BADWest.org

Make your documentary video look more like film, or make it look less like video!

Film Style Look
The question I always ask my students is, are you taking your video camera and filming (you don’t have film in a video camera), or are you videotaping?
It seems that the term “filming” is now the generic term [...]

Frames ‘R Us
You have your camera setup on a tripod, you may have lights pointing at a chair or couch and your tape is queued up and ready to go. What’s next? You bring in the person you are going to interview for your amazing fist time documentary. Or you’ve done several and you’re still [...]

“Nuts and Bolts of Producing, and How to Structure A Documentary”
Lead by writer-producers Bobby Mardis and Denise Hamilton.

This will review important aspects of pre-production and production, present the professional-versus-guerilla filmmaking elements, and cover the steps necessary to assure a strong story structure. It’s an extremely important presentation for new and developing filmmakers. [...]

Transcribing Homework 101.1
There were the days of “Pitman or Gregg,” not documentary makers, but transcribing styles that secretaries used heavily back in the day. Ask your Mom. Today, if you have a couple of bucks to go with making a documentary, then you could be okay. All you have to do is send a copy [...]

Are you sleeping with your equipment?
Get familiar with your equipment!
I know that is a strange title, but what it means is that you need to know your equipment. Now your equipment can mean something that you own, borrow or rent.
At an afternoon wedding shoot long time ago, I rented and picked up a wireless handheld [...]

Slow Down, You’re Going Too Fast!
You wake up one morning and it hits you, you get and an epiphany. Something you saw or was stewing in your mind comes to a boil, and the cream has risen to the top, you now know what your documentary is going to be about. Yes, it is [...]