Documentary Launching Pad
November 8th – December 13th, 2021
Max: 8 students
One Hour Zoom Class per week
One Hour Individual tutorial per week
Do you have a documentary film idea that you would like to get off the ground?
or
Perhaps you would just like to explore story ideas in a creative, supportive environment.
Join this on-line community of filmmakers whose shared goal is to see their ideas realized. Guided by award-winning documentarian Tom Donohue, you’ll have the benefit of his twenty years’ experience writing and pitching greenlighted-proposals for National Geographic and The Discovery Channel. By the end of the course, you will have developed your concept, started putting your ideas to tape and produced a one-page proposal and pitch tape designed to engage key participants, funders and broadcasters alike.
This workshop is hands-on yet no previous technical expertise is required. Though you may not be the cinematographer or the editor for the final film, during our class you will be the one capturing and assembling the pitch tape. Our medium is audiovisual. Developing these skills, even to a basic level, will give you incredible creative control and intimacy with your subject.
The Launching Pad is a platform for growing your ideas within a supportive community. You’ll learn and be inspired by your fellow classmates as you share your work and witness the progress on their films over the course of the six weeks. Our final class together is the pitch session in which we present your pitch tape. This is the all-important “calling card” for producing a film with an accompanying one-pager.
We’ll start each week in a Zoom classroom introducing key step towards creating a short pitch tape. Within the week you’ll meet with Tom individually to address any technical hurdles and focus on your particular story. The process is broken down into a half-dozen progressive steps with a goal of six-weeks to create a one-pager and pitch tape.
1. The Elevator pitch: Recording the Interview
2. Introduction to Editing: Pulling Selects
3. Developing the One-Pager
4. The Scout: Shooting for Coverage and Sequences
5. Putting It All Together: Pyramid editing
6. The Pitch
