How to Land a $100K Branded Documentary

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Making a film that you don't have to pay for is the dream in film making. It's the f-word. It's funding. And getting to do a branded documentary for a company.

[00:00:12]It's that elusive thing that I know so many filmmakers want to do. It's simple, but it takes time. So, what we wanted to do in this video is we're actually taking a whole lesson out of the art of documentary about our documentary project, Musky Man, that Michael Damonte directed and Jackie Pal produced. And they're going to break down how you approach the client about this project, how you warm that relationship up by making other projects along the way, and ultimately how you find the right character. It all comes down to who is on screen to help tell that story for the client, but hiding it within a beautiful documentary piece. And this film Musky Man did well. It's I think it's the most viewed video that Alumcraft has ever had on their YouTube channel. And we'll put a link down below for you to go watch that. And what we also want to give you in this video is down below there's a link for interview questions because the voice of your character in the film is the most crucial part of that documentary because it will take us through the entire narrative in the entire story. And so knowing what questions to ask are important. This video is taken from the art of documentary our course and academy and it's just one of hundreds of videos that break down the film making process. We have courses for all aspects of your film making career to help you get paid to be a filmmaker and to make the films you've always dreamed of. If you want more information about AODD, get one of those resources down below.

[00:01:33]Go follow us on Instagram and we have a weekly email that gives you all sorts of tips about film making. And also our courses open a few times a year so you can join those when the doors open. I'm going to get out of the way. I'm going to let Michael and Jackie take it away and give you this lesson. Enjoy and at the end of the video I'll tell you a little bit more about art of documentary.

[00:01:50]All right, welcome to uh this section on the documentary Musky Man. We're going to be covering how the how the idea came into inception, how it, you know, was completed, released, everything. I'm really excited about. It's one of the first short documentaries I've ever made. And in this video in particular, we're going to be talking about finding the character. We're going to be talking about how you work with brands to get them aligned on the idea of making a branded film. Something I know a lot of you are interested in. And then we're going to be talking a little bit about how you develop that relationship with the character, kind of build their trust and get them aligned so that you can go and make this movie. But first, I want to introduce someone who's going to be in all these videos. This is Jackie Pal.

[00:02:41]She was the producer on this project. Uh I only met her uh in September.

[00:02:46]>> Yeah. So about 5 months ago. And since then, we've literally traveled the world together for this project, but then also for a subsequent commercial we did together.

[00:02:54]>> Don't shake me. I'm just here.

[00:02:55]>> She's that good. I mean, I can't shake her because she's that good. And she's she's phenomenal at what she does. But for now, we wanted to break down Musky Man. This was a branded dock uh that Jackie brought to me. We're going to in this video in particular, we're going to talk about just how she found the character, how she found me, um and that kind of origin story of the project and give you some tips. uh when it comes to trying to find that character, whether you're trying to pitch uh a brand or a broadcaster, kind of what you look for and and how you go about that. So, I want to start because some of this is even new to me. I kind of know the story, but I wanted to know how did you guys even find me for this job.

[00:03:34]>> Yeah. So, I love researching. It's one of my favorite things. And for me, I think it's very typical for a lot of agency producers to kind of just go to their the people that they know, right?

[00:03:44]the people who they trust, who they've done a million times. But I wanted to find someone who was right for this project. And this project was actually, I don't know if you know this, Michael, but like almost two years in the running to get to where it needed to get to and to get the client to agree. Um, so I wanted to find someone who more than anything really understood character.

[00:04:01]>> The client has always been very obsessed about finding a director DP who knows water. They need to know water. Um, they need to have experience on water. And I, which is like, oh, great. Yeah. Not you.

[00:04:11]That's I don't know if we lied a bit about that. Yeah, he has some experience. We really had to try to educate them of like what makes a good story and what do you who needs to shepherd that story and needs to be a director who understands character >> and there's a lot of great directors out there but I wanted someone who had been really intimate with characters and you know I came upon your work Ry.

[00:04:31]>> Yeah.

[00:04:32]>> Um and went through your portfolio and saw that you were very good at unearthing not just story but an individual and their I don't know just their their essence of who they are. And that's what we knew we needed for Larry.

[00:04:44]>> I'm curious, what was the conversation like with the client? So, just so you know, this was for a boat company called Alumac Craft. And I'm curious because I'm sure >> they had never done anything like this, by the way, like ever.

[00:04:56]>> So, give us some tips. Like, how did you guys even convince Alumacraft that this was a good ROI for them to do?

[00:05:02]>> So, like I said, this took years.

[00:05:04]Initially, we tried to present doing some kind of branded content or documentary, but they just weren't willing to make the investment. They wanted their typical wedding footage and like shots for you know digital social.

