Buenos Aires, Argentina
Intro to Filmmaking: Contact for dates in 2021
The Advanced Project: Contact for dates in 2021
Our destination is Buenos Aires, the mecca for tango. Visually arresting, the city feels more like Europe than South America. But the sultry nights and latin rhythms place it deep within the southern continent. We will focus our cameras on individuals who have come here to dance the art form born in these streets. Often dancers cite life-events as having propelled them to seek refuge through Tango. We’ll meet and interview American and European expats who have found meaning through dance in the “Paris of South America”.
Learning to work comfortably in a foreign country is an important goal of a cinewright workshop. We engage with the communities we film in. Students collaborate in groups of 2 or 3 and are joined by a “fixer”. This is an Argentine film student who helps with production, speaks the language and knows how the city works. Perhaps more importantly, the fixer contributes a local’s eye to our story telling.
Gain a new perspective, capture beauty in motion. Turn your still camera talents into filmmaking skills as you capture the kinetic art form of Tango.
Our first week is about acclimating to this vibrant city, finding our characters and capturing their lives. From the cozy interiors of tango salons to the grand boulevards of Buenos Aires, the framing is as seductive as the subject. The city offers endless visual rewards as well as challenges. We’ll develop the fundamentals of shooting any fast-moving action. As with sports, one can’t anticipate where the action will go when filming dance. The elegance comes from letting the action enter and leave the shot. Each night we will review our work and discuss the direction and structure of our production.
By the end of week one, our principal filming is completed. We are ready to refine and develop our story in the edit room. The soundtrack is Tango. It already contains the elements of storytelling. There is structure and story arc and improvisation. Each crew will produce, shoot and edit a five-minute documentary. When shown together, with the other students’ work, the result is a tribute to the city and its dance.
The goal of a cinewright workshop is to engage in every aspects of production so as to become a complete filmmaker. Participants should have at least some previous experience in either camera or editing. The workshop is well suited for the still photographer who wants to experience the totality of the filmmaking process. With filmmaking, the whole is greater than the sum of its part.
We stay in the charming and picturesque neighborhood of San Telmo which was the birthplace of Tango. Our apartment is Parisian style with large and comfortable private-rooms. A shared room with twin beds is available at a $500 savings off of tuition. Welcome and closing dinners are included in the workshop as well as a continental breakfast each morning in the apartment. Flights to Buenos Aires as well as local transportation are the student’s responsibility. Flights from major hubs in the USA can be found for as little as a thousand U.S. dollars when purchased in advance.
Gaining familiarity on one’s own equipment is an important result of a cinewright workshop. As such, students bring their own cameras and laptops to work on. A modern still camera with video capabilities is a perfect choice as well as a broadcast video camera. But even today’s iPhone will yield results rivaling professional cameras of just a decade ago. We edit on Apple computers using Adobe Premiere Pro. Students should bring an SSD Hard Drive with a minimum of 250 Gigabytes of free space. Tom Donohue is available to assist students in equipping themselves for the trip.