Hello James. You recently shot and edited two short films. First there is “We Were Wanderers on a Prehistoric Earth” and secondly there is “The Isle of Langkawi”. Can you start by telling us a little more about how you got these two projects off the ground?

Through Vimeo, Tourism Malaysia approached 5 different filmmakers to make a selection of films to promote Malaysia. They approached me because they had enjoyed a film I made called called Splitscreen: A Love Story. Each filmmaker was given $12000 and commissioned to make two films on different subjects, we were given Nature and History. The briefs were wide open so we could do whatever we wanted.

Let’s go into a bit more detail on your film “We Were Wanderers”. Here is the short film (below):

What fonts are you using in your opening title sequence?

Gill Sans and Edwardian Script.

Your opening shot (above) is amazing ! Did you add anything to any of the shots, or are all of the atmospheric qualities and visuals real? Did you use any special effects beyond basic post production work?

I worked a lot in post to get each shot exactly as I wanted it. The whole film has been colour graded which means not only enhancing and adjusting the colour, saturation and contrast but also darkening and brightening specific parts of the image to lead the eye to specific areas. I also changed the speed of some shots. The first two shots have been increased in speed so that you see the mist moving through the trees. Also some shots were slowed down using Twixtor. Apart from that, everything is real, there were no special effects involved.

Your sound design is incredible. Did you use real recorded sounds from your trip or did you build the soundscape from the ground up in post production using library sounds?

I did take a Tascam sound recorder with me to Malaysia, but we could only really take the bare minimum with us into the jungle due to the weight of our bags, so unfortunalty we couldn’t record any jungle sounds. So all the sound you hear was designed by our sound designer Mauricio d’Orey, who did a fantastic job.

It seems like you would have had such a small window of opportunity to capture those atmospheric images. Everything seems “just right”. Am I wrong in assuming this? Did you feel pressured to move quickly before the atmosphere or lighting changed?

For some shots we had to make sure we were in the right place at the right time, for example the two opening shots were taken very early in the morning so we would see the mist. Also occasionally we would set up a great shot only for the sun to go behind a cloud at the wrong moment. However, Malaysia is such a beautiful place that its hard not to get great shots. We were shooting every single day and almost every daylight hour so we had a lot of footage, editing was easy because it was a matter of ‘cherry picking’ the best shots.

Beautiful movement at :24 (above). How are you stabilizing your camera for these long movement shots?

We hired a boat to take us along a river through the jungle. We just set up the camera on the tripod and shot everything that looked good. It was a very calm river so we managed to get some great shots, that was one of them.

:38 looks slow motion to me. How are you slowing down these shots?

We planned to shoot slow motion right from the start but we had to be wise in what we could take while trekking through he jungle, so obviously we couldn’t take a specialised high speed camera. So we shot at 50 fps then slowed it down even more using Twixtor.

You used Excerpts from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. Did you find this text after you shot the film or were you inspired to shoot the film because of this text?

I knew I wanted to use some kind of poetic voiceover throughout the film but I didn’t settle on Heart of Darkness until I was editing. For a long time I was planning on using excerpts from ‘The Malay Archipelago’ by Alfred Russel Wallace. Its a book chronicling the scientific exploration of Russel Wallace around Malaysia and the surround area from 1854 to 1862. It has some very interesting writing but just wasn’t ‘poetic’ enough. I had been aware of Heart of Darkness but was wary that it would be too negative towards the jungle, when I decided against The Malay Archipelago I reread Conrad’s book and found the excerpts that I finally used.

Is “Heart of Darkness” now in the public domain?

Yes it is. Heart of Darkness is in the public domain because the author died more than 70 years ago. I was aware of that law but I also double checked with various copyright agencies and the publisher of the book. Anyone planning on doing something similar with another book should always check before they use it.

The narrator’s voice is fantastic. How did you go about looking for a narrator?

Finding a voiceover artist can be an annoying subject for a young filmmaker with a small budget. If you go through a specialised voiceover agency they’ll not only charge you the artists fee but you also have to purchase a license to use the recording for a limited amount of time. So I decided to put up an ad on Casting Call Pro, thats were I found Terry Burns, who has an incredible voice and actually much better than the VO artists I was looking at on VO agency websites.

What microphones were used to record narration?

I dont know exactly what microphone but it was recorded digitally in a professional recording studio. The old analogue quality of the voice was added later in Logic Express.

Okay, now a few technical questions. What camera did you shoot on?

Canon 1D Mark IV

What lenses did you use?

Canon 24-70mm
Canon 70-200mm
macro lens
Canon 2x extender

What was the total budget for this project?

