Now I'm thinking I'm a little out of my mind. I'm seriously investigating what it will take to make my doc. Yes, I've produced 2 before, one which I co-directed and was in 3 languages. But they were both supported in that I did them as part of my job, and got help finding the money. I didn't actually have to put too many parts of my life on hold in order to get them done. And (more critically) I didn't have to max out any credit cards.

On the other hand, as an artist, I'm very drawn to the idea that I'm looking to make a doc that doesn't have to fit someone else's political agenda and is not designed as a teaching tool with a particular message. That sounds much more like what I'd like to do.

So I'm taking a producing class with a very experienced and fairly bitter indy producer. I went in knowing that I was never going to make any money with documentaries, and I was fully prepared to try to get it done in and around doing other work. Through this class I'm getting a more full picture of the level of debt I'm likely to get into. Will it scare me off? Probably not. But I just have to be prepared.