Why I’m A Believer of the New Documentary Trend

I want to share a personal experience. Teaching 18 years at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (the top documentary program in the country) was a stimulating vocation with terrific colleagues and top-notch students. But I found myself becoming more cynical over time.

Addicted to the nightly news, I was absorbing the hyper-critical, scandal-sniffing ethos of mainstream journalism, which gravitates toward the calamities and downfalls rather than innovations and successes. You know the adage: “If it bleeds, it leads”.

Since I retired from my teaching position at UC Berkeley in 2012, I’ve noted a remarkable change in the independent documentary world. The movement toward making transformational, forward-looking documentaries is in stark contrast to the cynicism perpetrated by the mainstream news and many social issue docs.

Today, I am inspired by a growing wave of documentaries that are winning audience awards, such as “Fields of Fuel” and “Take Back Your Power”. Marshaling a fresh, optimistic sensibility, their directors are implementing new editorial choices and new narrative devices.

After studying these emerging storytelling practices, I’m an informed believer! I invite you to learn how to leverage your film to ride this coming tidal wave in my new seminar, “Directing the Transformational Documentary,” which begins Monday, September 15th, 2014. Please join me:

Directing the Transformational Documentary

Here’s what one of our past graduates has to say about New Doc Editing seminars:

“It was the most focused and engaging learning experience I’ve encountered dealing specifically with documentary storytelling.”
– Ted McMillan, Director