$12000

How long from idea conceptualizing to final edit did this project take?

About 1 month

Thank you greatly for sharing your work and insight with our Lights Film School blog readers James. We really appreciate it!

1. Can you introduce yourself and your project as well as tell us how it all came together?

Dawn: My name is Dawn Mikkelson and I am the Executive Producer and Co-Director of The Red Tail. Living in Minnesota, Northwest Airlines was one of the big hometown companies. Everyone knows someone who has previously or currently works for NWA (now Delta). When the mechanics went on strike, it was a unique time for this company in that the hometown public had grown sick of this airline taking taxpayer dollars, making big promises for jobs, and then letting its top management walk off with millions of dollars while the workers were making less and less. I started the film in the fall of 2005, wanting to look at NWA as a working example of what appeared to be happening across the country to the working class. It started as a film that was much more about a company, with the workers as secondary characters. I met Melissa about 6 months into production. She joined me as an intern whose father was a striking mechanic. Through conversations I learned that she had footage of her father and the first few critical weeks of the strike. As Melissa and I got to know each other better, it became clear that her family’s story was a much more compelling way of approaching this overall situation of the working class. We decided to join forces and she and I share the directing role in The Red Tail.

Melissa: My name is Melissa Koch and I am the Director, Producer and Editor of The Red Tail. I started this project in August of 2005 when the AMFA mechanics went on strike against Northwest Airlines. I saw the story of my father (an aircraft mechanic for 38 years) and his fellow mechanics struggling to keep their jobs in the face of outsourcing as a microcosm of what American workers, and many workers globally are dealing with — a global economy that prioritizes profit above human and social costs. I think it is often true that the strongest and most effective films are those that deal with issues the filmmakers have a genuine personal connection to and a very nuanced understanding of. I couldn’t pass up the chance as a filmmaker to look at the some of the most pressing issues of our time — capitalism, the global economy, outsourcing, corporate ir/responsibility, declining power of unions, and everyday people taking a stand — through the lens of my own fathers experience.

2. At one point in your filmmaking process you had two documentary teams join into one team with a similar goal. Can you explain how this came about? How did you divide up control and responsibility? Or was that even an issue?

Dawn: I think any time you have two creative, passionate individuals working together, you are bound to have conflict. But you are also going to create a film that is much more nuanced and full than what either would have had on their own. As I said above, we decided to do this together about 6-8 months after my production had started. We did a lot of emotional and storytelling check-ins to make sure that we were both moving in the direction we wanted to go. The reason I have the additional title as Executive Producer is that I have more experience and connections, so I was able to pull together resources for the project that may not have otherwise been available. The Red Tail is my fourth feature documentary and Melissa’s first. I also have a production company called Emergence Pictures that makes doc-style videos for primarily nonprofits, so many of the equipment resources and such came from my company. In terms of creative control and such, we did our best to hear one another and make all big decisions together. During the edit we had an external drive that we would shuttle between our two homes, so we would each take stabs at the edit and then come together periodically to tackle the bigger questions.

Melissa: Dawn started working on The Red Tail shortly after I started working on a film about the strike. She was approached by a flight attendant that wanted her video production company to make a film about all the Northwest Airlines work groups — the flight attendants, mechanics, & pilots — and what the company was doing to them. I saw one of Dawn’s fliers advertising that she was raising money to make a trailer for the film. Knowing that Dawn had more resources and experience, I contacted her to see if I could assist in production in hopes that we could forge a creative partnership down the line if that made sense. After interning for her for a while, I proposed we change the direction of the film to follow an aircraft mechanic to China to meet the workers who are doing the outsourced work. Dawn agreed that the film needed both a more personal and more global approach, so we moved forward from there and eventually decided to share the directorial role. This process was complicated at times because we had varied levels of experience and different creative visions initially. Over time I think we came to a shared vision for the film, and I am certain the The Red Tail would be a very different film had one of us done it alone. I think uniting our different strengths elevated The Red Tail both creatively and technically.

3. Ethics in documentary filmmaking is a widely discussed topic. Based on the subject matter and locations of your film this issue was sure to come up. What were some of the biggest ethical decisions you needed to make as you progressed through the film? Did you learn anything about your own standpoint on these issues as you went through this process? Did you ever feel uncomfortable with a decision you were making and how did you deal with it?

