- Self-funding -
When we chanced upon Hidden Documentary, a website telling beautiful stories of people and places in Melbourne, we were intrigued to find out more. Many questions came to mind and one predominant one focuses on the funding of the website, development of ideas and sustaining of this practice for more than a year now. Meeting her at the Hard Rock Climbing Gym allowed me to speak to her about her passion for people and the amazing stories behind their lives. We approached Sarah with one main aim in our heads, how does this RMIT Media and Communications graduate practice what she preaches and take a stands for independent content and fund it thus far? Sarah agreed to do an interview with us and gave us great insight into the world of a passionate independent content producer and the funding challenges, methods and strategies adopted. Areas such a crowd-funding could not work with her website as she spotted a trend of crowd-funding supporters to lean more towards film and documentaries as contained and completed one off projects whereas her artifact is a on-going website with regular videos and stories.
Sarah Hunt, Melbourne born independent content producer/freelancer runs Hidden Documentary, a website based in Melbourne, Australia sharing compelling stories for curious people about the up and coming individuals in Melbourne and also well-known names in the media industry, charities, causes and fund-raising.
The reason why Sarah started Hidden Documentary was because after doing her degree in Communications at RMIT, she felt there was a lacking of quality content in Australia media. She came to this conclusion after many years of her travels and living internationally. This self-funded website allows for her to artistically determine her voice without perimeters and constraints or a large organization and their regulations. She desperately wanted to find something that she could express herself with artistically without being part of a mainstream media organization. Her main focus was to show an insightful and in depth coverage of people and places in Melbourne.
Check out Sarah's website here: http://hiddendocumentary.com/
Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hiddendocumentary
So what does self-funding entail according to Sarah? Sarah expressed, “When you start something that you don’t have credibility behind to get funding, then when you start, you can gain funding so when I started the website I went out created the website had a friend who was a graphic designer that did the logo, a friend who was a programmer who set up the website and I went out and solicited all the interviews with no prior experience.” This shows us that self-funding allows you to get one foot in the door and get started with all the knowledge and talent you have on hand, at present moment without having to delay and wait for grants to be approved or funders to come in, which can sometimes take a very long process of waiting. “Fundraising through grants involves an intensive period of research, followed by making contact with a funder, then the creation of an extensive written proposal that might be supplemented with ancillary materials. The whole process of researching, applying for and then hearing about a grant can take many months. And, because the competition for grant dollars is so intense, the odds are stacked against you, so you receive many more rejections than awards,” says Morrie Warshawski author of Shaking the Money Tree: The Art of Getting Grants and Donations for Film and Video Projects in an interview with Independent Magazine in 2008.
http://www.warshawski.com/books.html http://www.independent-magazine.org/08/07/party-doc-star
Sarah shares with us how self-funding removes that sense of entitlement that is so pervasive in the media industry and that “you need to spend ten years doing a certain type of work before you are allowed to do something that you might really want to do, that is not to say there has to be no period of learning or training but if people have got this burning desire, ambition or talent that is really quite strong they should pursue it as soon as possible.” Successful independent media content producers are willing to reach out to the audience, get started and begin the journey they have always aspired of. As Sarah nicely puts it, “With self-funding you can be bold and take bold steps to move forward much more quickly than in other funding models.”