Our Blog
Blog
Blog
Announcing New Documentary Coaching Circle
July 15, 2010
After receiving feedback from many filmmakers with whom I’ve worked as a story consultant, I’m excited to be announcing a new, 6-month documentary coaching circle. The New Doc Inner Circle is designed to help a handful of committed documentary filmmakers craft compelling films with the help of a tight-knit community and expert guidance. You can learn more about this new coaching circle here: https://newdocediting.com/land/innercircle/ As a member of the New Doc Inner Circle, you will receive: • Detailed story consulting advice on three of your rough cuts • Bi-Weekly coaching calls • Six hours of one-on-one recorded…
Read More...Three Reasons Why Filmmakers Fail
July 14, 2010
Tomorrow I will be announcing the details of my exciting new program, “The New Doc Inner Circle”. Many filmmakers contributed to the design of this new program, letting me know exactly what they wanted to support them in making documentaries that actually get seen by large audiences. If you missed last night’s free teleseminar, in which I shared details of this new program, you can download it for free here: https://newdocediting.com/innercircle/teleseminar.mp3 In the teleseminar, I outline the three reasons why many documentary filmmakers fail to achieve commercial success with their films. My new program is aimed at eliminating those reasons, and keeping…
Read More...Tonight’s Free Teleseminar for Documentary Coaching
July 13, 2010
I’m excited to be offering a free teleseminar this evening in which I’ll discuss the details of my new coaching circle, the New Doc Inner Circle. If you’re looking for a tight-knit community and expert guidance to help you structure your documentary film, don’t miss out on this free tele-seminar. To provide a quality experience, I’m taking only five filmmakers in the New Doc Inner Circle. Tonight’s teleseminar begins at 6 pm and will last 20 to 30 minutes. You can register for here: https://newdocediting.com/land/inner_circle_teleseminar/
Read More...Free Teleseminar – Documentary Coaching Circle – July 6th
July 6, 2010
As my sold-out program “The Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary” enters its final weeks, I’ve received lots of requests and feedback from filmmakers for a more in-depth coaching circle, where filmmakers can find more community and individual critiques on cuts. So I’ve created a terrific new program to address this need. Please join me for a free teleseminar next Tuesday, July 13th, at 6-6:30 pm PST, in which I will explain my unique new program, the New Doc Inner Circle. Register at https://newdocediting.com/land/inner_circle_teleseminar/ Find out how this master-level coaching program will provide you with community support, in-depth critiques of…
Read More...Crafting Motifs in Documentary Films
July 2, 2010
First I wanted to let folks know about my upcoming seminar at the San Francisco Film Society, “Structuring the Character Driven Documentary”, on July 10 and 11. It’s $180-$200 and you can register here: http://www.sffs.org/classes-and-workshops/upcoming-classes-and-workshops.aspx If live outside the Bay Area or can’t make the date, the seminar is available online, get it online here: https://newdocediting.com/land/sffsproducts/ Now…what exactly is a motif? And why would you want to edit one into a documentary film? During one of my recent group coaching calls for the “Ultimate Guide to Structuring Your Documentary” program, we addressed these questions. Since the interest level was high,…
Read More...Debate on Starting Documentary with News Footage
June 29, 2010
First I wanted to let folks know about my upcoming seminar at the San Francisco Film Society, “Structuring the Character Driven Documentary”, on July 10 and 11. It’s $180-$200 and you can register here: http://www.sffs.org/classes-and-workshops/upcoming-classes-and-workshops.aspx If live outside the Bay Area or can’t make the date, the seminar is available online, so email me if you are interested. Onward to the debate! Last week I blogged about the benefits of starting your documentary with news footage, and a talented colleague begged to differ. Ken Schneider, co-editor of the Academy-nominated “Regret to Inform“, emailed me saying, “I find the news opening…
Read More...
Organizing Your Footage by Theme
June 25, 2010
I teach my documentary film students at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley several techniques for organizing their footage. I’d like to share one of those tips here. First, create a “+Master Clips” bin for all the clips you have ingested. The “+” will send the bin to the top of your browser, so you can easily find it. Next, create one bin called “Interviews” and another bin called “Themes”. Each of these two bins will contain sub-bins. The “Interview” sub-bins will be labeled by the name of the person interviewed. The “Themes” sub-bins will be named by…
Read More...Editing a Sexy News Hook in Your Documentary
June 22, 2010
I recently got a great question from a filmmaker who has exciting news footage of her protagonist. She asked, “Should I use the news footage as a hook at the start for film, or as a plot point that shows her protagonist becoming more famous?” Great question. My answer is “both”. Splitting the footage into both an opening tease and a later significant plot point gives you the best of both worlds. You can see this technique at work with “entertainment footage” in the award-winning documentary film, “No Impact Man“. More on that in a minute. For viewers, news footage…
Read More...Documentary Interview Tip
June 17, 2010
One of my documentary story consulting clients is about to begin production. She lined up several interviews, and then she asked me if there was any particular order she should follow for posing questions. Chronological, perhaps? While that’s not a bad idea, I advised her that her guiding principle in organizing her questions should be creating a mood of trust. Starting with softball questions is advisable. Another way to build trust is to begin with questions about background information. These questions may even be exposition that you already know and that you will use in narration, not in an interview…
Read More...“Crude” Filmmaker Wages First Amendment Battle
June 16, 2010
Documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger is in trouble, and some filmmakers think the foundation of documentary filmmaking is at stake. Berlinger, whose award-winning documentary chronicles the biggest environmental lawsuit ever, is being subpeoned by Chevron. The big oil corporation is engaged in a 17-year lawsuit with Ecudorean rainforest dwellers. Now Chevron wants the filmmaker’s 600 hours of original footage shot during production. Find out more about this landmark issue and how it affects the documentary filmmaking world here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/joe-berlinger-vs-chevron_b_600433.html?ir=Yahoo http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crudefund/crude-fight-for-the-first-amendment?pos=1
Read More...