Dawn: This is a big question with many potential directions to pursue. Some of the big ethical decisions had to do with the question of interviewing workers in China on camera. There is a sad history of documentary filmmakers interviewing Chinese workers, leaving the country, premiering their film, only to learn later that their subjects have “disappeared”. We did not want to be one of those productions. Because of this, we concealed the identities of our interview subjects. We were dedicated to speaking with average workers and to do that we needed to respect the fact that they had no desire to become international representatives of the Chinese Airline Mechanic.

The other main ethical decision was the choice to enter mainland China covertly with Tourist Visas versus Journalist Visas. Technically, we were not tourists, but as a documentary filmmaker, I NEVER identify as a Journalist either. Journalist visas also require that you have a government representative travel with you. We didn’t feel that that situation would allow us to do the work we needed to do, nor would our subjects speak frankly with us. So we crossed into China at the largest land crossing in two groups. Myself and Adrian Danciu (our Director of Photography) going first with most of the gear, then calling Melissa and Roy when we got in and letting them know it was safe to cross. We had many safeguards and plans for what to do if we were detained at the border or anywhere on the journey, but luckily this was not a problem. Upon returning to Hong Kong, we were told by union activists that there were two other film crews that went into mainland China at about the same time with Journalist Visas and both groups had their gear confiscated at the border on their way into the country. This said to me that we did the right thing by going on Tourist Visas.

Melissa: Of course, The Red Tail presented a multitude of ethical questions and challenges. Every documentary film does and should. The first ethical challenge that came up for me was how to deal with the racist and xenophobic discourse that surrounds so many conversations about outsourcing American jobs to China while making a film about outsourcing to China. Part of my vision for The Red Tail was that it would break down some of those myths and have real conversations between workers on both sides of outsourcing about what challenges each are facing in the context of these country-hopping jobs.

4. Is the trip to China based in the need for confrontation or understanding? How did this experience change from the beginning of the journey to the end of the journey?

Dawn: China was about understanding. The Koch family never blamed the Chinese workers for the situation they faced. And they got what they went for . . . .and then some. I also think it was about creating closure for Roy to really see where his job had gone and to take that journey with his daughter, which brought them closer together. It says a lot when your child really cares about what you’re going through and is willing to go to these lengths to honor your journey.

Melissa: My Dad has never expressed blame towards Chinese workers, but instead has always directed his frustrations towards the company he worked for and a government that allowed that company to outsource his job. The trips to Hong Kong and mainland China where never about confrontation. They were about connection, understanding and really becoming informed about workers perspectives who are part of the chain of outsourcing from the US, to Hong Kong, to mainland China.

5. How have you gone about getting press for your film? Are you your film’s own publicists? And what types of publicity have you found work best so far?

Dawn: We are our own publicists. We’ve been targeting the mainstream and indie media in every town the film screens and have had wonderful press opportunities. Through those opportunities, other press have learned about us including the Huffington Post, which was a great review and validation for us. We are currently focusing our energy on bloggers and organizations that are passionate about union, working class, globalization, and outsourcing issues, as well as professional organizations for teachers and librarians with the hope that this will lead to college/university screenings and DVD sales, as well as screenings and DVD sales to individuals.

Most beneficial is hard to answer right now, as we’re still in the thick of it. It seems that with every good review and quote that we can put on our website and other materials, the more receptive potential partners are to wanting to collaborate with us. So it is kind of a snowball effect. Locally, I have relationships with many of the indie and mainstream media and those relationships make it easier for me to pitch stories and get the publicity we want, but nationally and internationally, all bets are off. So any time we can get someone locally based to speak on our behalf to the media, the more likely we get press.

6. On your website you have “view / host a screening” link. Can you tell us about this feature of the Openindie network?

Dawn: OpenIndie is still in it’s birthing stages, but essentially it’s a resource where audience members can request a screening of a film and when you as a filmmaker see that you have reached a point where you could get a good crowd in a certain city, you post your screening and everyone in that zip code is informed of the screening. They are also working on the capability of individuals holding screenings by paying a certain fee and having the film download onto their computers and then they can screen the film wherever they are. I look forward to this being fully functional. Ultimately, we would like to have audiences more involved in what they want to see and use the film for creating community dialogues.

Outside of OpenIndie, we just had two screenings in the Detroit area last week, hosted by AverageJoeInc.com, a online community of thousands of flight attendants. Most of them work for Delta. They rented a theater and coordinated logistics (including a truck with a big billboard promoting the screening that was parked in the airport employee parking lot for weeks). I attended the screenings and sold DVDs, which covered my travel costs. I look forward to doing more screenings like this around the country with AverageJoeInc.com and other organizations.

