Weaponized niceness makes the trade for you: ideas softened for reach, for algorithmic distribution, for the broadest possible base. We’re told it’s wise. It feels like restraint. But the thing traded away is what makes the idea matter. What makes it undeniable. That’s the trade Lore doesn’t make.
Every commission moves through the same engagement. Pre-production research first. Archival masters last. Three to six months in between.
The argument is named at full strength before the first shoot day.
We enter the body of thinking and recognize the through-line already inside it. We meet with the people closest to it — partners, colleagues, scholars, artists, whoever has watched the conviction take shape. We read what’s been written and said — primary and secondary. We identify the central intellectual question that, when answered on screen, makes the argument undeniable. We name the interview subjects. We draft the narrative architecture.
The Phase I deliverable is a treatment the client signs off on before any camera turns on. No production begins without it.
Ten to twenty shoot days. Theatrical-grade cinematography from day one.
6–12 interview subjects on camera. Location work where the argument actually lives — the seminar room, the concert hall, the archive, the laboratory. Cinema cameras, real audio, considered lighting. Every frame shot to the standard of a festival-run theatrical documentary.
The client sees daily footage review and weekly assemblies during the shoot window. No surprises.
Edit, color, sound, score. Festival-run craft at every stage. Original scoring on every commission.
Editing, color grading, sound design, original score, titles and graphics. Three review checkpoints: rough cut, fine cut, locked picture. Notes received in writing and tracked. The final delivery is a film the client signs off on.
Theatrical and digital deliverables. Archival masters for the client’s permanent collection.
The client receives theatrical and digital deliverables, web-ready cuts and trailers, and archival masters for permanent collection storage. The film lives, from the day of delivery, in the rooms where the argument makes its case — the major donor gala, the board meeting, the campus screening, the festival run, the press desk, the next generation’s first encounter with the work itself.
Distribution rights stay with the client. Where clients allow, Lore submits to Telluride, Tribeca, DOC NYC, and relevant humanities and ideas film festivals.
Lore retains production credit and portfolio rights. The client owns everything else.
Feature-length research documentary. Seventy to ninety minutes. 6–12 interview subjects, argument-anchored, theatrical-grade production.
The Feature is the standard form of the Lore commission. One central intellectual question drives the film. The client’s work is the answer the film earns. Multi-act narrative arc. Festival-grade craft. The film a client screens at its major donor gala, submits to Telluride and Tribeca and DOC NYC, and hands to the next generation of students and supporters.
The default Lore deliverable. A central intellectual question, earned through serious research and cinematic depth.
Best for: a university making the case for its educational philosophy; an artist whose work makes its own case for beauty, goodness, or truth; an individual whose life’s work has shaped a field but has never been rendered at the level it deserves; an institution or individual whose credibility is itself the argument.
Multi-part documentary series. Three to six episodes. The full arc of a seminal argument, its founding conviction, or a generation of scholarship at a civilizational inflection point.
The Flagship Series is reserved for the moments a client’s argument cannot be told in a single feature — when the work spans decades, when the through-line crosses disciplines, when the film is itself the institutional artifact a centennial requires. Same craft as the Feature. Greater scope. Built to live in the client’s permanent record.
Commissioned as an institution’s centennial or legacy project, or as part of a major capital campaign.
Best for: a centennial campaign; a Great Books college’s full intellectual genealogy; a research institute’s history of paradigm shifts; a think tank’s claim on the next era’s debate.
The central argument named and proven before a camera turns on. Interview subjects confirmed. Story architecture locked.
Ten to twenty shoot days, location-dependent. Theatrical-grade cinematography. Multi-voice interview capture, b-roll, archival integration, environmental scene work.
Editing, color grading, sound design, original scoring. Festival-run craft at every stage. Title and graphics design that respects the client's identity.
Theatrical and digital deliverables. Web-ready cuts and trailers. Archival masters for the client's permanent collection. Distribution rights stay with the client.