[00:05:15]So a year went by um we had done a campaign called love your craft right super successful beautiful um yeah I think you saw the work as well uh and it allowed us to start building a framework of like focusing on not just about the boat and like the typical fisherman but people who are obsessed with their craft >> and you know we wanted to pitch this idea instead of just doing like a typical you know branded dock that you'd see on Patagonia which is kind of surface level we wanted to go deeper and we felt finally we had this opportunity with love your craft >> um of you know maybe making a series.

[00:05:45]>> Wow.

[00:05:46]>> So, the idea was maybe every year we'll focus on a different fish. And this year we focused on musky. And we said we want to find a character. We want we don't want to just like talk about musky. We want to talk a person who is obsessed with it.

[00:05:57]>> Wow.

[00:05:58]>> Yeah.

[00:05:58]>> I mean, I want to know more about this because I think a lot of people watching this scale this to whatever level your client is. if it's not a big boat manufacturer like Alumcraft, even if it's some type of, you know, small business, an entrepreneur, it's like I want to hear, Jackie, like just a little bit more. What's that like to kind of have those conversations? Because it sounds like you guys are kind of having an idea on where the company's going and integrating the content into it, you know, like. So, how does just what advice would you give to someone, you know, in terms of trying to direct, you know, the client >> to get them to agree to what you want them to do? I don't want to say that, but to do what's right for them. You know, you're trying to do what's right for them, I guess. But it's like, you know, how how would somebody else go about doing that? Like kind of keeping that relationship to a point where you would be in a position to if you find the right story to pitch it.

[00:06:51]>> Yeah. And and like I said, it just took so much time and a lot of it is about trust and timing >> and timing. I mean, I want to say timing, but the timing took two years and we finally got the Yes. Right.

[00:07:01]>> But really, it was about >> one building trust that they trusted us.

[00:07:04]They saw what we could do with Love Your Craft, right? So there the proof was there. But the second part of it was like building a case. So what we did was, you know, we looked at the Yetis and the Patagonia and we said, >> you can't just post something and and expect the audience to be there. They're not going to be there. We have to make something that's unique to you. And if we keep putting out the same stuff and expecting the same results, we're not going to get it. So that's why we decided, let's do something totally different and that actually is a real story about a real person. So, so that leads us to Larry, the main character of the story. Tell me how you >> because just so you guys all know, I did not find Larry. These Jackie and and uh her colleague Mitch brought Larry and a deck to me and that was they had already done the hard work. I want to know about how then you found Larry because I don't say yes to a lot of projects like I have to have like a real strong connection with them and and Larry was awesome. How did you come across this guy and tell me about that?

[00:08:07]>> Well, I think the first thing to understand and that probably your wife and a lot of women won't tell you is that those born in the 90s and early 2000s have been able to sharpen their stalking skills. So, I'm just a really good stalker, >> right? Um >> story. That's good to know. That's for anyone out there just like become a really good stalker and you'll find the best character ever.

[00:08:25]>> Uh, no. I I think, you know, for me, I I like I mentioned earlier, I love researching. And I think if I I hear a lot of actually up and cominging directors or producers who want to make a story, they're like, "How do you find a character?" You have to love the research part of it. One, you have to know what you want to do, but you got to know that you want to spend the time doing it. And if you don't, you got to hire someone then who will actually do it for you. So, how did I find Larry?

[00:08:49]Um, you know, we knew we wanted to focus on muskies. We knew we wanted to have a really interesting story or character.

[00:08:54]So, I just started digging. I started with like, you know, news articles, right? Which brought me to forums.

[00:09:00]Forums got me talking to people, which brought me to the podcast.

[00:09:03]>> Um, before the podcast, cuz I want to take a pause on that. I had read a story about this really controversial character um who called Louis Sprag. She came up a lot uh during the shoot. Very controversial. Um, and I really love this story. I found it so fascinating.

[00:09:19]Here's this guy, you know, in the 1940s.

[00:09:23]Yeah. Who is getting these crazy world records, like 60 lbs with like literally nothing, like a wood stick, and people are calling him out. And one of these people is named Larry Ramsel. I kind of put in the back of my mind, >> uh, >> a week later now, fast forward, I'm watching this podcast, and there's Larry. Okay, >> I haven't seen any footage of Larry. And I'm watching this guy and there's all these people talking to him and I'm like, there's something here with him.

[00:09:47]>> You know, he was very good at keeping up, >> very, you know, he's very charismatic, very interesting, but there was just something off.

[00:09:54]>> Yeah.

