Documentary Filmmaking Step by Step
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This course includes:
- 5 hours on-demand video
- 17 downloadable resources
- Full lifetime access
- Access on mobile and TV
- Assignments
- Certificate of completion
What you'll learn
- You will learn how to make a complete documentary feature or short film, from beginning to end; the conception of the idea all the way to delivery and exhibition of the final film
- Examples and insight into the filmmaking process through the unique lens of my own experience making award-winning documentaries
- Secrets and "producer hacks" that I've learned along the way and that no one else will tell you
- Where I failed, so you won't make the same mistakes
- Going rates for nearly all crew positions on a documentary feature or short (low/mid/high budget rates)
- As a bonus, you'll also get many free templates for you to download and use: contracts, agreements, budgets, schedules, forms
Who this course is for:
- Beginning filmmakers needing a roadmap to navigate the confusing and often mysterious job of a documentary filmmaker (what is it exactly that we do?!)
- Those who will benefit most from this course will be those getting ready to embark on their first or second short or feature-length documentary film
- Veteran documentary filmmakers who want to know my secrets, short-cuts, and hacks, learned the hard way from directing 8 feature-length documentaries
Requirements
- This course is for anyone with a basic knowledge of filmmaking - narrative or documentary
Description
Get filmmaking secrets, from finding (and securing) financing, through surviving production, through distribution, and everything in between from me, Adam Bhala Lough, a Spirit Award-nominated, 3-time Sundance Film Festival alum, and one of Filmmaker Magazine's Top 25 Indie Filmmakers to Watch.
Who am I?
I'm an internationally acclaimed 14-year vet with four documentaries currently on Netflix and three that were the #1 documentary on the iTunes charts. I've had an incredible amount of success in my career but I have also failed many, many times. You will learn where I failed along the way so you won't make the same mistakes.
I'm also a mentor at the Sundance Native labs and Latino Screenwriting labs and was a mentor at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival mentor sessions so I know how to teach in a concise and clear way.
Why should you take this course and not another?
You will get secrets only a seasoned pro can reveal- from the beauty of not paying insane clearance fees by claiming "fair use," to how to get into a film festival without any connections. It's all in this 5-hour course.
Other courses give a general knowledge of how to make a film from people with very little actual real-world experience. This course is taught directly from my experience making eight feature-length documentary films, all of which have received worldwide distribution and been translated into many languages.
*Watch some of the documentary short films made by my students on youtube. com/world cinema:
Rickshaw Girl by Muzahidul Islam Zahin, a filmmaker and activist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Kwizera: A Story of Hope Born from Resilience by Sahil Laul, a filmmaker based in the USA


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