7. There was a considerable amount of travel required for your documentary. You mentioned that many of your flights were donated. Did you manage to find companies with the same interests as you, and did you use that to your advantage? How do you recommend other documentary filmmakers approach this strategy in their quest to get both finances and resources to support their vision?

Dawn: We had $0 from companies. Our flights were donated by airline employees from NWA and United, called “buddy passes”. This is a huge question about getting finances. In the case of this film, we had fundraising events from house parties to an evening of music with local bands at a large theater in south Minneapolis. Ultimately we functioned like a nonprofit in this venture.

I have used the same model in previous films as well.

8. You also mentioned that you found funding with “hundreds of individual donors”. Did you use a crowd funding model to finance the documentary?

Dawn: We did not use crowd funding, as it wasn’t really in use as widely when we were raising our main cash in 2005 to 2008. That said, I would consider trying it out now. We also raised money through online appeals to Facebook fans and an email list that is currently around 1000 people. Half of which were interested from my previous work and the other half that came on board specifically for this film.

We had a ton of community support, from donated places to stay to grassroots momentum around our screenings. People really wanted this story told.

Melissa: We raised the bulk of our funding in two ways. The first chunk of money we raised was through online donations on our website. Many strikers and other NWA employees donated, and we also contacted hundreds of organizations that have something to do with labor unions and working class issues and asked them to put a banner add that if clicked on would direct users from their website to The Red Tail. This directed a ton of traffic to our site and helped boost our online donations. Another successful fundraiser was an event we had with a silent auction, food & drinks, a preview of the The Red Tail, and several local bands who are part of the soundtrack of the film. That proceeds from that event covered our costs for the trip to and production in mainland China.

9. I notice that you’re using Amazon Video on Demand. How well has this platform serviced your needs as documentary filmmakers?

Dawn: Honestly, so far I’m not terribly impressed. It took MONTHS to process on their end, we get a very small cut of the proceeds, and we have no way of knowing where people learn about the film, where they were referred from, etc, because Amazon/Create Space keep this information from us. That said, it is one of the only online pay platforms that the general public knows about and so it was worth the experiment.

10. From a distribution standpoint what is some of the best advice you could give aspiring documentary filmmakers?

Dawn: At least half of your work on your film will be in distribution and the odds are that you will be doing this on your own, so you might as well learn to enjoy it. Here’s an article I wrote for MovieMaker Magazine on that topic.

Melissa: Create a distribution plan as soon as possible. If you can, do it before you start shooting your film. Independent distribution is exciting and tedious and the more solid your plan is ahead of time, the better position you will be in when you wrap post production and try to get your film in front of audiences. While it is important to have a festival strategy, it is also important to screen your film as much as possible in front of audiences (sell them your DVD’s!), press press press, link up with organizations and individuals who are passionate about your project, research all different distribution platforms and utilize them, create a great website that is active and participatory, say yes to as many opportunities as you can because they will likely lead to more opportunities.

11. How long did this documentary take you to complete

Dawn: Aug 2005 to July 2009. So 4 years.

12. What was the budget for this documentary?

Dawn: Actual budget was around $230,000-250,000. That would presume that everyone got paid for their work. Actual cash that paid for travel and a few additional expenses . . . More along the lines of $35,000.

13. You have quite a few theatrical screenings. What has been your film festival strategy?

Dawn: Thank you. Started with the top 10-20 international film festival and waited for a premiere. That said, we did sneak previews at ones before then that made sense for our audience, such as Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival (NWA hometown) and Reel Work May Day Labor Film festival in Santa Cruz. We’ve been active in contacting conferences and gatherings of our target audience and some of those contacts have paid off. And again, this is like a snowball. Once you have a couple, festival programmers and organizers listen to each other and the media.

One thing I will say, festivals are great for creating buzz, liner notes, good press, etc. These things all help you sell your film down the road. But I think one of the biggest mistakes young filmmakers make is to presume that a festival is the end of the journey and that some big distributor will then whisk them off into the world of success. This is rarely the case and shouldn’t be your only plan. Odds are that festivals are just the beginning of a long journey of distribution.

14. Both of you seemed to have very different ideas about how to approach your documentary’s story. Dawn seemed to want to use NWA as a case study and a jumping off point for a larger discussion on the topic of globalization. Melissa on the other hand was working on a story about her father that really humanized the documentary. From a narrative storytelling standpoint it seems that Dawn was focused on the film’s plot and Melissa was focused on the film’s characters. How important do you think it is to humanize these large political, social and economic stories?

For example, one of our students wants to start filming a documentary about food production methods, but he’s having a difficult time balancing “issue” with “character”. I cautioned him about not having a character (or characters) to embody on a personal level, the conflict your discussing on a whole. Can you talk about the pros  and cons of using this method of story telling?

