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Archive for January, 2011

Best Practice Approaches to Structuring a Documentary

Posted in Social Filmmaking, Techniques, tagged , on January 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Are there any best practice approaches to structuring a documentary film? I am big believer in the Aristotelian approach to story telling, because it seems to be one of the better frameworks capable of capturing the attention span of a diverse audience. The Aristotelian documentary story line centers around three acts:   Act I:0 -25% [...]

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The King of Kong – Documentary Film of the Week

Posted in Documentary, tagged , , , , on January 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The King of Kong – Fistful of Quarters: A middle-school science teacher and a hot sauce mogul vie for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic, Donkey Kong. Steve and Billy engaged in a cross-country duel to see who could set the high score and become The King of Kong. Along the way, both [...]

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Producing an Unscripted Documentary

Posted in Social Filmmaking, Techniques, tagged , on January 9, 2011 | 1 Comment »

As part of an ongoing discussion investigating best practices in documentary filmmaking; for this thread, I would like to explore planning. When making a documentary that is not driven by a script, what are the necessary pre-production and production activities (without which you would fail)? Here are a few that I have initially found: 1. [...]

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Interview Techniques – The Documentary Filmmakers Handbook

Posted in Social Filmmaking, Techniques, tagged , on January 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The Documentary Filmmakers Handbook is another excellent source of information. Genenvieve Jolliffe and Andrew Zinnes provide a fairly comprehensive view from training to legal, from pre-production to post-production. On page 276, Ian Wright, one of the many contributors, lays out 10 interviewing techniques he uses:   1. Relax your subjects by talking about a non-subject [...]

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The Philosopher Kings – Document Film of the Week

Posted in Documentary, tagged , on January 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The Philosopher Kings: In search of wisdom found in unlikely places, The Philosopher Kings takes us on a journey through the halls of the most prestigious colleges and universities in America to learn from the staff members who see it all and have been through it all: the custodians. This thought-provoking, feature-length documentary interweaves the [...]

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Interview Techniques for Social Filmmakers – Web Resources

Posted in Social Filmmaking, Techniques, tagged , , on January 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

There is a wealth of information on documentary interviewing techniques and this discussion is only one small view.Here are five other resources pulled from the 4,420,000 possible Google threads: The Art of the Documentary Interview – “ A great interview is a lesson in the art of eliciting a story from your interviewee. Not just any story, [...]

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Interview Techniques for Social Filmmakers – Peer Dialogue

Posted in Social Filmmaking, Techniques, tagged on January 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

If you haven’t participated in this topic already, please check out the Documentary Filmmaker’s Group discussion on this topic. In that conversation, Marinella Nicolson  makes the observation:   Marinella Nicolson • “I think you’ve hit all the major points in your article – it’s a very good guide for someone starting out. There’s one suggestion [...]

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Interviewing Techniques for Social Filmmakers – Part 2

Posted in Social Filmmaking, Techniques, tagged , on January 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

This is just a brief update to the original “Interview Techniques for Social Filmmakers” blog posted yesterday. I came across an excellent online resource in interviewing techniques that is worth reading: “The Art of the Interview,” by David Tamés. Here are a few highlights from this very comprehensive view on the subject.   Interviewing Tips: >> [...]

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Interview Techniques for Social Filmmakers

Posted in Social Filmmaking, Techniques, tagged , on January 3, 2011 | 2 Comments »

In social filmmaking, a documentary-style venue usually has a narrator telling a story, intercut with other interviewed subjects. Getting the subject to open up in a manner that can shed revealing light during these brief interspersed moments is more of an art than science. The goal is not so much to have a conversation with [...]

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