MovieMaker Magazine, Winter 2007: Issue No. 67, Vol 14

A Plum Deal for Documentary-Makers

What do Nantucket, Telluride, Vail and the Hamptons have in common? If you said wealthy, famous, influential seasonal visitors, you're half right. They also have vibrant year-round communities -- and Plum TV.

A new network serving the aforementioned communities (as well as Martha's Vineyard and Aspen), Plum TV is also available in more than a million additional homes through Comcast's video-on-demand service and will offer three hours of online content in a forthcoming deal with AOL.

One of Plum's most successful original shows is DocStock, which profiles some of the very best independent documentaries-in-progress from around the world. The show, hosted by Rebecca Carroll, includes trailers and clips from each film and interviews with the movie makers. For the lucky few nonfiction moviemakers whose films are chosen, the show provides a golden opportunity to showcase their works-in-progress to an audience that is uniquely able to help finance their completion.

“"It's one of those fantastic ideas that's so obvious and simple, I can't even believe nobody did it sooner,"” says Jage Toba, executive producer of DocStock and director of network programming at Plum TV, who created the show with producer (and Plum TV founder) Cary Woods.

“"He and I were hanging out in the kitchen one night talking about all the screeners and trailers for documentaries that we saw,"” Toba recalls. "“We said the people who really ought to be seeing these are the people in Aspen and the Hamptons."

“"Within four weeks of that conversation, I had the first episode"”

DocStock, and its narrative film cousin, FilmStock (which is in production now), are unique in their focus on in-progress, independent material. For documentaries like Dan Lohaus' When I Came Home, which went from an appearance on DocStock to an award-winning appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival, Plum's audience is ideal.

“"It's a perfect indication of what's great about Plum,"” says Toba. “"You don't have to dumb it down. You can be smart. You can be varied. You can be intelligent.”"

Not to mention, somebody rich and famous is probably watching.

Show them what you've got at http://www.plumtv.com/shows/docstock.