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Most Recent Posts
Recommending Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
October 28, 2024
My father and I have been watching the new Netflix series Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War. Dad is 91 and lives in Maine; I’m 63 and live in San Francisco, so we would arrange daily calls to compare notes on each episode. Excuse me for a quick commercial break: we have two talented editors available soon! Dad and I were impressed with this documentary’s unbiased reporting of Soviet and American relations. For me, it fairly framed the Russian side of the story, for example, Putin’s deep humiliation when the Berlin wall went down. I had no idea!…
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Editing Sports, Pageant and Performance Docs
September 24, 2024
I have an editor available soon who excels in cutting documentaries about sports, concerts, and other dynamic performative feats. What’s so unique about this style of editing? Adeptly cut, fast-paced sequences bring viewers into visceral, cinematic performances. Picking the right music for a scene is critical, whether it’s a strip performance with a seductive sound, a wheelchair basketball game with hip hop beats, or a long take of a champion surfer atop a score that soars. Most importantly, editorial chops can reveal the fascinating human interest behind the spectacle: character. That includes picking the right interview soundbites, verite moments, and…
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John Cooper & Best Practices for AI in Docs
September 18, 2024
I recently wrote about an AI discussion moderated by former Sundance Director John Cooper that you can read here: Will Documentaries (And Their Makers) Survive AI During the dynamic Q&A, Jean McGlothlin, former co-director of the prestigious Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, spoke on the importance of “preserving what is real”. Specifically referring to documentary films, she continued, “I’m all for using new tools, but my overriding concern is that there is a huge societal loss if things are not real.” I followed up with a similar question that has been on the mind of several of my story consulting clients.…
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Hightlighted Posts
Why I Hired A Story Consultant
May 10, 2022
I hit a serious roadblock editing my own (fifth) documentary. At the time I was teaching editing at UC Berkeley’s #1-ranked documentary program–so you’d think I’d know what I was doing! But after editing my personal doc for several months in an isolation tank, I’d lost perspective. I couldn’t see a clear storyline for even one of my seven characters! I needed expert guidance; an outside assessment that I could trust. So I sought out the most talented story consultant I knew. Deborah Hoffmann (now retired) had edited the Oscar-winning “The Times of Harvey Milk”. Together we crafted a riveting film in…
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What Is A Post-Progressive Documentary?
November 15, 2020
Last week as President-elect Joe Biden was calling for unity, I read one political philosopher who said finding “common ground” is no longer viable. What we need, says Steve McIntosh, is to find a “higher ground”, or a post-progressive perspective. That got me thinking, what would a “post-progressive documentary” look like? First, it would include multiple perspectives. This idea is not new for anyone trained to think critically. But even college-educated filmmakers forget, in our hyper-polarized era, the value of including and transcending multiple viewpoints. Instead, as far back as 1989 when Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me” plowed both the…
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$10,000 Relief Discount for Post-Production – Time Sensitive
May 11, 2020
I’m happy to announce that New Doc Editing has established a $10,000 Covid-19 Relief Discount for filmmakers in post-production. We’ve received a PPP loan for small businesses that allows us to offer this benefit to a few select filmmakers. Those selected will collaborate with one of our talented editors and myself at a 30% discount for up to 7 weeks. Our goal is to support 2-3 filmmakers who meet the following criteria: You’re producing a solution-oriented, social issue documentary; Or, you’re producing a documentary about Covid-19 or any illness that celebrates the power of human resiliency and love;You have cash…
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FAQ About Editing Services
January 16, 2020
I frequently get asked about our editing services so I’m reposting these FAQ’s, updated for 2020. Can you please send me the names and clips of your editors? Eventually, yes. But first we’ll talk about your vision so I can determine which editor’s sensibility best fits your film. Then we’ll have a three-way conference call with the editor so you can feel out whether it’s a good match. Fit is so important to me that it comes before credentials. I’ll send resumes, clips, and testimonials after our three-way call so you can do your due diligence. What makes your editing…
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Talented Editor Available
January 3, 2020
Happy New Year! I have a talented editor coming available shortly. He’s kind, supportive, and deeply experienced in storytelling. Let me know if you’re interested. Read more about our editing services here.
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Finding The Story’s Micro-Manifestation
March 15, 2019
I recently did a pre-production story consultation with Katie Teague, an award-winning director with whom I’ve worked before. She came up with a brilliant new term that many directors will find helpful when confronting the most important question about a narrative arc: “What does the protagonist want?” For some documentaries the answer is obvious. In Free Solo, Alex Honnold wants to be the first person to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without ropes or safety gear. In Man on Wire, Philippe Petit wants to walk a high-wire between the Twin Towers. And in HBO’s Fifty Children, a film we helped structure,…
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Should You Break Documentary Convention?
February 22, 2019
One of the most exciting documentaries to emerge from Sundance this year is The Infiltrators, a narrative experiment which won the festival’s Audience Award and Innovator Award. Breaking the conventional filmmaker/subject wall, the directors enlisted undocumented Americans as co-conspirators to voluntarily get themselves detained. Their mission: release themselves and their fellow detainees. Mixing verite scenes with scripted re-enactment, this thriller expands the documentary genre “in exciting new ways,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Once we freed ourselves from conventional documentary ethics,” said the directors, “we entered into a realm of possibilities”. While many directors love the idea of “freeing themselves…
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Sundance Winners Focus on Character Journeys
February 5, 2019
Most of the award-winning docs coming out of Sundance this year have one thing in common: they are riveting character-driven journeys. While it could easily have been a wonky essay doc, One Child Nation (U.S. Grand Jury Prize) examines China’s one-child policy through the eyes of director Nanfu Wang. The inciting incident? Wang gets pregnant. The journey? To return to China. The central question? What were the consequences of this population experiment? (Spoiler alert: tragic!) Midnight Traveler, which received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award, is another personal documentary. The catalyst? The Taliban puts a bounty on director Hassan…
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How We Edit Quickly
January 14, 2019
One of the things we do best is edit great documentaries quickly—making the cost of finishing a film within reach for many producers. What’s our secret sauce? First, we get you to sift the chaff. By helping you see the narrative arc and major themes, we guide you or your assistants to cull the best 30 hours from your footage. This saves our editor time. Second, we drive fast because we know the terrain. With our Accelerated Post schedule, we’ll fast-track the industry’s conventional journey through Assembly Cut, Rough Cut(s), Fine Cut and Locked Picture. Normally these cuts can take…
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The Case for Narration
June 25, 2018
I recently returned from my fourth year as a visiting story consultant for Doc Nomads. This unique film master’s degree program shepherds an international group of graduate students from Lisbon to Budapest to Brussels. Their pedagogy is strong in observational-style shooting, but I’ve often felt frustrated by a reluctance to add exposition (a.k.a. narration). To my delight, many of this year’s student filmmakers used narration with great success, enhancing beautifully-shot verite footage. Voiceover narration has been eschewed for the past few decades by many directors hoping to escape the “voice of god” that “tells viewers how to feel”. But I’ve…
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