Join a group of active filmmakers exploring the ingredients that go into creating engaging documentary stories. The heart of the workshop is your own work. You might have just the kernel of an idea that you would like to develop into a treatment and script. Or perhaps you are already in the edit room looking for inspiration among hours of captured footage. Each of us, as filmmakers, will open our work to useful critique in a virtual working environment with fellow filmmakers. We’ll benefit from their input and witness their progress.

Our Monday night Zoom classroom is an open forum for discussing the teaching points of the week. These start with “basic story structure” and arrive 12-weeks later at “best practices for writing to picture” (see class syllabus). We’ll view examples in class of how accomplished filmmakers have approached the same week’s topic. Each week I will assign one award-winning documentary to view at your leisure with a provided free-link (Library of possible films). 

You won’t be alone during the week either. We have a WhatsApp Group for seeking advice or help. We take advantage of the powerful review tool Film.io for posting our work for comments with frame accurate notations. And in the weeks where you will be sharing your work, I’ll reach out for a one-to-one meeting. 

By workshop’s end you will have advanced your documentary story with the support and input of other filmmakers. You will have ideas on how to incorporate key elements of documentary storytelling into your work-in-progress. And you will have viewed a dozen high-profile documentaries to use as reference to your own work. Ultimately, we are creating a community of filmmakers encouraging each other as we make our films a reality.