Documentary
Stuff You Need to Know
How mockumentary highlights documentary tropes
You could argue that the first films ever made were documentaries.
As early as the late 1800’s, motion picture pioneers tinkered with continuously-running photographic...
How to find your storytelling voice
“The sign of a great director is when a film’s voice comes not from the script or the protagonists, but from the filmmaker.” — Antonia Thompson, Huffington Post.
Shooting With Discretion
The camera captures it all with a documentary rawness, but from a distance, on a long lens and according to the director’s commentary, from...
How to tell compelling stories about mundane subjects
In our information-crammed lives, how many of us have been made to sit through coma-inducing fact-films or interminably tedious educational documentaries?
Whether in school, at...
How to not screw up your first documentary
Producer, director and screenwriter Spike Jonze reminds the aspiring documentarian: “Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.”
The advantages of keeping your next doc short
The art of short subject filmmaking has come a long way from the days when ‘cutdowns’ were simply feature-length films chopped down to size so they could be shoehorned into TV time slots.
How to Choose the Right Doc Format for Your Subject
We read a lot about the proliferation of documentary styles and forms—the many different ways a director can approach the telling of a nonfiction...
How to develop an idea into a finished documentary
Have you ever heard of Robert J. Flaherty? He’s known as the “father” of documentary filmmaking (“Nanook of the North,” 1922). However, documentaries didn’t...
How to Respond when Your Documentary Veers Off-course
The documentary storytelling process falls broadly into two very different ways of going about it.
A Profile of John Grierson, Godfather of DocCinema
The orbit of John Grierson’s legacy touches almost everything we know about documentary. The five-foot something Scotsman with an orator’s voice single-handedly birthed the...
Video Courses
Documentary Production: The Shoot
Capturing the best video and audio for your project is an important part of any documentary. It's where all your hard work pays off....
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What's New
Interview with Werner Herzog: What we can learn from his life’s work
We had the chance to listen to legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog speak about his life's work and ask him a few questions.
How to interview a liar
As an interviewer, it's up to you to spot when your interviewee is lying. Here's how you can catch a liar during a video interview.
Docuseries vs. documentary: What is a docuseries?
Docuseries differ from the typical documentary. While similar, there are some distinct differences. We’ll cover what those differences are.
How to market a documentary
How do you market a documentary? It seems like a simple question to answer. You might try to build a strong social media campaign and apply to as many film festivals as possible. However, this misguided strategy is not enough to get your film...
How to make a documentary: everything you need to know
So you want to be a documentary filmmaker? Do you think you know how to make a documentary? My first tip would be to tell you don’t do it unless you have a lot of patience and drive.
Documentary filmmaking is truly a labor of...
Here’s how to conduct research for a documentary
All good documentaries need to have a solid foundation created through proper research. In this article, we will help you research for your next documentary film.
What it’s like to make a feature-length documentary
On this episode of The Videomaker Podcast we react to the new Rode VideoMic NTG, have a conversation with documentary filmmaker Brandon Vedder, and we talk about some of the leaked camera features coming to Samsung phones.
Taking video to the 70 poorest countries on earth
On this episode of the Videomaker Podcast we react to the new 16-inch MacBook Pro; have a conversation with OMPT Development Manager Andy Shoemaker; and speculate about Canon’s plans for the mirrorless market.
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Cocaine Cowboys Producer Alfred Spellman talks storytelling and trust in doc...
With an explosive doc catalog that includes titles like Cocaine Cowboys, Raw Deal and Screwball, Alfred Spellman is no stranger to high stakes filmmaking.
Russian Woodpecker director Chad Gracia talks Sundance, Chernobyl and Sex in...
"The Russian Woodpecker" (2015) would become a global cautionary tale of what happens when people lose trust in their government.
The iPhone is making news in Ireland: Philip Bromwell talks mobile...
“It's not about replacing existing ways of working. It's about complementing them using the gear that we already have,” says Philip Bromwell. Bromwell is...
Robert Flaherty: Defining the “Flaherty Way”
When Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) released his first and most famous film "Nanook of the North" in 1922, the term ‘documentary’ had not yet been minted.
How to win a grant: An inside look at the Gucci...
As an indie doc filmmaker, getting to the final stages of completing your film can be grueling. Ordinarily, you've spent months or years on...
How Rob Layton made a career out of mobile video
Rob Layton has a niche: underwater mobile video. With the right gear and the right apps, Layton shoots, edits and shares entirely from a mobile device.
