{"id":742,"date":"2007-12-11T04:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-11T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=742"},"modified":"2007-12-11T04:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-11T10:45:00","slug":"how-to-promote-your-worthy-documentary-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/12\/how-to-promote-your-worthy-documentary-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"How to promote your worthy documentary, part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>n the increasingly desperate battle for ratings, are producers resorting to publicity wheezes (trans<\/span>. dirty tricks) to promote otherwise worthy documentaries?<\/p>\n

Remember the Paul Watson<\/span> Alzheimers<\/a> saga? Now there\u2019s a new contender. Martin Belam has gathered the evidence here<\/a>. But it is an odd tale that began (bizarrely) on BBC<\/span> arts prog Front Row<\/a>, transferred to the Barbican<\/a>, and finally made it into the Observer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The story was this – documentary maker Tony Palmer<\/a> was railing at a rejection letter from the BBC for his proposed film on the great Ralph Vaughan Williams<\/a> (his 3rd symphony is a personal fave) which illustrated dumbing down at the corporation.<\/p>\n

He approached the BBC last year with the idea of making a documentary about Vaughan Williams, whose best known symphonies* include The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on Greensleeves, in time for the 50th anniversary of the composer\u2019s death.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rejection letter to Palmer from the Beeb – from June 2006 – was a classic combo of corp speak and ignorance: <\/p>\n

Having looked at our own activity via the lens of find, play and share<\/span>, we came to the conclusion that a film about Mr Williams would not be appropriate at this time. This is essentially because we are…<\/span>reconstruct<\/span>ing <\/span>the architecture of bbc.co.uk<\/span>, and to do that, we need to maximise the routes to content.<\/p>\n

<\/span>We must establish the tools that allow shared behaviours, and so harness the power of the audience and our network to make our content more findable.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have decided to take <\/span>a radically new approach<\/span>… and therefore <\/span>free resource<\/span>s <\/span>for projects of real ambition<\/span>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ll explain the italics<\/span> in a moment or two. But the BBC denied sending the letter and Sam Leith presented their case in the Telegraph<\/a>. So far, so unpredictably predictable, with a role reversal in Beeb-bashing.<\/p>\n

Still, as Leith and then Belam noted: <\/p>\n

last week, prior to transmission, [Palmer\u2019s film] was released on DVD – tonypalmerdvd.com<\/a>. How fortuitous for him that all that publicity over the mysterious BBC rejection letter should break at the very same time…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, so Palmer shouldn\u2019t file his rejection letters for eighteen months – but it wasn\u2019t the timing that aroused Belam\u2019s suspicions.<\/p>\n

It sounded to him awfully like a chunk of a speech he had sat through<\/a> by BBC exec Simon Nelson<\/a>, some three months ago. Don\u2019t read all of it but here are the killer similarities: <\/p>\n

So having looked at our own activity via the lens of find, play and share we came to these conclusions<\/span>:<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n