Dawn: Historically, all my films revolve around 1-3 central characters navigating their way through a larger social issue.  From the ordination of a lesbian minister in THIS obedience to illuminate the struggle over sexuality and religion in mainline Christian churches to the intimate stories of Cree and Metis residents about how their lives have been devastated by massive flooding from a large-scale hydroelectric dam in Manitoba in Green Green Water.  The Red Tail was no different.  I was really struggling with The Red Tail when Melissa and I decided to merge visions for that very reason, as the film didn’t have those characters yet.  This film reminded me of the importance of this approach.

Ultimately, my approach to documentary filmmaking is an emotional one.  I believe that documentary film’s largest strength is its ability to impact an audience on an emotional level and that is the level where we make our big decisions, if we’re honest with ourselves.  Sure, we need facts and intellectual arguments to help us along the journey in deciding how we feel about an issue, but ultimately this decision is made when we FEEL the answer.  The impact of personal stories and experiences is the best way to get to that emotional answer.

I would imagine you advised your student that there is danger in having any character “embody” any conflict, as it ultimately impacts that person quite a bit.  It is a lot of pressure for your subject, especially if the film does well, to be considered the working example of an issue in the public eye.  That said, the way we constructed The Red Tail and the way I construct my other films it is clear that these characters are just one example of multitudes of individuals.  After screenings, the biggest comment I hear is how Roy’s story reminds the audience of their own story or of the story of someone they love.  They see it for what it is, a small representation of a universal experience.  This is all presuming that the character you focus on is someone with much personal integrity and someone the audience will likely relate to.  Obviously the opposite effect could occur if you have a character that has little integrity representing an issue.

Bringing me back to The Red Tail.  Until I met Melissa and Roy, I hadn’t found that person that could really represent this story the way they do.  They are a family of honest people, who really don’t want to be the leaders of a movement, and reflect the type of folks you would want as friends and I am happy to say became my friends . . . The other great benefit of documentary film.

Melissa: As a filmmaker, I am drawn to deeply personal stories that give audiences an emotional access point to larger social and ideological conflicts. I think it vitally important to have a character/s that can bring an audience through a story, personalize larger issues, and make a documentary more compelling. If I take The Red Tail as an example — The story of Northwest Airlines outsourcing work, cutting labor costs, breaking unions, filing bankruptcy while giving huge bonuses to executives, and merging with Delta into the largest airline in the world is certainly an important issue, but for me it doesn’t make for a film on it’s own. Following my father’s process with a labor strike and then his journey to meet the worker that replaced him is the heart of the story. Without him as a character, not only would people not watch the film as much, they wouldn’t get as much out of it. His emotional journey and the struggle of the striking workers are what shed such blinding light on the larger “issues”.

We tried to take a somewhat narrative film approach to the structure of The Red Tail. We actually consulted with narrative writers and filmmakers more than with documentary filmmakers because we both felt that the more we could structure the film like a narrative, the more accessible and compelling it would be.

To your student who is interested in making a doc about food production methods, I would ask — What is your story? Is it someone who works in food production who is impacted by the methods? Is a consumer who is being effected by processing methods? Is it the small local farm/food processor that is doing it a different way and why? Is your character someone who is fighting to change food production methods? Find your story — and hopefully you will find your character/s with it.

Purchasing & Screening Information:

* To buy DVD’s, schedule a screening, or learn more visit http://www.redtailmovie.com
* The best way to hear about things as they happen with The Red Tail is to be our fan on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/theredtail

That being said, it’s important to leave out technical information. In a script you may include camera information (angles, movement etc), but in a treatment you’ll want to keep it limited to non-technical information.

Similarly, you won’t want your treatment to have an editorial tone. Rather than saying things like:

“This documentary will dive into the subject of gender relations in the hip hop community.” The documentary will look at the relationship between two nemeses; Mr. Bugz and Mrs DJ Spinna.

Instead say:

“Mr. Bugz B and Mrs DJ Spinna stand toe to toe in front of their microphones. Mr. Bugz rhymes and misogynistic rhyme stating “we don’t want no ugly girls in here tonight” to which Mrs DJ Spinna retaliates with a rhyme mocking Mr. Bugs unusually large ears. The crowd goes wild. Mr Bugz continues, but with less steam. The insult has touched on a vulnerable part of his identity.”

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IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR EXPOSURE, RECOGNITION & EVALUATION THEN CONSIDER IMPROVING YOUR DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING SKILLS BY SIGNING UP FOR OUR INTENSIVE 4 MONTH ONLINE FILMMAKING COURSE HERE.

