I found the talk with Roger Williams very inspiring and very interesting. I have never been in the presence of such a highly successful producer before and it was interesting hearing his story. I loved the way he went about making films and how passionate he was about them. It was interesting to see how he got his motivation because he thought the story wasn’t being told correctly. It was also interesting to see how his assistance was so involved with his career in keeping it organized. It shows he respected her by giving her the golden ticket to Sundance. I wonder how hard of a transition it was for her coming right out of school to become so organized. I also wonder what classes she wished she could have taken to help her more in her job.
I thought it was interesting how closely knit the documentary industry was. Williams mentioned that everyone basically knows each other and that there is not that many people at the top running the industry. I also thought it was interesting how he reinforced the idea that to be a documenter you really have to passionate about what your doing and be willing to make sacrifices. For example, he explained how he had to fundraise in order to support his trips for his project. He also mentioned how emotionally draining and time consuming it was when he was working on God Loves Uganda. Lastly, I thought it was cool how he said he knew he had something special after him and his camera man cried during an interview of Prudence before deciding to make the documentary.
Going off your point about how closely knit the documentary industry is makes me wonder how authentic award shows, grants and nominations truly are. Since Roger’s alluded to the idea that not all of the films entered to win an award or even premiere at Sundance are screened makes me question the process. The films being screened are the ones by known directors that have most likely received large grants. I’m not discrediting any of his accomplishments and was very impressed by him as a person as well as Rogers as a film maker, this fact just never occurred to me previously.