Documentaries Follow the Money

6:00 AM PST 1/3/2012 by Paul Bond

Raising the financing for nonfiction films like this year's Oscar hopefuls is as much of an art as making the movies themselves.

For a few years during the making of We Were Here, the living room of David Weissman's one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco served as a production office, while Bill Weber worked an editing system from his basement. Such are the challenges of documentary filmmaking: Each of the 15 docs that made this year's Oscar short list were produced on a wing and prayer; the quest for funds usually stretched for years.