’m offering you.
1. Periodic Ask Me Anything zooms.
I’ve done several this past year which were open to all subscribers, and they’ve been great. Small and cozy enough that everyone could share their projects (a number of them truly special), and I had ample time to offer feedback and advice. In addition, I found that they’re a fun way for a small core group of doc makers to get to know each other and, dare I say, feel a sense of kinship and community.
And, yes, you really can ask me anything.
From here on, AMA sessions will be exclusively for paying subscribers. The next one will be Saturday, August 8th, from 12 noon to 1pm ET, and the registration link will be sent out by early next week.
If you need more convincing, let me add that, on an individual level, I do a lot of paid consulting. I’ve consulted on such noteworthy docs as Stories We Tell, Joan Baez: I Am a Noise and Love & Diane (the latter two as consulting producer). Before coming on as producer of My Omaha, which will premiere nationally on PBS’s Independent Lens on October 5th, I was hired by director Nick Beaulieu as a consultant.
I charge a hefty fee for my services as a consultant. An annual paid subscription to Getting Personal comes to about one-third of what an individual hour-long consult would cost. Just saying.
2. The chance to participate in The Search for Betty & Henri.
I explained in a recent post the personal and professional reasons for why and how this decades-long project has morphed from a traditional feature doc to what I believe will be a groundbreaking, multimedia project intended for Substack. I’m planning to wait until I’ve written a substantial amount of chapters before I begin serializing them for my subscribers.
However, paying subscribers will get access to the first few chapters as I write them, and I’ll be looking to you for early feedback and comments. Is the integration of text, still images and filmed material working for you? Are the embedded video clips enticing enough to click on them? And for those with the detective spirit, can you help me in my quest to find Betty, the recipient of the long-lost love letter, and return it to her?
A paid subscription is an invitation to become part of my creative process. And, who knows, maybe even part of the story.
3. The ability to direct message me.
Want to get in touch with me directly with questions or comments? Only paid subscribers have the ability to DM me via Substack.
4. My profound appreciation.
This isn’t the same as a crowdfunding campaign — it’s not like I have to raise anywhere near the kind of money that I would for making a feature documentary. But there are still some significant costs involved with producing The Search for Betty and Henri for Substack. All the money raised from my paid subscriptions will go towards defraying those costs.
(The main one for now is paying my hardworking assistant editor Taymour. He’s helping me to organize the vast amount of footage I’ve shot and gathered for the film over the years (including a ton of video and thousands of photos shot on my iPhone) which I’ll be incorporating into the text.)
People who do crowdfunding campaigns say this all the time, and it’s true. It’s not just about the money, it’s the support and validation a contribution (in this case, a paid subscription) represents. I put my heart and soul and pretty much all of my free time into my Substack (just ask my wife — sorry, hon). So, whenever I see I’ve received another paid subscription, my heart soars and I feel like singing (especially sorry, hon!).
Getting Personal is for filmmakers grappling with the unique challenges of making a personal documentary, telling a first-person story or simply producing for film. The Search for Betty & Henri is my attempt to break the bounds of first-person storytelling on Substack.
Both are labors of love, but labor-intensive labors of love. More than anything, a paid subscription is a nod of appreciation for all the time and effort that goes into both efforts. Thanks for giving it your consideration.
I knew from the get go I wanted to put my money where my mouth is as a struggling first time feature doc filmmaker. The community Doug has already built is enough to convince me he deserves my support. I know first hand how hard it is to do all that he’s doing. One day I’d like to be doing mire of what he does so thats why i joined his substack. I look forward to meeting up on Aug 8. I have bern looking for this opportunity yo consult but not ready to pay the big bucks. Doug’s sweet offer is a win win and I encourage others to subscribe and support great writing, great advice from experience, and opportunity to be creative with a creative.