Message by:  Lights Film School
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Again, it’s important to stress that you need to avoid editorial writing when writing treatments and instead speak in an active and present voice. Similarly, you should avoid using words and phrases like

“Next we see” – Don’t start sentences with “we see”. Tell the audience what they see without introducing your sentence with “we see”.

Try to avoid passive words such as: Should, will, might and maybe.

Passive words evoke less emotion and take the audience out of the story. Feel free to use dialogue snippets, descriptions of the environment and characters. Essentially use any non-technical element that helps you paint as colourful of a picture as possible.

This all being said, documentary treatments are inherently difficult to write. Because of the nature of documentaries where most of the action is unknown until the end of filming, it’s challenging to come up with a treatment for a documentary before it’s filmed. For this reason you might not be able to write a treatment until the end of the production process. However, there are two good reasons to attempt a treatment before you start filming.

First, a treatment helps investors visualize your idea in a personal manner. Treatments don’t have a “business feel” to them. They sound dramatic, personal and honest.

Secondly, they help you figure out what your expectations are for your documentary and they provide the beginnings of a road map you can later follow. Of course your documentary will change as you start filming, but writing a treatment will make you aware of your own expectations and ideas. A treatment could be written as if you have already finished your documentary and now you’re looking back and giving a description of what happened. If you do this, your expectations and story ideas will be written and therefore visualized. This is a great place to launch your documentary project from and it will help you better understand the three dimensional shape of your intended project.

Everybody’s style, of course, is different and part of the joy of filmmaking is putting your stamp on your projects. That being said, there are certain conventions that many documentary and narrative film trailers abide by. This blog post will help you organize your thoughts so you can storyboard for your documentary or film trailer knowing what rules you want to keep and what rules you want to break.

Your film trailer will often start out with the audience approval notification from the Motion Picture Association of America. If you haven’t put your film through the approval process, there is no need to worry. Most independent films and documentaries don’t get their film reviewed by this organization and it is by no means necessary, nor is it testament to a good film or documentary.

There is a trend amongst independent filmmakers to use similarly colored title cards, fonts and wording while leaving out the “Motion Picture Association of America” reference. You’ll sometimes see title cards that read “This preview has been approved for all audiences”. However, it doesn’t say by whom. Avoid this tactic as it serves only to try to instill a false sense of professionalism.

Next, include the name of the production company and / or distribution company. Feel free to experiment with this segment of the trailer. Some filmmakers like to use logos and creative fonts over black title cards. Others like to include the text information over the footage of the documentary or film. Some like to animate their text, others prefer static text. Your design approach to your opening sequence is only limited by your own imagination.

Next, you may want to include the title of your film. However, it should be noted that it’s not uncommon for filmmakers to choose not to include the title of the film or documentary at the beginning of the trailer, but instead include the title only at the end of the trailer.

After this point you’ll want to start introducing your footage. You should limit the length of your film trailer to less than two and a half minutes in length. This is the time cut off length in theaters and the standard length that audiences are accustomed to. You’ll notice most trailers fall within this time range.

Within this short period of time your trailer needs to accomplish a lot. It needs to immediately grab your audience’s attention, get them acquainted with the production value of your film and introduce your story.

Film trailers have structural arcs just as full length feature films and documentaries do. When you’re creating your trailer you should try to incorporate the following elements:

1: Establish what your documentary is about. Introduce your theme.
2: Introduce the conflict.
- You should give a general overview and provide at least 1 specific example
3: Introduce your protagonist.
4: Introduce your antagonist.
5: You need to provide your audience with a sense of your documentary’s tonal qualities. Audiences will look at your cinematography (movement, lighting, composition) and listen to your music to see if the artistry of the film is something they would be interested in seeing.
6: You should change your trailers music 3-5 times.

At the end of your trailer   you will want to include your film or documentary’s title (Even if you’ve already used it at the beginning) and then you’ll want to include an ending title card with the above the fold cast and crew as well as any website / contact information you want to include.

We’ve all seen the ending title cards at the end of films with the barely recognizable names of the director, producer, production designer, Director of Photography and so on. There are numerous fonts you can use to achieve this look but one of the most common is called “Steel Tong”.

Once you’ve completed your trailer you can upload it to online video sharing sites such as Youtube, DailyMotion, Vimeo. These sites assist independent filmmakers who may not be able to get their trailers shown in theaters on or on Apple’s movie trailer website.

Lights Film School Wishes you the best of luck creating your film and documentary trailers!

