If you want to be a documentary/nonfiction filmmaker, making your first film is the first step (Note: The term “film” refers to “film and/or video and/or digital moving image media” throughout this article.). This portfolio work will help you get a job, a grant, attention at film festivals—and help your next project find support. A good way to evaluate documentary production training programs is to consider how the program will help you make portfolio works. One should look at the faculty, their credits, the courses offered, the equipment, facilities, and financial aid available. Look at films
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I first saw The Plow That Broke the Plains in Canada in 1952, when the 1936 film was already legendary. I had recently arrived in Canada hoping to hone my skills as a filmmaker at the National Film Board. In “apartheid” America of the 1950s, the US movie industry was completely closed to any African-American who aspired to work behind the camera. I had heard and read of the world-class work that was being done at the Film Board, so I packed my bags and headed north. I was lucky enough to have been accepted as an apprentice on the NFB staff. For me, it was a dream come true: At that time, the
Dear IDA Members, As reports begin to come in from our members around the world, it is clear that everyone is "getting back to work." The pain of loss will not quickly pass, especially for those who lost loved ones in the September 11th attacks. Everyone, even those far from New York, has been affected by those mind-numbing events. And, of course, the curiosity of the world is turned more intently toward a corner of the world where most of our members have not traveled. As you read this, at least two teams of IDA members are in Afghanistan searching cinematically for answers, information and
Dear Readers, September 11 will be with us for a long time, and we’ll be looking, in this issue and future issues, at how documentary filmmakers can make a difference in their work in the new, unsettling world in which we find ourselves. Undoubtedly, the events of that date will impact the way we find and tell stories—and make us consider our sense of duty and responsibility as documentary makers. New York-based documentarian Gregory Orr shared daily e-mail dispatches from Ground Zero, and I asked him to contact other New York-based filmmakers for their thoughts and reflections, and to share
On September 11 and the days that followed, New York-based documentary filmmakers responded in different ways—some recorded what they saw on video, some on film, some on still cameras. For others, the enormity of the tragedies was too overwhelming to record. This is a story about how one production company responded. BNNtv.com (Broadcast News Network) is a leading New York City-based interactive media company. Its television division produces up to 40 hours of nonfiction programming annually for most of the US-based cable and network broadcasters, while its website division, CameraPlanet.com
About seven years ago, I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times about a “forgotten colony” of American Civil War-era Confederates in the town of Santa Barbara d'Oeste, São Paulo, Brazil. As a Brazilian filmmaker living in Southern California at that time, I had never heard of such a phenomenon as the “Brazilian Dixieland” in my own country! I had just moved back to the US, having lived here in the 1980s, and I couldn't return to Brazil because of my visa situation. So, I had to wait three years to be able to travel there and shoot a documentary about the thousands of Confederate families and
During the Berlin Conference of 1885, Europe divided up the African continent, and the Congo became the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium. Over the next 75 years, the Belgians ruled the country with a brutality that was shocking even to like-minded European powers. It wasn’t until June 30, 1960, that Congo finally regained its independence. But the bitter travails of decolonization were only just beginning. Patrice Lumumba, an ardent nationalist and supporter of Pan-African unity, became the first elected prime minister of Congo, and was immediately vilified in the West as a
Last June, visitors to the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at New York’s Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center were presented with a choice: turn left and watch a film projected on the traditional big screen, or turn right into the Furman Gallery and log on at a computer screen and watch the short films inaugurating the “Media That Matters Online Film Festival,” sponsored by MediaRights.Org, the social issue support group. The on-line festival at www.mediarights.org hosts 12 short films and PSAs, produced by filmmakers, students and media activists throughout the United States
I came to Maysles Films in the early 1970's—fresh out of college—and I never left. So I guess you could say that, professionally, I'm a child of cinéma vérité, and I continue to live for the vérité style and to be challenged by it regularly. At Maysles, we approach vérité films in ways that are more literary than journalistic. We seek out real-life stories that will unfold dramatically on screen and, like good literature, reveal deeper truths about the human condition. Finding those subjects is tough, however, and having the resources to follow them for months and even years is rare. And so I
Dear IDA Members: My original “Notes from the Reel World” for this October issue addressed the many documentary-related events happening this month in Los Angeles—DOCtober, IDA’s documentary film festival at the Laemmle Monica FourPlex—and New York—HBO’s Frame-by-Frame, in collaboration with IDA—and around the world. But the world is a much more sobering place now—one of unease, deep sorrow, anger and profound loss. September 11, like December 7 and November 22, will forever more be a touchstone in our lives. And where does documentary film and documentary filmmaking fit in the wake of this