Firsthand documentary Hold Your Fire pictured, above

Last year, CBC announced it had launched an umbrella CBC Docs brand, under which its various doc strands (including The Nature of Things and The Passionate Eye) and its specialty Documentary Channel would live. Around that time, the pubcaster also made the decision to close its internal doc unit and replaced the Doc Zone strand with a new program, Firsthand. Following these changes, the CBC now commissions 36 hours of content from the indie production community, with 18 of those hours funneled towards Firsthand. (Prior to the doc unit closure, 17% of CBC’s docs over the past three years were produced in-house.)

While The Passionate Eye will remain acquisition-focused and The Nature of Things will continue to follow largely the same strategy, doc filmmakers have the opportunity to take a more POV approach with Firsthand and CBC’s new commissioned-focused digital shorts initiative, CBC Docs: Shorts. Playback caught up with Jennifer Dettman, executive director, unscripted content at CBC, and Charlotte Engel, who leads Firsthand, about what doc content they are looking for.

Jennifer Dettman, ‎executive director, unscripted content, CBC

What makes CBC documentary strategy unique in the Canadian market?
Jennifer Dettman: We do documentary programming on every different platform. We’re news, television, digital and we have a documentary specialty. We also have so many different types of films. Charlotte is working with Canadian filmmakers to tell Canadian stories, we have science with The Nature of Things and then we have best of the world with The Passionate Eye. On the Documentary Channel we have a bit of both.

Firsthand is new: how does it differ from Doc Zone?
Charlotte Engel: It’s in the same time slot, and has the same amount of docs per year but Doc Zone was more essay-style, looking at subject matter from a wide perspective. Firsthand is looking at more intimate, point-of-view stories. They might look at the same subject matter, but Firsthand has a new, fresh way in. We also wanted to get people talking on harder subjects like doctor-assisted suicide. For example: instead of saying, we’re going to do a doc on doctor-assisted suicide, we’re doing it from the doctor’s perspective. You’re in the hospital with them and going through their ethical dilemmas. It’s not people behind a desk talking to a camera.

What inspired Firsthand? What hole did it fill for CBC Docs?
JD: Recognizing that the doc genre right now is super-hot. CBC is a public broadcaster; we’re always going to do documentary filmmaking. But now, at the same time, it’s a genre audiences want. This is a more modern documentary style of storytelling, and one we thought would better resonate with our audiences.

What’s the strategy for the new digital shorts portal, CBC Docs: Shorts?
CE: We really want to drive home the point that we look for a range of tone and story. Digital shorts range from four minutes to 30 minutes and we’re going to launch with 20. Topics are everything from an autistic boy learning how to make his own ball gowns to a young Toronto guy immersed in one of the biggest court trials in the U.S. It’s similar in focus to Firsthand. (The content will be featured across CBC’s various digital platforms and on social media. The portal is set to go live this spring, with content staying in the digital space for over a year.)

Charlotte Engel is responsible for commissioning and programming the Firsthand doc strand

What can producers expect in the development and production process for CBC Docs?
CE: Sometimes we ask for tapes, sometimes a shooting script. The Nature of Things prefers a shooting script to a demo. Because [Firsthand] is so character-based, it’s really important for me to see who the characters are. Sometimes the artist’s vision too is helpful.

JD: I think we’re doing more development than we used to. That is a change [with] Firsthand. When you go at something and you say, ‘technology, does it make our lives better or worse,’ you can always go right into production on that. To Charlotte’s point, if you’re looking at something character-based, sometimes we need to do a more work and more exploring before we decide if it’s something we want.

POV docs have been big for awhile now and series like The Jinx and Making a Murderer have been smash hits. What do you see as the next big trend?
JD: I think it’s now about, ‘take me somewhere and make me a part of something,’ rather than the more traditional ‘I am going to tell you a story,’ method [from a removed third-party perspective]. I think audiences want to be more immersed in that story, feel it, and be a part of it.

CE: I’m seeing a lot of pitches on Syrian refugees, ISIS and murdered women. Producers should ask themselves the following questions: how does this documentary advance the dialogue on this subject matter and where will this story lie in the television landscape a year from now? Stories evolve and change so quickly now and we have to move along with them.