Media Stockade producer/director Rebecca Barry.
All-female production company Media Stockade has expanded its business and made two key appointments in a bid help documentary makers reach their audience.
The Sydney based company has launched an impact campaign consultancy and audience engagement platform following support from Screen Australia's Enterprise program.
It has also appointed Teri Calder as impact producer and Danielle Kelly as business affairs manager.
Media Stockade company directors Rebecca Barry and Madeleine Hetherton said they were hugely passionate about both producing high-quality documentaries and ensuring they reached audiences and created a powerful impact.
"We are absolutely delighted to be able to formalise our leadership in the area of impact producing with both Teri Calder and Danielle Kelly joining the team," according to a statement.
"Thanks to the generous support we’ve received from Screen Australia’s Enterprise Program, we can now continue our growth trajectory.
"Through both The Doco Club and our impact campaign consultancy, these new initiatives will not only benefit our company, but will contribute to the overall growth of a wider network of Australian filmmakers who experience difficulty finding audience for their work.”
The impact campaign consultancy aims to work with social issues filmmakers to create powerful impact campaigns for public good, assisting to deliver a critical mass of screening events in non-theatrical settings – via communities, schools and businesses – that work to support a film’s social impact goals.
The consultancy will provide a range of support and advice services including, strategy and fundraising support as well as the creation of customised materials to elevate and creatively support screenings.
New clients Media Stockade are working with on impact campaigns include Southern Light Films and Body Image Movements’ feature documentary Embrace (Taryn Brumfitt) and Tea Pot Films’ feature documentary Legacy (Tony Prescott).
The Doco Club, to be launched later in 2016, will offer alternative distribution avenues to independent documentary makers, return revenue to producers, and create a documentary viewing community beyond broadcast and theatrical screenings.
It will be an online platform, based on the concept of the ‘Book Club’ – bringing people together to watch and discuss well-crafted, powerful topic, social-impact films in public screening events. It is a return to the campfire, promoting and celebrating the power of film to evoke change and action.
Barry and Hetherton said 2015 was was a huge year for Media Stockade with the release of its film Call Me Dad and the production of The Opposition.
"The Surgery Ship and I Am A Girl have also continued to have a global footprint," according to a statment.
"We can't wait to share our impact skills and activate documentary audiences.”
Media Stockade producer/director Madelene Hetherton.
Founded in 2012 by Rebecca Barry and Madeleine Hetherton, Media Stockade focuses on social-impact documentary storytelling, delivering across platforms and actively working with key supporters to build communities around each film.
The company has a track record in attracting new avenues of finance through philanthropy and in the past three years and has raised more than a million dollars collectively across four projects.
In 2013, Media Stockade released the four time AACTA nominated feature documentary I Am A Girl and SBS ratings success The Surgery Ship.
In 2015 Media Stockade released Call Me Dad and in 2016 will release The Opposition.
Both these two films were selected for the prestigious 2014 inaugural Good Pitch Australia event.
Other productions on Media Stockade’s slate to be released in 2016 are Disaster Capitalism, an explosive documentary that reveals the underbelly of the global aid and investment industry, and Psychics in the Suburbs, an insider's look at the exploding industry of psychic mediums and their influence on the lives of the clients who seek the service.