A week of intensive ideas to find innovative ways of taking documentaries beyond the TV screen, and into the interactive world.
I was lucky enough to be selected for the Crossover Docs Lab, run by the folks behind the BBC Innovation Labs, and following a similar format of idea generation, pitching and refinement.
While it may appear that spending another all-expenses-paid week at one of the finest small hotels in the country seems like a bit of a cop-out from actually doing any work, I can assure you that despite the countryside surroundings, fine dining and luxury health spa, it was an exceedingly hard week of work – long days, late night pitches and early morning breakfast meetings.
The idea of the labs was to bring together professionals from the worlds of TV, film, interactive media and gaming to learn about each others’ ways of working, industries and techniques, and how these could be applied to cross-platform documentaries. Along with the 24 participants were four mentors, all industry leaders in their areas – including BAFTA winners, Big Brother producers and video game magazine editors. The participants came with an equally diverse range of skills, backgrounds and expertise – from Hollywood special effects to scientists, theatrical innovators to TV producers.
The sessions were structured so that you got to know and work with as many different people as possible, to generate as many different, unique and crazy documentary ideas as possible. Half way through, fifty of the best ideas were collected, and we had to form groups to choose a concept to develop. This was then developed in time for a final pitch to a group of specially invited experts – commissioners from the BBC and Channel 4, and representatives from other organisations such as the Wellcome Trust, regional development agencies, and funders. This was a great finale to the week, as ideas which were just bullet points on a piece of paper 48 hours earlier were presented as fully fleshed out, thought-through concepts.
The idea I was lucky enough to work on has already had interest from commissioners and production companies, and will be pitched again in the Crossover Pitching Competition at the Sheffield DocFest this weekend. I can’t say too much about what it’s all about at the moment, but as they say, watch this space…
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