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Blog
Documentary Seminar Sale
July 5, 2019
Happy Independence Day to our American readers! To celebrate, I’m offering 50-70% off on our documentary seminars for the next 24 hours. Learn how to structure character-driven and other types of documentary films with dramatic devices that keep viewers engaged!
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Are Positive Docs A Passing Fad?
July 3, 2019
Happy early July 4th to American readers! Six months ago, Variety and Filmmaker Magazine named 2018 the year of “uplifting documentaries”, citing such box office hits as RBG, The Price of Free and Won’t You Be My Neighbor? But are so-called “positive documentaries” just a passing fad? I’d argue that with the debut of “hopepunk”, the trend in hopeful docs shows no sign of fading. What’s hopepunk? Emerging from the literary scene, hopepunk is the latest storytelling template that centers around the “concept of hope itself, with all the implications of love, kindness, and faith in humanity it encompasses,” according…
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DocNomads Explore Hope
June 27, 2019
A bit jet-lagged, I’ve just returned from teaching at the innovative, graduate film program DocNomads. This was my sixth year in Budapest instructing ambitious, emerging filmmakers from around the world. One of their assignments was to make an 8-10 minute documentary on the theme of hope. My job was to help with story structure, but I couldn’t help explaining why I thought hope was such a terrific focus. I began with a word of caution, based on 18 years of teaching at the #1-ranked documentary program in America (UC Berkeley). “You’re all graduate students schooled in the post-modern art of…
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Experienced Editor Available
June 24, 2019
We’re finishing up a feature documentary here, and I have a deeply experienced editor available soon. You can learn more about our Accelerated Post approach here. Please email me if you are interested in learning more!
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Announcing New Website + Filmmaker Resources
June 19, 2019
I’m excited to announce our newly-designed website featuring several resources for filmmakers: First, check out our Blog page with editing tips in categories such as “Story Structure”, “Editing Shortcuts”, and “Documentary Trends”. Next, if you’re considering working with us, our Portfolio page features comments from 27 award-winning directors with whom we’ve recently collaborated. Finally, download my evergreen cover story for Release Print Magazine, which pioneered specific techniques for adapting screenwriting principles to character-driven documentaries. You’ll learn dramatic devices that I teach to my staff editors. The title says it all: Squeezing Reality Into Three Acts: What Documentary Filmmakers Can Learn…
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Apollo 11 Transports and Unites
April 23, 2019
I recently saw Apollo 11 with my favorite eleven-year-old. As we heard Walter Cronkite describe the highly-anticipated moon launch, we saw crowds of people in sixties get-up. I was instantly transported to being eight. After the adrenaline-inducing launch–which served as the first act climax– director/editor Todd Douglas Miller wisely decided not to return to the worldwide audience, glued to their television screens. Instead he focused solely on the treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage and audio recordings. This stylistic move reminded me of other documentaries that use primary materials to such a transporting effect, including Amy, Tupac: Resurrection, and Listen…
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Goodbye to a Beloved Visionary
April 14, 2019
I’m mourning and celebrating Barbara Marx Hubbard, who died in a Loveland, Colorado hospital on April 10th. She was 89. Barbara was a great thinker, speaker, and visionary. For me, she was also an inspiration and eventually the subject of my documentary American Visionary. I remember seeing Barbara for the first time; she spoke at the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment. This white-haired octogenarian described the future of humanity with an optimism and confidence I’d never witnessed. Then she paused and asked with gentle intensity, “What is your part in this shift?” Her question has provoked me and countless others…
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Story Consulting Availability
April 10, 2019
In six weeks I’ll be teaching in a documentary program abroad, so if you’ve been thinking about a story consultation with me, this is a good time to reach out! I also have a cheerful and talented editor available now. Debuting soon: our new website, which offers filmmakers more guidance for documentary storytelling. Also coming soon: my take on Apollo 11, which is the top-grossing documentary so far in 2019. Check it out!
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Road Trip Nation Edit
March 26, 2019
We recently edited an episode of the PBS series Road Trip Nation which airs today, March 29th, 2019. The edit was a fascinating opportunity to apply our documentary expertise to an hour-long television show. Aimed at young adults and also available at PBS.org, the Skill Powered episode focused on Shyana, Alex and Ryan, three characters looking to “handcraft a fulfilling career” without going to a four-year college. Our task? Edit three character transformations to unfold over a sixty-minute timeline. Working with director Willie Witte was a joy. Attracted to our reputation for cutting character-driven documentaries, he arrived at our review…
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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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