The past week has been insanely hectic, and this starting week is not going to be any different; but I’ve been enjoying a great learning experience at the Documentary Filmmaking Workshop given in partnership between the RFC and the University of Southern California, at the RFC offices near first circle.
Two instructors have come from USC –Lisa Leeman, an award-winning documentary filmmaker herself, and Professor Michael Renov, who is specialized in Critical Studies – along with two teaching assistants. We’ve been given lots of great references and reading material, we’ve screened and debated some very interesting documentary films, and we’ve been working intensely on our projects. Each of the 14 participants is supposed to make a 5-10 minute documentary film; there were many brilliant ideas but many of them had to be scaled down to fit the 10-day duration of the workshop… the project would have to be researched, planned, shot, and edited to produce a final cut for screening in less than 10 days. I personally had a hard time settling on one idea, but then I figured that this workshop really is a starting point and that I can work on all the other ideas that require more time and effort later on. It’s mind boggling when you think how so many stories we have here that can be the subject of a documentary film.
The weather proved to be an interesting challenge; we actually went to the RFC and had our editing tutorials on the day of the snow. It was amazing to watch the snow fall on old Amman from the RFC terrace (and my camera’s battery died on me!). Many of our film ideas were supposed to be shot outdoors, and Thursday was supposed to be the first shooting day – which of course didn’t happen!
Yesterday was a long day of shooting in the rainy weather… my arms are still aching, but I loved it and I have a lot of thoughts and reflections to share about it in an upcoming post.
More to come…
Two instructors have come from USC –Lisa Leeman, an award-winning documentary filmmaker herself, and Professor Michael Renov, who is specialized in Critical Studies – along with two teaching assistants. We’ve been given lots of great references and reading material, we’ve screened and debated some very interesting documentary films, and we’ve been working intensely on our projects. Each of the 14 participants is supposed to make a 5-10 minute documentary film; there were many brilliant ideas but many of them had to be scaled down to fit the 10-day duration of the workshop… the project would have to be researched, planned, shot, and edited to produce a final cut for screening in less than 10 days. I personally had a hard time settling on one idea, but then I figured that this workshop really is a starting point and that I can work on all the other ideas that require more time and effort later on. It’s mind boggling when you think how so many stories we have here that can be the subject of a documentary film.
The weather proved to be an interesting challenge; we actually went to the RFC and had our editing tutorials on the day of the snow. It was amazing to watch the snow fall on old Amman from the RFC terrace (and my camera’s battery died on me!). Many of our film ideas were supposed to be shot outdoors, and Thursday was supposed to be the first shooting day – which of course didn’t happen!
Yesterday was a long day of shooting in the rainy weather… my arms are still aching, but I loved it and I have a lot of thoughts and reflections to share about it in an upcoming post.
More to come…
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