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 #8: Evaluating Your Project’s B-Roll
As of this writing in December of 2019, I’m excited to see a new film I’ve only read about it (I don’t count seeing the trailer; I’ve stopped trusting that trailers will ever accurately convey [...]
Lean Team Pro Tip #7: Evaluating Your Project’s Story-Part Three
The next step in evaluating your project is to think about who (or what) your main character or characters will be. As I wrote in Lean Team Pro Tip #5, a character doesn’t always have [...]
Lean Team Pro Tip #6: Evaluating Your Project’s Story–Part Two
I ended Pro Tip #5 with a question from filmmaker and teacher Barry Hampe (Making Documentary Films and Videos), who asks if your film is posing a question or making an assertion: “A question leads [...]
Docs in Review
Anthropocene-The Human Epoch
Anthropocene-The Human Epoch Directors/ Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky Watched on Amazon Rating 2.5/5 The third film in a trilogy that began with Manufactured Landscapes in 2007 and continued seven years later with [...]
Honeyland
Honeyland Directors/ Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov Watched on Hulu Rating 3/5 What begins as an observational portrait of a Macedonian beekeeper evolves into a parable with a universal message: when greed upsets the balance [...]
For Sama
For Sama Directors/ Waad al-Khateab, Edward Watts Watched on Amazon Rating 4.5/5 There is a moment in For Sama which caused me to gasp out loud. This is rare for me. I watch most [...]