Many of your have asked us questions such as “how many scenes does a documentary have” or “How do I design a story arch for my documentary?”. This blog post seeks to help you answer those questions with the goal of helping you better structure your own independent documentary productions.

Let’s start out by discussing how many scenes the documentary has. Scene structure, pacing and organization are important parts of the documentary filmmaking process.

While it is true there are no rules, understanding documentary structural convention helps you better understand how you can best tell your own story.

We choose the documentary Encounters at the End of the World, because it breaks many of the rules of documentary filmmaking so we thought it would be more exciting to explore.

For starters, the film has a disjointed feel to it. Each scene is followed by another with the only connection being a connection of space. Essentially the story goes like this: Scientists live in Antarctica together. They do exciting research. They find new species. They dive. They play. They get lonely.

Werner Herzog is a master of interview, often helping his subjects break past the cliché offerings of stock responses. This is most apparent in his conversation with the anti-social penguin scientist. The scientist begins by offering Herzog an assortment of basic scientific information. In this scene Herzog quickly redirects the researcher’s attention to issues not involving seasonal mating patterns, but instead involving penguin prostitution and derangement.

Herzog is a connoisseur of the eccentric and absurd, seeming to easily find people willing to divulge intimate details wherever he goes.

These characters essentially make up the majority of the scenes within his film.

The film contains a total of 29 individual scenes ranging in length from 1 minute to 7 minutes. Most of the scenes in the documentary are 3 to 5 minutes long.

The scenes are:

1. Underwater introduction
2. Plane exploration – setting off on our voyage
3. History – A different kind of documentary
4. Professional Dreamers & the people who inhabit the place
5. Snow-scapes – Visuals
6. Introduction to the town of McMurdo and the people
7. Original explorers and ice cream
8. Survival school
9. Setting out on the first adventure
10. Sound – The sounds of underwater
11. Interview with a man with a long rib cage
12. A divers last dive
13. Watching Sci-fi films and human extinction
14. Let’s explore the ice to go diving
15. Underwater footage and sound
16. Scientist Interview – Tracing back the evolution of life
17. Play time – Celebration with music and concert
18. Exploration – They got back to camp early so they looked around
19. This place is full of characters
20. Utility mechanic
21. History of adventure and exploration
22. Penguins – Gay penguins, penguin prostitution, mis-identities, insanity
23. Volcano
24. Climate Change
25. Volcano
26. Going into an ice tunnel
27. Balloon and energy Neutrino
28. People act as the universe consciousness
29. Underwater footage

It’s helpful to watch a documentary of your choice and deconstruct it as we’ve done with the documentary above. It helps you identify story arch,, character development, tone, rhythm and pacing.

Before you start shooting your next documentary it’s worth deconstructing the documentaries you’re most inspired by. What is it about the tension, the mystery and the conflict that keep you excited?

Another great film to deconstruct would be “Man on a Wire” because it does such a beautiful job of both, building and releasing tension as well as developing characters full of great traits and tragic flaws.

Best of luck with your documentary research and filming.

If you’re shooting indoors or in a studio, the basic 3 point lighting technique is a favorite amongst filmmakers. It fully exposes the facial expression and emotions of your subject as well as isolates them from the background and hides unwanted shadows. The 3 point lighting system is the professional standard and it’s really easy to set up.

Your back light creates a nice highlight around your subject’s hair, shoulders and face that help separate them from the background. The key light is the main lighting source casting directional lighting and shadows on the subject’s face and body. The last light in this setup is called the fill light. The fill light is a softer light that helps fill unsightly shadows created by the key light. You will want to play close attention to how the fill light fills in the shadows especially around the nose and eye area.

You can get creative with the backdrop by using different colors, cookies to add texture or coloured lights to spice up your composition.

It’s also worth mentioning that you should light your documentary subject from upstage rather than downstage. The lighting that falls your subject’s face and body will be much more desirable. To light your subject from upstage simply ensure that the key light is positioned on the other side of your subject to where the camera is positioned. For example if the camera is on the right side of the subject than the light should be coming from the left.

We’ll publish another blog post about how to light a documentary interview, but this blog post will tackle the subject of properly capturing enough “cutaway shots” for editing purposes.

In documentaries jump cuts are even more important to try and avoid. Jump cuts are jarring transitions where the subject seems to move through the air or abruptly change position. Imaging for example that you were being interviewed and then you said something boring, then changed your position and then continued the interview. The editor of the documentary would edit out the boring part and piece to the two usable snippets of footage together, but your change in position (no matter how slightly) would cause what is referred to as a jump cut.

