WESTDOC hits the spot in Los Angeles

September 15, 2010 – Doubletree Guest Suites, Santa Monica, CA – The West Coast Reality and Documentary Conference (September 13-15, 2010)

With a very impressive schedule of panels, case studies, exclusive networking events and master classes, the 2nd Annual WESTDOC Conference is now established as the conference not to be missed by producers and directors of non-fiction/documentary and reality TV programming creators. The very intense 3 and a half day event with 5 simultaneous session, started with special preview screening of Sundance Film Festival standout, a reality thriller “Catfish,” Sunday night September 12th from filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost.

Some of the biggest names in TV including VPs of Development and Programming Directors from most of the major TV Channels, Presidents and CEOs of major Production Studios, producer's agents from CAA and William Morris. Executives from ABC Entertainment, BBC Worldwide, Discovery Studios, Fox TV Studios, MorningStar Entertainment, VH1, High Noon Entertainment, TLC, Oxygen, Documentary Channel, Reveille, Discovery Channel, Kinetic Content, Ovation, The Travel Channel, MGM Studios, The Science Channel, E! Entertainment, Animal Planet, A&E Network, Bunim/Murray Productions, TV Land, WE, Spike TV, Authentic Entertainment, National Geographic Channel, 3Ball Production, Leftfield Pictures, NBC Universal, History Channel, CW Network, Radical Media, Lifetime Network, ITVS, The Game Show Network, A. Smith & CO., Bravo, PBS and many more generously donated their time to participate as panelists or moderators to answer all participants’ questions in an honest effort to help producers to move to the next level.

Additionally, WESTDOC 2010 offered hands-on seminars in production, marketing and distribution on the weekend prior to the conference (Saturday September 11/Sunday September 12, 2010) by renowned experts. DP Philip Bloom (http://philipbloom.net/) taught a full two-day Master Class on the sensational new HDSLR cameras. A series of six sessions taught over two days by production technology expert Jem Schofield (http://theC47.com/), publisher and researcher Peter Hamilton taught his course on "Network License Fees and the Pitch Perfected". These experts also taught during the conference, along with other high-caliber experts like Donna Michelle Anderson, renowned writer, producer and runner of top-rated TV reality series, and author of several production manuals such as “The Show Starter Reality TV Made Simple System”. The keynote speaker was Joe Berlinger ("Crude") who explained his legal problems with Chevron after his documentary.

The last day of the conference was dedicated to PitchFest, sponsored by The Gilbert Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch with $7,500 in cash prices. During the day 12 finalists had the opportunity to presents their work-in-progress projects to a panel of funders and acquisition executives. The winners of this year’s Pitchfest were James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot for “Indie Game: The Movie”, and the runner up went to “Xmas Without China” by director Tom Xia.

“We started this conference because there are a lot of great events on the East Coast but none on the West Coast.” says Richard Propper, co-founder and managing partner of WESTDOC “I was the president of the International Documentary Association for 2 years and many people would ask me why there are no good events in Los Angeles, so I realized people really wanted something here.” He teamed with filmmaker Chuck Braverman to put together the panels they would want to attend. This year the conference had 500 attendees (up 300 from last year), 135 speakers, 3-5 great panels every hour, great evening social events sponsored by the Associated Press and Getty Images. “Ultimately we wanted to make sure that everybody could meet the people they wanted to meet leaving satisfied, having gotten everything they wanted out of it.” One of the best features of the event were the “sit-downs”, which kept some people’s attention for the entire conference: 30 minutes with a network/production executive where they explained who they are, their audience, what we are looking for and how to reach them.

Richard commented “Lots of people have great ideas but don’t know how to articulate them, how to pitch them. So when they hear from the people who are getting the pitches, some people would say, ‘I get it, I know what I need to do’, others would say ‘I am so unprepared’’. The conference had at least 3 panels on pitches and how to pitch a show. “Many conferences don’t offer that; don’t really try to empower the producers.” They try to demystify what this business is about. “Top-rated shows, top producers, however at the end of the day it’s all about creativity, new ideas, and well-told stories.” One of the most interesting stories coming out of this conference was “Pound Shops”. “This show was pitched to 20 networks, the family currently on the show was filmed by another development company, and they didn’t sell it, being a big company.” It was Brent Montgomery and his team at Leftfield Pictures whose story-telling and execution got the attention of the TV executives. This account is inspiration to small guys. The rule that small production companies need to partner with bigger companies to reach TV executives is not always true. “We wanted our conference to give out the information but it’s not all what you think it is, and the only people who can tell you are the people who are doing it”.

Reality business and documentaries are a true part of Los Angeles and Hollywood but there were no events in the West Coast on these subjects. Now a dedicated team led by Richard Propper and Chuck Braverman spent 9 months creating WESTDOC 2010. They care for the people in this business and are committed to making this event even larger next year. I can't wait!

For more information: http://www.thewestdoc.com/

Photos courtesy of © Mimi Fuenzalida and WESTDOC Staff
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