Conducting an interview for a documentary film can be difficult for a new documentary filmmaker, and there are many mistakes that new documentarians make. Getting a bad interview can result in unusable footage or create headaches in post-production as you try to cobble your footage together in a way thatRead More →
Documentary film shirts are more rare than generic fictional filmmaker shirts. So we’ve rounded up some of the greatest documentary film t-shirts in this article. Let’s jump to the list of documentary film shirts! Documentary Film T-Shirts The Evolution of Cinema Film Shirt This documentary film shirt spotlights the evolutionRead More →
Choosing which Documentary filmmaking equipment to buy can be difficult for beginning filmmakers. So we’ve assembled a list of resource articles that can help you get started. Check out this list of buying guides for film and video gear: Professional video cameras for filmmaking Although some surprisingly good films haveRead More →
I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned from Oral History (49-3672). Here are 8 ideas to keep in mind for your next documentary interview.Read More →
It’s often worth watching documentaries that suck in order to learn what not to do as a filmmaker. While watching the 2004 documentary “The End of Suburbia” (available on Netflix but don’t bother) several lessons occurred to me. Here’s my new list of what not to do in my ownRead More →
Personally, I’m a big fan of using “relative time,” in other words, using titles or narration or lower thirds or what-have-you to convey that time has passed in a relative sense rather than an absolute one (i.e. “6 months later…” instead of “June 24th, 2008…”).Read More →
The “Super Size Me” doc-maker talks about his latest feature film.Read More →
When it comes to labeling your camera originals, the key is having a consistent format. How do award-winning local nonfiction production houses like Chicago’s own Towers Productions label their tapes? Towers has a huge on-site archive, and they’ve got thousands of tapes to keep track of, so you better believe they’ve got a coherent labeling system.Read More →
For one reason or another, the clip you just imported into Final Cut Pro looks squished or stretched. Here are five quick things to check to find out the reason why your AR is wrong.Read More →
A lot of people get confused about the difference between MiniDV and DVCAM, so we’ll break down the differences between them (and large format DV tapes) in this article.Read More →