For producer/director Gary Marcuse of Face to Face Media in Vancouver, turning his documentary into a ‘multipurpose project’ was essential in making it financially feasible. The one-hour, award-winning Mind of a Child is about a breakthrough in the teaching of aboriginal children. Filmed in b.c., Israel and Washington, d.c., the project’s budget was $300,000.

Back in 1993, when he began searching out funds for his documentary, Marcuse found broadcast support from Montreal’s cfcf-tv, Saskatchewan’s scn and b.c.’s Knowledge Network. He then secured some government money from the National Film Board, Telefilm Canada and British Columbia Film. But still, he needed more.

‘The people I was working with and myself soon realized there was a market for extended teaching tapes out of the footage we were getting,’ says Marcuse. ‘The film became possible because we were generating a film that has a multipurpose. Thirty percent of the funding came because of multipurposing.’

Marcuse was able to secure funding from educational institutions such as the Vancouver School District #39 and other interested parties like the Vancouver Foundation and even VanCity Credit Union, under its community development banner. He also partnered with b.c.’s Open Learning Agency/Knowledge Network.

‘I realized I could do a little extra filming and spin off a telecourse and a series of training tapes. As a producer, I had to find more than just a broadcast outlet. I needed more uses to attract a greater range of funding sources. A lot of organizations will help you make something educational, but they wouldn’t touch a documentary with a barge pole,’ he says.

To date, Mind of a Child has been sold to cfcf, scn, tvnc, wtn, CBC Newsworld and Knowledge Network.

The documentary is already in use in schools and universities in Canada, Belgium, Brazil, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Spain, South Africa, the u.s., u.k. and Zimbabwe, and has been shown at conferences in Canada, Israel, Scotland, Washington, d.c., California and Spain.

Training tapes, which feature more of the material gathered during filming of the documentary, are also in wide use. The three-credit university course, comprised of three hours of videos, and an optional four or five hours of video material for study, has run on the Knowledge Network and through other institutions. The project resulted in further multimedia expansion: workbooks, readings and other print material have been published by the Open Learning Agency to go with the course.

‘Documentary makers always say they have such interesting outtakes,’ says Marcuse. ‘We’ve used those outtakes – it’s electronic recycling.’ LL