ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the money side of documentary filmmaking, and then it examines the process of securing a contract to make a documentary. For instance, if people are the archaeologist and their goal is to create a quality documentary about their archaeology project that ends up in theatrical or television release, they may not expect to get paid. Nonetheless, there may be direct expenses that have to be covered, such as equipment costs, key team personnel salaries, research costs and travel expenses. General expenses, preproduction costs, production costs, post production costs and costs after documentary is completed are some of the budget that they can use as a checklist to talk over with their documentary filmmaker. The chapter provides some contracts which include: documentary length and purpose, documentary due date and manner of delivery, fee owed filmmaking team, including payment schedule, product approvals, insurance and ownership.
