Michael Donaldson

« Return to Experts

Michael Donaldson spends some of every year teaching and working with filmmaker groups on every aspect of independent filmmaking. His book Clearance and Copyright is used in about 50 film schools in America. He helped draft the Rome Resolution to start the process of harmonizing copyright law across the European Union. He lectures and teaches at film schools across America, in Europe (10 years at The Maurits Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam, five years for the Talent Campus at the Berlin Film Festival, and at the Cannes Film Festival), in Asia (China and Singapore), Cuba, Australia, Moscow and New Zealand. He has participated with the AFS in 2015 in Ukraine, in Zimbabwe in 2016, and is expected to participate in Jordan in 2020. His presentations are highly interactive with filmmakers involved in finding the answers to their own financing and distribution challenges. Michael has also given negotiating workshops around the world based on his book Negotiating for Dummies (translated into eleven languages), and Fearless Negotiating, which are the basis for half day negotiating seminars that have proven very useful to filmmakers. These tailored presentations include a mock negotiation which illustrates the lessons learned during the workshop. Aside from his writing, Michael lectures frequently at law schools across the United States including Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, USC and many others.