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Correction + Sale Price Working Now
July 5, 2018
My apologies to everyone who tried to buy The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary and found that the sale price wasn’t listed. It’s fixed now so have at it here! Also, a correction. Last week I mistakenly said that director Mary Umans film Displaced is about Ukrainian immigrants. This wonderful retrieval of forgotten history is actually about Lithuanian immigrants. Sorry, Mary. We edited another film about Ukrainian immigrants called Babe Babee Skazala (Grandmother Told Grandmother) that will be out later this year, and I confused the two. Both films feature moving archival footage and strong storytelling. Check ‘em out!
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Summer Sale on Documentary Seminars
July 2, 2018
Happy early July 4th! For the next 48 hours, get 60-70% off my two most popular documentary seminars. Editing the Character-Driven Documentary is a live seminar that I taught for several year at the San Francisco Film Society. You’ll learn how to plot a narrative arc, craft suspenseful scenes, and structure docs will multiple protagonists. Get this seminar for $77.97 (normally $197.97). The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary shows you how to customize proven structural templates used by award-winning documentary filmmakers. You’ll see the big structural picture with a Doc Plot Map and 3-Act Timetable, and you’ll also learn…
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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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Big Congrats to Filmmakers
June 21, 2018
Big congrats to several of my hard-working story consulting clients whose docs are winning awards, delighting audiences, and screening on public television (starting tomorrow)! Director Bonnie Rich saw her personal doc Life is Rich on a big cineplex screen, reporting “the story flows so much better now—and there was still plenty of laughter in the theater”. Her film won the Audience Award at the Washington Jewish Film Festival. My Dear Children is a harrowing untold history of the pogroms that won Best Documentary at the Harrisburg Jewish Film Festival. Co-directed by LeeAnn Dance and Cliff Hackel, it was selected by…
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Accelerator Lab and Funding Opportunities
June 19, 2018
There are several film funding opportunities on the horizon, and we’re here to help. First, Chicken and Egg Pictures is offering ten female producer/directors $35,000 each through their Accelerator Lab. The deadline is next Monday, June 25th, and you have to be working on your first or second feature doc. Next up, ITVS! The largest funding partner for indie docs in America launched their Open Call funding process yesterday. Deadline is July 31st. Note that these grants are very competitive. For example, about 2 percent of ITVS applicants receive funding. But there’s good news this year coming from the International…
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Inspirational Fundraising Coach
May 25, 2018
This email is an unabashed tribute to one of my dearest colleagues in the world of independent filmmaking. I first heard of Carole Dean ten years ago. From her home in Oxnard, California, she was teaching small groups of filmmakers to actualize their potential and raise money. Her classes would sell out. Intrigued, I read her book The Art of Film Funding (now also a podcast.) I realized Carole had a brilliant mind for business. So, I arranged to talk with her about some film ideas that were brewing. I was struck by how generous she was, not only with…
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New Developments in Storytelling
May 24, 2018
Since my teaching days at UC Berkeley, my innovative work in applying screenwriting principles to documentary film has evolved. Initially Hollywood gurus like Robert McKee (Story) and Syd Field (The Screenwriter’s Workbook) informed my process of tailoring the three-act structure to make documentaries more dramatic. But in a day when the big news from Cannes is that 82 women are calling for gender equality, I’m happy to report there are female fiction script consultants who are revolutionizing our understanding of story! These include Dara Marks (Inside Story), Kim Hudson (The Virgin’s Promise), and Carol S. Pearson (Persephone Rising). I love…
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FAQ About Editing Services
May 16, 2018
I frequently get asked about our editing services. So, I’ve compiled the top FAQ’s, starting with the most common: 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…
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The Kid’s Quest in Biographical Documentaries
May 15, 2018
What’s the best way to tell the story of a famous person? Sometimes, it’s through the kids. Offspring not only have great access to letters and memories, they are often driven to understand the identity of an illustrious, absent parent. If you make the conceit of your documentary a grown child’s investigation into the famous parent they never knew, you have a time-tested, legitimate arc. But this quest must be subsumed to the life arc of the famous parent. This approach worked well for the son of Louis Kahn in My Architect, the son of cinematographer Haskell Wexler in Tell…
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What Makes a Film Scene Bathetic?
May 10, 2018
Two days ago I sent out a newsletter about crying scenes with this misquote: “It really can just tip over into completely pathetic material.” But “pathetic” was a misspelling of “bathetic”. My apologies to Director Marcus Lindeen, whom I quoted from Filmmaker Magazine. And thanks to filmmaker Ben Flanigan, who prompted this distinction. He says that these days, “pathetic” usually means “so miserable as to be ridiculous.” By contrast, the dictionary defines “bathetic” as “producing an unintentional effect of anticlimax”. And it’s not only crying scenes that can lead to an unintended lapse in mood. Bathos can result when a…
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