UPI - UPI - Thursday, March 03, 2005
Date: Thursday, March 03, 2005 10:54:02 PM EST By PAT NASON, UPI Hollywood Reporter

LOS ANGELES, March 3 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles-based production company and the Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation have launched a program that will produce documentaries for non-profit organizations at no cost while giving aspiring filmmakers hands-on experience in their field.

Film Garden Entertainment, which has produced programs for ABC, FOX, MSNBC and several niche cable channels, will serve as the base of operations for
The Greenhouse at Film Garden, a program designed to produce documentaries for non-profit organizations that could not, in most case, afford to produce
them on their own.

Nancy Jacobs Miller, founder and president of Film Garden Entertainment, is also a member of the board at the Fox Family Foundation. She told United
Press International the experience had brought her into contact with several non-profit officers who often suggested that their organizations could
benefit from the kind of work her company does.

"It started me thinking," she said. "We do have this production facility -- this is what we do. There must be a way for us to use the existing
infrastructure in a creative way to help these non-profits create demo tapes that will help them be more productive in their outreach and fundraising."

The Fox Family Foundation supports non-profit organizations that operate programs and projects benefiting young people in California. Foundation
Executive Director Dana Marcus told UPI the presentation videos should help non-profits make more efficient use of their resources by helping in such
areas as fundraising and enrolling volunteers.

"The more time they spend worrying about raising funds and getting volunteers," she said, "the less time they have to actually do their jobs
well."

Miller said Film Garden is able to provide the wherewithal for producing the documentaries through a gift from a private donor, who stipulated that his
or her name not be publicized and that the amount of the gift also be kept in confidence.

Miller said The Greenhouse plans to work with 40 filmmakers and non-profits in its first year. Eight documentaries are already in production -- for
non-profits in Los Angeles and Santa Clara, Calif.

"We did acquire some extra equipment in order to specifically serve the filmmakers who are going to work through The Film Garden," she said. "A lot
of the people at Film Garden are donating their time to make this happen."

Initially, the project will utilize young filmmakers who have already been involved in some way with the production company, including film-school
graduates who have interned there or worked as segment producers.

One of those is Anne Krzysztalowicz, a 2003 graduate of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut who works as a post-production supervisor at Film
Garden. She is working on a film about A Place Called Home in South Central Los Angeles.

"They have lots of programs for inner-city kids who have no place to go after school," she said. "Arts, music, dance, literary, counseling."

Her project is focusing on a program offered by A Place Called Home that targets girls and young women with low self-esteem. She plans to compare the
lives that they live with the experience of most people who live in Southern California.

"They live in Los Angeles, but some of them have never seen the beach," she said. "We're in Hollywood with all the glitz and glamour and beaches, then I
want to segue into their neighborhood where it's so, I don't know, bleak and rundown."

The young filmmakers work with mentors. Krzysztalowicz's is Lore Dona, who has worked as producer-writer on "The Insider's List" for the Fine Living
Network.

Once the DVDs are produced it will be up to each individual non-profit to distribute the films. Marcus said that when the foundation was deciding
which non-profits would be the first to participate, applicants had to indicate how they would handle that.

"We made them think about it," she said, "explore the options for how they're going to use it with their staff, with their volunteers, with their
board members and sometimes with their clients."

For the most part, organizations plan to send out DVDs to potential donors or stream their videos on the Web.

Since the videos will all begin life as bits of advocacy on behalf of causes and organizations, they arguably will not perform the traditional function
of a documentary -- to examine an issue thoroughly and perhaps report some conclusions. At the same time the current popularity of documentaries as a
form of political advocacy has opened the door to a broader definition of the term.

In any case, Miller said, this project is not about to produce documentaries for organizations that it doesn't feel is doing worthwhile work.

Asked whether the project would offer any tax advantages to Film Garden, Miller said she hadn't thought about that yet.

"It's not the reason we're doing it," she said.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International.
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