How can documentary directors work effectively with editors, sound designers, and other essential post-production talent? How does a story emerge from a pile of footage? Can you really “fix it in post”? What is an online edit and can you do it yourself? How does a good sound designer work, and how does post-production sound enhance your documentary? This session features case studies and practical guidance from Emmy-winning editor Andy Grieve and Emmy-winning sound designer Tom Paul.
Featured Presenters:
Andy Grieve is a Brooklyn-based editor whose credits include Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), winner of the 2007 Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Best U.S. Documentary and the 2008 Cinema Eye award for Best Editing; Errol Morris’s Standard Operating Procedure, winner of the 2008 Berlin Film Festival Grand Jury Prize; and The Carter, a behind the scenes look at rapper Lil’ Wayne that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. In 2009, Andy won an Emmy for Outstanding Short Form Picture Editing for his work on a short film directed by Errol Morris for the Stand Up To Cancer prime time special. His editing on ESPN’s 30 for 30 June 17th, 1994, directed by Brett Morgen, earned him another Emmy nomination in 2010. In 2012 Andy made his directorial debut with Can’t Stand Losing You, a feature documentary based on The Police guitarist Andy Summers’ memoirs. Most recently Andy edited We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, directed by Alex Gibney, which premiered and the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and is set for release in May 2013.
Tom Paul is an Emmy-winning Re-Recording Mixer, a highly regarded Sound Designer and one of New York City’s most sought-after talents in the field of post-production audio. Tom is just returning from Sundance 2013 where he had three films presented: Alexandre Moors’ Blue Caprice, Jehane Noujaim’s The Square, and Jason DaSilva’s When I Walk. Tom got his professional start as a boom operator in 1988, moving on to production mixing in 1991. Some notable titles of his early years in production sound include: Trust, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, Little Odessa, Swoon and The Yards. In 1994, his passion for sound lead him to the creative environment of post-production. Some highlights of his sound design and re-recording credits include the Academy-Award winning films The Fog of War and Born Into Brothels. Other notable films include: Junebug, Palindromes, The Baxter, The King, and U2 360, the largest- selling concert DVD of all time. Tom won a Primetime Emmy for outstanding mixing on Joe Berlinger’s Under African Skies.
Penny Lane has been making award-winning documentaries and essay films since 2002. Our Nixon is her first feature-length documentary, which world premiered at Rotterdam, had its North American premiere at SXSW, won the Ken Burns Award for “Best of the Festival” at Ann Arbor, and was selected as the Closing Night Film at New Directors/New Films. She is a Creative Capital grantee and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2012. Her films have screened at Rotterdam, AFI FEST, Hot Docs, Full Frame, Rooftop Films, MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight and many other venues. She has been awarded grants from Cinereach, TFI Documentary Fund, LEF Foundation, NYSCA, Experimental Television Center, IFP and the Puffin Foundation. She has taught video and new media arts at Hampshire, Williams and Bard Colleges.
A nuts-and-bolts professional development series designed for the beginning or intermediate documentary filmmaker, Documentary Fundamentals @ UnionDocs is six-week course culminating in a certificate of completion. Registrants can also attend individual sessions. This curriculum developed out of our experience hearing what fundamentals documentarians need to understand to plan, produce, and release an independent documentary today.
Hosted by filmmaker and educator Penny Lane (Our Nixon), Documentary Fundamentals
is essential learning for the documentary filmmaker, covering business basics, fundraising and financing, production and post-production strategies, transmedia campaigns, sales and distribution models. Each session features guest speakers sharing tips and secrets of the trade, with an emphasis on real-life case studies and best practices. Guests include Oscar-winning filmmakers and producers (Yael Melamede, My Architect, Inocente); Emmy-winning editors and sound designers (Andy Grieve, Standard Operating Procedure, The Carter; Tom Paul, Under African Skies,The Fog of War); and representatives from top funders, film sales companies, distributors and more.
Documentary Fundamentals is designed for beginning or intermediate filmmakers with projects in any stage of development or production (even the daydreaming stage!). Sessions combine formal presentations with extensive time for in-depth discussions with participants.
Registrants completing all six sessions will receive a Certificate of Completion, and will have special opportunities to promote their projects within the UnionDocs network. Specific guests and topics are subject to change. Doors will closed at 7:15 and we will being each session promptly at 7:30pm.
FULL SCHEDULE:
4/21 | Planning Your Documentary
4/28 | Financing Your Documentary
5/5 | Directing and Shooting Your Documentary
5/12 | Editing Your Documentary
5/19 | Your Transmedia Campaign
