Clearance Culture for Documentary

Concept of Study

This study explores the implications of the current terms of rights acquisition on the creative process of documentary filmmaking, and makes recommendations to lower costs, reduce frustration, and promote creativity. It focuses on the creative experience of independent documentary filmmakers who work primarily within a broadcast environment (sometimes with a theatrical “window”). Independent documentary filmmakers were selected because their work regularly requires them to interact with a wide variety of rights holders, from archives for photographs and stock footage to performers to other filmmakers. This is especially clear when it is a historical documentary or one that comments on commercial popular culture, but it is an issue for most documentary filmmakers, no matter what the subject matter. When a trademark appears on a baseball cap, or a subject happens to be watching television, or a radio in the background plays a popular......