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Should You Let Your Protagonist Cry?
May 8, 2018
Should you let your protagonist cry? Maybe. Once. That’s the advice I got from a PBS producer. I remember showing him a rough cut of my personal documentary about lesbian romantic relationships. As he finished his feedback, he said “And Karen, you get to cry once…maybe.” A bit embarrassed, I took his advice to heart once I realized that tears leveraged for drama can backfire. It’s like zooming in on an interviewee who is weeping. As viewers, we squirm at the intrusion. And for a personal documentary–when the risk of self-indulgence runs high–the squirm factor is squared. OK, so what…
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Tips for Editing A Documentary Trailer
May 1, 2018
Happy May! Two quick announcements before we get to editing trailers: First, Chicken and Egg Pictures’ Open Call for their 2019 Accelerator Lab is May 3rd. Second, we have two talented editors coming available mid-May. One cut an award-winning film for PBS, and the other edited a documentary that won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Back to trailer tips! Let’s start by looking at an entertaining example. We recently cut a crowdfunding trailer for filmmaker Anne Taiz about the No Kill Movement. Check out the shot placement, pacing, cute animals, and use of music and sound bursts to create…
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Documentary Trends and Kind Encouragement
April 29, 2018
I love writing this newsletter about documentary trends. I also impart post-production advice, kindly encourage filmmakers, and occasionally offer our story consulting and editing services. If you appreciate this newsletter, please share this email with two fellow filmmakers. They can subscribe here and also get a free copy of my acclaimed book Documentary Editing (which sells for $27). In case you missed some recent newsletters that helped out other filmmakers, check out: Stages of Post-Production Guide Trend in Positive Documentaries Five Ways to Create an Inciting Incident Editing Film with Multiple Protagonists Overcoming Filmmaking Cynicism This just in, from a…
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Director Leverages Documentary Seminar
April 26, 2018
Recently I worked with an experienced, passionate director whose modest film budget paid for only two hours of story consulting. After our work, her gracious testimonial revealed how she had leveraged our time together—by taking my online documentary seminar first: “How Karen Everett helped shape 15 years of footage in two hours was astounding! So grateful to have found her. Can’t imagine doing a film without her now. She is absolutely worth it. Do yourself a favor, and take her online structuring classes first so you aren’t stuck on fundamentals and can really hone in and focus on your film…
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Film Distribution Workshop at UC Berkeley
April 24, 2018
I’m excited to announce that the popular “How to Sell Your Film” workshop will be back at UC Berkeley on May 5 and 6th. I took this workshop two years ago, and it was fantastic. The filmmaker who sat next to me put me in touch with Beyond Words, the distributor who is now reaching my own film’s target audience. And Anna Darrah, who is leading the workshop, helped me negotiate a good deal with them. I’ll also be at UC Berkeley (where I taught editing for 18 years) to sing Anna’s praises and share more about our Accelerated Post…
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Animation Becoming Popular Documentary Solution
April 19, 2018
At Sundance in 2007, I witnessed filmmaker Brett Morgan rock the festival with rotoscoping scenes that were edited with courtroom transcripts, read by actors. In the past decade, animation has become a popular part of the documentary filmmaker’s palette. In our own Accelerated Post program, we’ve been editing three documentaries that use animation to solve common problems: illustrating past events that weren’t filmed, and evoking inner or altered states, such as dreams and hallucinations. To visualize historical events, Matej Silecky’s Baba Babee Skazala and Mimi Malayan’s The Stateless Diplomat: Diana Apcar’s Life employ beautiful, hand-drawn animations–artfully edited with talking heads.…
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Documentaries That Stage Reality
April 17, 2018
Today we’ll look at master documentary directors who create “stages” on which real-life characters tell true stories. I hope these examples will inspire you to recast the talking-head doc into new forms. Quick announcement: we have an award-winning documentary editor available April 30th. Email me to learn more about this opportunity. First up is Swedish Director Marcus Lindeen, whose film The Raft won Best Documentary at CPH-DOX last month. As in his previous documentary Regretters (2009)–“both a theater play and a documentary”–Lindeen literally built a stage on which characters could recall their harrowing saga. As Lindeen told Filmmaker Magazine, he…
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Suspenseful Documentaries Keep the Lasso Tight
April 5, 2018
Last week I had the pleasure of receiving a stellar review of my own documentary American Visionary. Film scholar Roger Leslie praised the film’s “solid, suspenseful storytelling <that> evolves with the very momentum and climactic excitement of a well-crafted novel.” The point here is not to plug my own film–but our story consulting values! New Doc Editing’s tagline is “keeping your viewer glued to the screen”. One way we make the “glue” stick is ruthlessly removing distractions. The three top distractions are 1) repetitive sound bites; 2) tangential material; and 3) pockets of confusion. Filmmaker Marcus Lindeen, whose documentary The…
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Great Teacher for Monetizing Your Doc
March 29, 2018
Happy Easter and Passover! A few years ago, I consulted with documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo on his film’s structure. After successfully premiering an earlier film Age of Champions at AFI Docs, Christopher chose self-distribution. I was astonished to hear that he organized 3,000 screenings and grossed $1.5 million in revenues! Since then, he’s launched an online course called Filmmaker.MBA to teach other filmmakers how to do it themselves. I’ve been through the course material myself, so I’m happy to plug his video lessons, case studies, and action plans. Chris is a great teacher for monetizing your doc. You’ll learn how to navigate the…
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Masterful Director Inspires Other Filmmakers
March 26, 2018
Two years ago, I helped director Tiffany Shlain structure her documentary short 50/50. In her signature, direct-camera address style, she asked, “What’s it going to take to get to gender-equity?” Today, looking even beyond the horizon of the Me Too Movement, I’m thrilled to share with other filmmakers how her short can inspire you to make a bigger impact with your own film. Check out these three features. First, Shlain’s original 21-minute film injects fresh blood into the conversation about women and power. 50/50 turns the idea that “women are oppressed” into “a new story of abundance”. The ending montage…
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