Where I'm Standing
Making Dust - Part 5
Festival Circuit, Distribution and a premiere on National Geographic WiILD across the EMEA Market
Making Dust is a five-part production journal from Rushlight Agency's director and lead cinematographer, Chris Fischer — a firsthand account of producing a feature-length wildlife documentary in the Kalahari Desert, from a solo scout during COVID to a premiere on National Geographic WiILD across the EMEA Market, achieved by a crew of three. This is Part Five: the festival circuit, the distribution process, and how a Kalahari documentary made by three people ended up where it did.
How do we ever know when we start?
After all this, the planning, the preparation, the process, the filming, writing, editing. None of it could prepare me for what came next.
The original concept with this project, was, and still is, a multi part series stretching from the Okavango Delta down the Kalahari and then across into the Namib desert, before rolling up the Skeleton Coast, Etosha and Damaralands. An epic pilgrimage across the world's oldest deserts.
Now that the piece was done it was time to see what would come of it.
What It Takes to Find Your Lane in the Wildlife Documentary Industry
I had just finished editing a 20 minute Wolverine documentary that Alan had recently filmed, and he was also wrapping up a burrowing owl project we had worked on over a 2 year period, and we spent a great deal of time working together on the hows of the industry. We shared contacts, ideas, long conversations and suggestions on how we both should proceed.
Having someone like him to bounce ideas off of, share stories with, share wins and setbacks is an absolute must in this world.
I think it's one of those things you don't notice early on in a career that you do later, we don't compete as much as we think we do. Most of that competition is in our heads. We build these things up like I have to be better, I can't share information, I can't share contacts … whatever it is. But the further Alan and I rose, the less any of that mattered. He had his lane, and I had mine. We didn't compete at all. In fact our film styles, concepts, storytelling, everything was different. All of it. We learned from each other, bounced ideas, strategies. Having a voice in that world beyond my own proved invaluable for navigating this world.
The Festival Circuit: What Awards Actually Tell You
So, as we proceeded, we hit the festival circuit, and performed fairly well. Cinematography awards, placements, mentions, best in class … awards came in, and the validation felt good. But that did not translate to deals, to commissions, to momentum. Nothing. As good as it was, what we were learning was that post COVID the world had changed, how we consume media changed. No one was going to festivals for deals, not in the traditional sense anyway. That year, Sundance had 128 showings, 1 licensing deal was struck. Major festivals were seeing the same thing. Content licensing was down.
So it was time to hit it harder, and I began to interview distribution agents, teams of people whose sole purpose was to help projects like mine get licensed.
Wildlife Documentary Distribution: Finding Albatross Worldwide
After a few months of research, we were able to connect with Albatross Worldwide, the pinnacle of distribution in the wildlife and natural history space. And much to my surprise, they agreed to take the documentary into their library. With a few caveats.
The initial conversation was simple, it's beautiful, but we can't sell it like this. It was a gut punch, what had I done wrong … followed by some of the most practical advice I could have imagined.
"Hack off the first 5 minutes, put your title sequence 1 minute in, drop the viewer straight into the story, and send it back". No story changes, no audio, color, nothing. Simplify. The whole change only took a few days, and only due to audio reworking and timing. I sent it back and her response: "perfect, we can license this."
Then came the paperwork, documents, drafts, audio stems, transcripts, timecodes … a litany of files that needed to be created to get this ready for an international market. It was my first time, and it took months. But I worked through it, often with the grace and patience of their team helping me learn what it really meant to prepare for international broadcasting standards and delivery. It wasn't complicated, it was just new. So I worked through it, piece by slow piece.
Then, in January of 2026, we finally had everything ready for delivery and out they went.
The WILD Side of this
Our first deal came in mid April, months earlier than expected.
Then the notification of the second deal. The licenser: National Geographic. My world had just changed. For the first time, this entire process, I realized something. What I set out to do from day one, prove I could do this on the largest scale, I had accomplished.
Our second licensing deal came across my desk for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) markets. The story was not independent anymore, instead now a part of the pinnacle of documentary storytelling.
My world changed because I knew something, from all these years in production, filmmaking, storytelling. National Geographic doesn't care. They don't care if it's a team of 3, or a team of 40. If it's a 750K budget, or a 50K budget. They don't care. Their brand, their story, their mission, their image is all they care about, and rightfully so. Either the project meets that, or it does not. No exceptions. They don't give out deals for good try or they did their best. Either you stand toe to toe, or you do not.
For the first time in my career, I finally realized where I'm standing.
I don't know what comes next. Now I begin to see if I can wrangle up more funds for another documentary, see if we can continue telling stories across the Kalahari of Namibia. A documentary in Senegal. Alan Lacy with Reel Earth Films has an amazing project I am excited to share my expertise one. There are stories in Tanzania, Botswana, Costa Rica, Alaska, Arizona, even a documentary in my home state of Oregon I want to complete.
I don't know what story comes next, but I cannot wait to tell it.
A crew of three. A Kalahari desert. A premiere on National Geographic WiILD across the EMEA Market. That is Rushlight Agency, documentary storytelling, brand film work, video production at its best. Be it for luxury travel and destination film, safari lodge and hospitality content, brand storytelling, and high-end commercial production for national and international clients. If thats the benchmark you need lets talk about what we can build together, we'd like to hear about it.
Start from the beginning: Read Making Dust from Part One
