The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and Chosen

Using the internet to turn a film into a campaign

British TV broadcasting has a history of producing campaigning films that have made a real impact and forced change. An early and highly influential example was ‘Cathy Come Home’ which, in 1966, attacked the failure of the housing and social welfare systems to support families in desperate need. A wealth of documentary filmmaking talent remains in the UK but traditional funding streams for these films are drying up. Social action documentaries now depend increasingly on the third sector, corporate brands and private individuals (such as former US vice-president Al Gore) to get their messages out to audiences.

To tap into and preserve this rich tradition, Channel 4 provided core funding of £500,000 per year to establish the BRITDOC Foundation. Their Director of Television and Content, Kevin Lygo, sits on the Foundation’s board and helps vet the agenda. BRITDOC measures its success by the number of industry awards (50) and festival screenings (150) it has secured, and the proportion of its output that is broadcast on national TV (60%).

The four social entrepreneurs that make up the team seek to mobilise forces for change by identifying key partners and setting realistic targets for the social action documentaries they espouse. Two of the team are former commissioning editors who cut their teeth at Channel 4, two are experienced filmmakers. They respond to specific failures in the marketplace and can afford to be less risk averse than the mainstream broadcasters or public funders like the UK Film Council.

“We only take films that broadcasters have declined. We invest in passion projects from new as well as established filmmakers,” says founding director Beadie Finzi.

The team and their web developers publicise the campaign with a range of communications technologies – broadcast TV and DVD as well as an online portal, focus groups, mass mailings and film festivals – to engage with the viewing public. The online portal now has over 14,000 members signed up (around 1000 very active), as well as a growing number of funded grantees. Applications to the fund are made through the website which also provides information on funding and distribution opportunities. Once a filmmaker’s project has been accepted, the team then sets about considering the best strategy and partners. In addition, the Foundation runs professional development training courses for its grantees throughout the year.

The film Chosen illustrates the Foundation’s policies in action. Chosen is a feature-length documentary about sexual abuse at Caldicott, a British public school. This taboo subject was proposed by Brian Woods, a top UK director noted for his award winning revelatory documentaries including China’s Stolen Children and The Dying Rooms.

“Even though it was a Brian Woods film, no-one would commission it. But we were wholly persuaded by Brian and the three abuse survivors, now middle aged, who were determined to stand up and make a difference. So when we asked ourselves the question ‘Why make it?’, ‘What are we going to do with it?’ the answer seemed clear. This film would not only bring to light shocking malpractice but it could set about giving parents greater awareness and confidence when selecting a school. The film’s contributors had the further aim of wanting to bring about a change in the law that currently relieves schools of the legal requirement to report allegations of abuse.”

So the Foundation’s aims extended beyond the making of the film and became very strategic. Before the final cut of the film was agreed it was screened to fifty of the leading organisations involved in child protection to get their feedback and support. This mass screening was followed up with focus groups and this has led to the creation of a set of materials and tools.

First, 10,000 postcards were distributed amongst schools, parents and child protection professionals by the London branch of the national campaign Stop It Now! The cards included 4 questions which parents can ask about the child protection policies at their children’s schools. The answers that they can expect to get back from the schools are included on the film’s purpose-built website.

Second, specific journalists were sought out and pressed for coverage around the time the film was transmitted. This resulted in numerous editorials further raising the issues and directing people to the film’s website.

Third, a training edition of the film is being made available to relevant child protection agencies. The training edition includes over 2 hours of chaptered excerpts, covering the issues raised in the film in greater detail, and it is designed as a training tool for child protection professionals working with children, parents and educators.

The film was broadcast on More4 in September 2008 and then again at prime time on 15th December on Channel 4. Since those broadcasts, a parliamentary review of safeguarding legislation has been announced, to which men featured in the film are contributing. Furthermore, the Foundation directors have secured a meeting with Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, to discuss the issues raised in the film.

The Foundation’s aim is to match-make filmmakers with potential funders and distributors and to optimise the cultural and creative impact of documentary film. “Our motives are transparent. We are simply passionate about supporting the very best documentary films. We give a grant to the director to enable them to make work that would not otherwise be funded and we take no backend. All we require is our logo in the credits.” And the benefit to Channel 4 is the right of first refusal on some of the most ambitious and creative work being made in British film.

“In a changing media landscape, however, our long term challenge is to cultivate a swathe of new partners for documentary. That will often mean partners who are looking for something beyond profit. The End of the Line, our new documentary about the depletion of the world’s fish stocks, has raised a million pounds of soft money from NGOs and Foundations. The backers’ ambitions are not financial – their aim is to bring about a change in world policy on overfishing.”

Beadie reflects: “The problem is there are too many opportunities and so much demand…bespoke training, personal development, funding films. The challenge for us is to stay focused on where we can have most social impact.”

The BRITDOC Foundation aims to become the UK centre of excellence in creating impact around film. CEO Jess Search is developing a methodology for valuing, in financial terms, the social impact of documentary. As part of this, business partnerships are being developed with US outreach experts Working Films. This partnership is about to launch goodfilm.org, an online campaigning tool that links filmmakers and change makers through the issues that drive them both.

The Foundation continues to set itself internal targets, such as delivering 10 documentaries per year of which four will be feature-length. It would also like to raise the number of films taken up by Channel 4 on completion. Jess’s toolset for measuring the social impact of communications technologies for social change and the effectiveness of the outreach experts will play a key role in sustaining the flow of funding for the enterprise.

“We want to change the mindset, to create a new model for film makers, to raise their expectations about what they might hope to achieve with their documentary films. However, no two campaigns are ever the same. In each case we set realistic goals and then find the partners needed to achieve those goals.”