MURRAY BATTLE, DIRECTOR OF INDEPENDENT
PRODUCTION AND PRESENTATION

ROOM FOR DOCS:
In fall of 2008 British Columbia’s Knowledge Network rebranded as Knowledge, a 24-hour arts and culture channel, consisting mostly of documentaries and children’s programs.

In addition to main doc strand ‘Storyville,’ there are five other doc strands on the channel, including feature strand ‘Route 66;’ one-hour, artists-doc strand ‘Masters;’ ‘East is East’ which looks at the changing Asia-Pacific nations; performing arts strand ‘Radio City’ and cinema and photography strand ‘Aperture.’

WHAT HE’S LOOKING FOR:
Knowledge had seven major premieres for 2010, including a doc on Canadian women in the military and one on the Vancouver punk music scene.

“From a commissioning point of view everything comes in here through ‘Storyville’ and then it has the ability to migrate to other strands later,” Battle explains.

HOW TO PITCH:
“To a great degree, we like to see something on paper and usually we ask for a page or less about the project and intended financing scenario, just to see if the filmmakers have an idea of where they can find the money,” says Battle.

“It’s getting very difficult in Canada to find second windows on projects… so we’re always encouraging filmmakers to bring as much as they can to the project and, to a certain degree, it affects whether we can go ahead with it or not.

“Our envelope has gone up for the Canada Media Fund this year, so we expect to see a fair amount of production out of B.C.”

For first window projects contact assistant programmer Caroline Coutts (carolinec@knowledge.ca) and for second windows reach out to program development officer Patrice Ramsay (patricer@knowledge.ca).

Producers can also check Knowledge’s producer site for more pitching information.

From realscreen magazine.