Dear Producer: Megan Gilbride on Producing Nonfiction Film and More
The following blog and video piece originally ran on the website Dear Producer and is shared here courtesy of that website’s editor Rebecca Green, a Film Independent Fellow and Creative Advisor. Excerpts from Dear Producer appear on our blog regularly.
***
We continue our Producers in Front of the Camera series with Megan Gilbride, producer of documentary films such as Tower and Where Soldiers Come From.
In her interview, Megan stresses the importance of filmmakers doing their homework to figure out the multiple audiences for their film and knowing exactly how to reach those audiences before raising any money. She shares her thoughts on the so-called “golden age of documentaries,” the unrelenting question of “what are you doing next?” and why we all need to spend time daydreaming and making space to think about our projects.
Megan is a 2015 Film Independent Fast Track Fellow and 2012 Film Independent Spirit Award nominee for the John Cassavetes Award for narrative feature, Lovers of Hate.
Megan Gilbride is an Emmy-winning and Film Independent Spirit Award-nominated producer of narrative and documentary films. She produced the Emmy award winning Tower, which screened on PBS’s Independent Lens, was nominated for numerous prizes including a Peabody, PGA and Gotham Award and was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Academy Award.
Her other films include Lovers of Hate, Where Soldiers Come From and Habibi. Megan is currently developing the feature documentary Fathom and producing The Untitled Michael Brody Documentary with Impact Partners and Topic. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Documentary Producers Alliance. Megan lives in Austin, TX with her husband, Wesley and son, Ulysses, and most days she feels like one darn lucky duck.
Below, see a trailer for Gilbride’s film Where Soldiers Come From:
More from Film Independent…
(Header: Tower)