Policy
Health Care Legislation: What’s The Hold Up?
In the second installment of The Independent's series on the health care debate, Enette Ngoei explores why reform legislation is currently at a standstill.
December 18th, 2009 | Enette Ngoei
In the second installment of a new series about the United States' health care debate, The Independent examines the next step in the process, and why, exactly, legislation seems to be at an impasse.
Christmas is less than two weeks away, and the clock is ticking loudly for Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who wants a health care bill before the holidays. As the Democrats have desperately tried to accelerate the legislation’s passage this month, there have been two main speed bumps: abortion and the public option.
Health Care Reform: Getting Filmmakers Up to Speed
In a new series that examines how health care reform will impact self-employed and freelance filmmakers, The Independent's Enette Ngoei offers a primer on what's happened thus far.
December 9th, 2009 | Enette Ngoei
You might be hard-pressed to find a more controversial, debated, constantly evolving topic than health care reform. In the first installment of a new series about the health care debate and how it might affect you, The Independent offers a summary of what's happened and happening on the Hill.
This past weekend, while Washington, D.C. area residents were out enjoying the first snowfall of the season, members of the United States Senate were on Capitol Hill debating the health care bill.
Beg, Borrow, or Steal? Deciphering Fair Use for Filmmakers
Understanding Fair Use can save documentary filmmakers time and money.
February 10th, 2009 | Jen Swanson
So, you're assembling your documentary and you desperately need to include a certain song, image, or archival scene to tell your story, do you need to get permission? How do you know if it's copyrighted? Independent writer Jen Swanson talks to Patricia Aufderheide of the American University Center for Social Media and one of the authors of The Documentary Filmmakers Statement of Best Practices, as well as filmmakers David Van Taylor and Gordon Quinn, to help break down Fair Use and how it applies to documentary filmmakers.
David Van Taylor first engaged questions of Fair Use when he was working on his film Dream Deceivers in 1990, a documentary that explored the lawsuit filed against the heavy-metal band Judas Priest by the family of James Vance, a teenager who tried to commit suicide after smoking marijuana and listening to the group's lyrics. The film incorporated copyrighted music and clips.
ITVS: Has This Key Funding Partner Lost its Way?
The Independent Television Service, or ITVS, is one of the most prestigious sources for film funding in the United States. But some filmmakers complain it's abusing its power.
December 9th, 2008 | Michele Meek
The creation of the Independent Television Service in the mid-1990s as a source of funding for independent filmmakers was seen at the time as one of the great successes in the independent film movement. Today, the organization has a budget exceeding $12 million, and provides key funding to hundreds of films each year, including approving many outright grants in the six-figure range. All ITVS projects are supposed to completed and groomed for public television—but, in fact, one in three films funded by ITVS do not make to a major PBS series. Why is that? In more than a dozen interviews with filmmakers and people familiar with ITVS, some complaints emerge: namely, that ITVS is an overbearing funding partner that deploys "bulldog" lawyers and shrouds the funding process in secrecy. The Independent's Michele Meek takes a look at the organization and the independent filmmakers who rely on it, to find out what's going on.
In 2007, filmmaker Joanna Rudnick learned that her application for funding from the Independent Television Service (ITVS) had been accepted. Rudnick, a first-time director, had applied for ITVS funding to finance the completion of her documentary In the Family, a look at women who are aware they carry a genetic predisposition to breast or ovarian cancer.
AIVF: And What it Meant to Me
July 1st, 2006I first became aware of AIVF when Martha Gever was editor of The Independent. I marveled at this national organization that put out each month a magazine chock full of weighty, intellectual and critical articles on film and video.
POLICY
Will independent films influence this year’s election?
October 1st, 2004 | Matt DunnePicture if you will, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes sitting around the offices of Bush-Cheney 2004, talking strategy and shooting the breeze. Suddenly the phone rings. “Karl,” a young aide says excitedly. “I’ve got bad news for you. The Democrats have a new weapon: independent documentary films!”
The FCC Showdown
Can Independents Win The Battle?
January 1st, 2004 | Matt DunneOn October 22, 2003, the FCC held a hearing on localism in Charlotte, NC. FCC chairman Michael Powell probably wished he’d stayed home.
CPB Faces Possible Budget Cuts
May 1st, 2003 | Charlie SweitzerPresident Bush’s proposed budgets for 2004 and 2005 will introduce deep cuts and radical changes for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) if they pass through Congress later this year unaltered. In addition to a tighter budget, CPB would not receive advance appropriations for 2006.
The Media Policy Wars
New Technology Meets Old Industry
April 1st, 2003 | Ernesto MartinezThere is a tremendous and silent battle being fought these days, the effects of which could create a culture (locally, nationally, and globally) that is completely beholden to the media giants, even more so than the present.
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