This is the first part of the 2-semester Documentary Specialization, which emphasizes both the theory and practice of documentary storytelling. The purpose of this class is to introduce students to the fundamental concepts of narrative storytelling and documentary filmmaking and to stimulate idea development for a 15–20 mins documentary capstone. The emphasis this semester is on documentary styles, story structure, idea development, pitching and proposal writing. Students will analyze a number of documentaries and explore many issues related to them – including ethics and relationship between filmmaker and subject. They will write a paper comparing two films in terms of structure, style and content, and they will also write a case study of a film and interview that filmmaker. Students will develop and pitch a documentary story idea, that they will workshop with industry professionals. They will also produce a character sketch as well as a short sample reel/ proof of concept for their film. In the summer, students will work with coaches and continue to develop and shoot their film, completing it in the fall documentary class.
Admission requires consent of instructors. Apply Here: bit.ly/docapply. This course must be taken in conjunction with the Documentary Lab class below.
Pre-req: Video fundamentals in the first semester.