This morning I had the honor of speaking on a panel about documentary filmmaking and distribution for the fine folks at the International Black Film Festival of Nashville. It’s always inspiring to be in a room full of filmmakers with documentary projects of their own, and it was a pleasure to offer them a few kernels of advice as to what the next step for their various film projects might be, whether they’re seeking DVD distribution, looking to spend a little time with their film out on the festival circuit or just trying to get a better grasp on how to approach submitting their film to networks for broadcast. The room was filled with a number of bright, inspiring individuals, and it was great to have been able to offer not just advice, but something I think is equally important—hope—to a group of fellow filmmakers. It’s a very interesting an honorable thing the folks of the IBFF are doing for our local film community in Nashville. I met two filmmakers their today whose projects will be screening this week and wanted to take a brief moment to maybe let a few folks know who those gentleman are and when you can catch their films this week if you happen to be in Nashville. The first is filmmaker Leo Hall, whose film “Angel Unaware: The Tara Cole Story,” definitely merits checking out. It screens at Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre on Friday, October 5th at 9:40 pm. I also made the acquaintance of filmmaker Percy L. Easley at this morning’s panel. Percy has two shorts screening as part of the fest. The first, “Homeless,” screens tonight at 6:30 p.m. and the second is “Dark Light” and will be screening at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. Both films will be at the Belcourt. These gentlemen would greatly appreciate your attendance, so if you find yourself with a free evening on any of those dates, try and attend. That’s enough outta me, but I would also like to say thanks to Ingrid Brown and the other folks who are working so hard to pull off this year’s IBFF. I speak for everyone here at Doc when I say we wish them the best. We were genuinely proud to be a part of the proceedings. Another quick thanks goes to my friend, filmmaker Matthew Robison (whose name you might recall from my frequent touting of his doc “Silver Jew” throughout this year’s many blog posts). Matt was kind enough to be apart of the panel as well and offer some insight to the attending filmmakers about spending time on the festival circuit and securing distribution for their docs once the festival season has passed. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Thursday morning.

Didn’t know until recently, but the 1971 documentary “Blue Water, White Death,” about a team of underwater camera experts searching for a Great White shark, was one of the primary sources of information Peter Benchley relied on when writing his No. 1 best-selling book “Jaws.”

Benchley’s book was published in 1974. Steven Spielberg’s version of “Jaws” came out in 1975 and it became the first film to make more than $100 million at the box office. I’ve seen clips of “Blue Water, White Death” online and it looks cool. It’s lustrous old film combined with the rich colors of the ocean and some staged scenes (which come across today as quality comedy sketches) make it look like a worthy way to spend an afternoon.