Next Course starts Monday 20 February 2012. Book now!
To apply click here or call: 0044 (0) 207 377 6060
Duration: 5 days
Course Hours: 10:00am – 5.00pm
"This is a great course! I got everything I hoped for out of it and more in terms of the professional guidance on how to develop my project and my career."
May Sankarit, June 2011
Course Overview
This documentary filmmaking course provides you with all the vital information you need to get your first documentary made and your career started! Like all courses at Central, the emphasis is on clear, practical, industry-relevant training. In terms of current documentary filmmaking practice, this includes practical tuition on pitching your ideas to producers and commissioning editors.
The course covers all the main areas of documentary filmmaking from the ideas generation process for selecting and developing strong, story-led subject matter right through to working with an editor on the final cut of your film.
The course will provide you with the skills to:
- Develop a distinctive documentary idea
- Test its effectiveness as an engaging film
- Decide the appropriate way to film it
- Find the right people to appear
- Choose the best things to film
- Shoot and edit your film in the most effective way
- Pick the right music or sound
- Shape your finished film into a story that works dramatically and emotionally.
Detailed Course Structure
Day 1: Idea generation and assessment
You think you’ve got a great idea for a documentary but will it really make a film? It’s not enough to just find a subject that interests you. A documentary is much more than that. Especially one that people will want to pay money to see. This day explores how you can find out whether what you’ve got will really make a film and how you can work on your idea to ensure that it does.
- The main dos and don'ts of documentary filmmaking
- Deciding what sort of documentary you are making
- Making your film reflect your world view
- Getting your film to ask a question
- Deciding on an appropriate style e.g. comedy treatment of a serious subject
- Establishing drama in your film
- Putting your idea to the test
Day 2: Interviewing: Styles and Techniques
Having built the all-important foundations of your film on Day 1 it’s time to search for the people to inhabit your film. Is it better to use normal people or professionals? How do you know who will be right to interview? And how do you convince people who’ve never been in front of the camera to bare their soul in front of a potentially intrusive camera? What are the five big mistakes of interviewing?
- Choosing the right participants
- Deciding if you need a narrator
- Choosing where to put the camera and frame size
- The behaviour of the crew before, during and after an interview
- Coverage during the interview
- Practical interview exercises
Day 3: Camera & Lighting - The look of the film
The lighting and camera style will affect the story you are telling. And to decide that style you must first know the story you are telling. Once decided you have to be able to realise that vision on an appropriate budget
- Choosing an appropriate style for your story and budget
- Deciding to go hand-held and without lights
- Shooting a documentary on your mobile phone
- Filming successful drama reconstruction
- Comparisons of different styles and techniques
- Basic lighting exercises
Day 4: Post-production - Editing & Sound design
Story telling is an art. I often see well-shot documentaries with interesting characters that are dramatically a mess with no real sense of vibrant story-telling. Once in the cutting room it may be too late to salvage a badly thought-through film. But then again, with a little additional filming, it could be the making of a film. It all depends..
- How to use a dramatic arc
- Make them laugh, make them cry, but make them wait
- What to cut-away to
- What to do if your film is not coming together in the edit
- The power of serendipity
- Using sound design instead of music
- Choosing and briefing a composer
- Dramatic analysis of a great documentary
Day 5: Sell Your Documentary
So you think your film is ready to send out into the big wide world of documentary exhibition? But is it really? What have your test screenings told you? Is it time to invite a broadcaster in to view a rough-cut? Should it be entered to film festivals before you try to sell it to broadcasters?
- Making your film the best it can be
- Learning from recent documentary success stories
- Getting music and interviewee clearances
- Using film festivals to promote your film
- Using film festivals to get your next film commissioned
- Using the internet to showcase your film
- Marketing your film
Course fee: £525 Book Now
