What does it take to win an Oscar? Leah chats with Ben Proudfoot, the CEO and Founder of Breakwater Studios.
Ben Proudfoot is a two-time Academy Award® winning documentary filmmaker and the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Breakwater Studios, the home of the short documentary. Based in LA, he leads a team of 20 full-time filmmaking staff to create Oscar winning short documentaries. He was born in Nova Scotia, attended USC, and founded his company in 2012. Since then, he’s made short documentaries for brands like The New York Times, Charles Schwab, LinkedIn, and Amazon. And of course we can’t forget to mention his 3 nominations & his back to back Oscar wins for The Queen of Basketball & The Last Repair Shop.
In this interview you will learn…
How to handle rejection
How to win an Oscar
How to find funding and partners for your original films
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
1:37 - Dealing with Rejection
5:47 - Why Short Documentaries
9:16 - How Ben Got His Start in Branded Documentaries
15:50 - Why some brand-funded films are bad
18:38 - Scaling Breakwater Studios
27:27 - The Role of a CEO
30:41 - How to Win an Oscar
42:17 - $15M Fundraising Campaign for The Last Repair Shop
46:00 - Finding Funding for your documentary
53:00 - Do’s and Don’ts for finding strategic partners
55:16 - Rapid Fire Questions
Episode Resources & Links:
Donate to The Last Repair Shop Fund:
Follow Ben on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bgproudfoot/
Follow Breakwater Studios on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakwaterstudios/
Learn about Breakwater Studios: https://breakwaterstudios.com/
Academy Awards Eligibility: https://www.oscars.org/oscars/rules-eligibility
Talk Doc To Me is presented by Sundoc Studios