Get Close: Lean Team Documentary Filmmaking
by Rustin Thompson
Now available from Oxford University Press
In this book, I encourage new and veteran filmmakers to make artistically rewarding documentaries at a fraction of the runaway costs of making these films today. The book helps you learn the skills to take creative risks, to find your authorial voice, and to spend less time making each film so you can make more films. This book emboldens you to pursue documentary filmmaking for the joy of it.
Debra Zimmerman, Executive Director, Women Make Movies
Lean Team Pro Tips
Lean Team Pro Tip #5: Evaluating Your Project’s Story-Part One
You have eliminated the fat from your team, stripped your camera package down to its essentials, and defined your film. Now you need to evaluate whether or not you can make your movie by adhering [...]
Lean Team Pro Tip #4: Curiosity or Passion?
In Lean Team Pro Tip #3, I wrote that "I always keep my goals as a lean team documentary filmmaker front and center when asking" what kind of film I want to make. "If I [...]
Lean Team Pro Tip #3: Visualize Your Film
First you'll visualize the kind of film you want to make, and then you'll be tempted to define it. Where does it fit within the myriad of sub-genres of the documentary form? There are environmental [...]
Docs in Review
No Data Plan
No Data Plan Director/ Miko Revereza Watched on MUBI Rating 1.5/5 As much as I admire the young Miko Revereza’s insistence on his unadorned technique, his one-man band filmmaking strategy, his no-frills three day [...]
A River Below
A River Below Director/Mark Grieco Watched on Kanopy Rating 3.5/5 This documentary distinguishes itself from the environmental sub-genre by enhancing its twisty complexity. Not only does the story keep offering up surprises, but it [...]
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? Director/Travis Wilkerson Watched on iTunes Rating 3.5/5 Travis Wilkerson’s first-person investigatory essay is his attempt to understand the racist roots of his family’s past. Although his great-grandfather [...]