[00:09:55]>> And I picked up on it like his need to go back to certain points. Like you could see there was something that he needed to control. And when you recognize that kind of weird trait, you know you have something potentially good.

[00:10:05]>> So you do this a lot, Jackie. like part of your producing you're I've experienced this with our commercial you're phenomenal phenomenal researcher like articulate a little bit more with Larry like that thing that's off like I guess what what are those cues I guess you're looking for for a I mean so someone being off that's something I look for too cuz there's obviously a quirkiness there's some that means there's some something going on in their head which is interesting and and you know probably something to be explored but how do you how did you know that that's enough for a documentary cuz that's you know that might be a nice interview or something or a quirky fun guy to have a beer with, but for a documentary kind of how did you how did you get to the point of saying this is our guy to make a film about?

[00:10:47]>> It's such a great question cuz those are the same things I asked myself. I'm watching this podcast. I'm reading his website. I'm looking at what he's writing on the forums. Like there could be something good here, but the only way I'll know is if I talk to him on the phone, >> right?

[00:10:59]>> Because it the thing is people sometimes, as we all do, want to appear a certain way, but ultimately you get them on the phone and they might be bored. they have nothing interesting to say. So that was the next big piece.

[00:11:10]>> How do you navigate that kind of tension of like yes, it's for a brand, you know, but you want him to feel like it's a dock.

[00:11:18]>> Yeah, it was really hard.

[00:11:19]>> Yeah, cuz I mean this is this is something like it came up while we were shooting it quite a bit. It's like what are we making here? like, you know, and this is this is something all doc filmmakers kind of need to be aware of is that transparency of like being honest with what you're making, but you know, straddling that line where it's like if you only want them to know as much as they need to know. Yeah. Like you're not trying to hurt them in any way. Like >> you're not trying to hide things.

[00:11:44]>> You're not trying to hide things, but you don't want to sabotage what could be a good thing for them as well, which this ended up being for Larry. So, I mean, how do you kind of walk that line?

[00:11:52]Do you feel of >> it's intuition?

[00:11:55]from the first moment I spoke to Larry, I knew that he was not a trusting person, that he was very edgy, um, and that he was particular. Like, so I knew that the less I told him, the better we were going to be, right?

[00:12:08]>> The more he would obsess, the more he would ask questions. And that did happen on some occasions. We'd give him a little too much, and suddenly we're getting calls every single day. So, I think, you know, it's assessing the person, their personality type to know what what information to omit and what to tell. Another interesting point is protecting the talent. I was very careful about who got to speak to the talent. I didn't have Mitch is one of our our colleagues on this as uh Michael mentioned. You know, he initially came up with the concept of Love Your Craft and Huskies. Uh we worked together to, you know, bring Michael on board. Um I was very careful not to bring Mitch on too early on. I I wanted him to meet you first before meeting Mitch. Um, so you have to know when to introduce the right people to not start to create something that feels too big. And he's an older man. Like this isn't this isn't like a savvy person. This is someone who's going to be a little bit paranoid.

[00:12:58]>> Yeah. So try to understand who you're dealing with and and and then talk to people in AOD. This is one of the huge advantages of having feedback hours as our advanced students is like bring these questions to me, you know, to or or bring them into the Facebook group.

[00:13:12]We have a lot of filmmakers who have worked with different characters and understand kind of how to deal with these sensibilities and whatnot. This is this is a big part of film making is kind of this producing aspect which is which Jackie is so phenomenal about.

[00:13:24]This to me really can make or break your film is your relationship with the character and and kind of how they understand how how far you're trying to go with it, what their involvement is.

[00:13:34]This stuff allows you to get what you're able to get in the field or else you'll run up against a brick wall and you know you're not going to have a movie. So that's it for this video. In the next video we're going to be going into actually finding the story. So um how do you actually take this character and all of his, you know, his past, his present, what his goals are, and actually craft that and put that into a story.

[00:14:01]Amazing.

[00:14:06]Thank you for watching if you made it this far. If you did, leave me. Is there a camera lens emoji? It just might be a camera. Show me the one with the flash.

[00:14:14]And this video is taken from one of our seven courses in art of documentary, which go over all aspects of filmm.

[00:14:20]Whether it's you finding your voice as a director, learning how to find your first documentary story, producing and running a better business, editing, cinematography, we have all aspects of film making covered. and a huge thriving community in art of documentary that's here to help and walk alongside you in your journey whether it's online or in person. So make sure to get that free resource down below and get on our email list as we send out weekly tutorials and lessons all about film making.

[00:14:47]Appreciate you watching this one and we'll see you on the next one.

[00:14:56]Heat. Heat.