Let’s imagine for example, that you’re interviewing a subject in their apartment and they are exposing great ideas in their dialogue but then for 30 seconds they “hum” and “um” and stumble over the words, you’ll likely want to cut that out. However, when you cut out 30 seconds of footage the two good pieces of interview won’t visually fit together perfectly. You’ll notice a slight change in your subject’s body position. This will lead to a jarring transition and will lower the perceived production value of your documentary.

To solve this problem you can use cutaways. These are shots that are related in some way to your subject’s story or of your subject themselves. For instance, let’s say you need to cut out 30 seconds of footage from an interviewee who is discussing homelessness in his or her city. Staring at your edit point you could insert cutaway footage of homeless people engaging in the activities that the interviewee is discussing during the next clip. This way you are just using the usable audio but when you transfer back into the interview the subject will not appear to have jumped to a new position. It will look harmonious and continuous.

The second option is to use cutaway footage of either the subject’s body language or reaction footage of the interviewer listening. By inserting this footage at the start of an edit point you can create the illusion of continuity without the jarring visual effects.

You could also use footage that either compliments or contradicts what the subject is saying. For example, if they are telling you a story of how modest they live but their home tells another story, you might decide to capture some “b-roll” footage of the interior of their house. You can use these as cutaway shots to merge the 2 shots that and sew the footage back together.

Another idea is to remember to gather some reactionary footage of the listener. This is the easiest footage to get yet some of the most forgotten footage to capture. You’ll thank yourself in the editing room if you have the option of using any of these types of cutaway shots.

The reason we’ve chosen these 3 particular films is because the production process for each film was done creatively and the budgets were a fraction of the cost that other films are being made for. Yet, the content, artistry and story telling ability are no less vigorous than Hollywood is able to muster up nowadays.

The film trailers below are for the films “The Windmill Movie”, “Burma VJ” and “Munyurangabo”.

These three films are sure to be inspirational to filmmakers (both fiction and documentary filmmakers) who are looking to create creatively budgeted films and documentaries. Enjoy the trailers!

The compromise usually consists of using your musician friends music which may or may not be professionally recorded and likely not relevant to the tone of your film. Just because you have access to a song it doesn’t mean you should use it in your film for the sole purpose of having a soundtrack. No music would be more professional than wrong music.

This is why many independent filmmakers don’t incorporate music into their feature films, shorts and documentaries. Not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford licensing fees.

Still other filmmakers use overused stock music which often lacks in a musical sincerity and gives your film a very compromised or gimmicky sound.

However, there is free and affordable music available for your films (both student and commercial films) and this article will go through your different options. There are other websites that simply list where you can get free mp3’s, but I would caution you against just downloading a track from anywhere. It’s important that you ensure you have the legal right to use a song for your intended purpose.

For this reason I’m outlining 2 very good sites for you to use with great music libraries and clear contracts on music usage rights.

Jamendo
Jamendo is a great music website for filmmakers. They offer free music for personal, non commercial as well as commercial use!

They use the creative commons system to allow people to upload their music and share it with others under a certain set of restrictions. Creative commons does not abolish the copyright to the music, but instead compliments it with additional limitations.

The set of guidelines for music use are:

Attribution – This means you need to give credit to the musician
No Derivative Works – This means you cannot build upon the existing track
Noncommercial – This means you cannot use the work for commercial purposes
Share Alike – This means if you redistribute, you need to use the same creative commons license.

Therefore if you find an album and it doesn’t mention “non-commercial use” as one of the limitations, technically the artists is not asking for payment for the commercial use of their work.

However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pay the artists for their music. It also doesn’t guarantee that you are infringing on any contracts with performance rights organizations (i.e. SOCAN, BMI etc).

Because you can’t be certain that the musicians that are offering their music are not a part of any of these music rights organizations you should purchase a “Jamendo PRO license”.

But not to worry, the costs for this certificate are not enormous. It varies depending on how many tracks you want and what your intended use is with the music.

For example let’s say your intended use is for your film website promotion. You choose “website” and then tell them 1. how many visitors you have to your website / month 2. what type of website it is (i.e. personal or business) and 3. how long you want the license for.

For example, if I had a small commercial website getting less than 1000 visitors / month and I only wanted the license for 6 months, the license fee would be 10 Euros. If I had a website receiving less than 10,000 visitors / month and I wanted a 6 month license the fee would go up to 50 Euros. If I wanted unlimited use of the song on my website with less than 10,000 visitors (per month) the fee goes up to 504 Euros. Unlimited licences (unlimited period of time) obviously increase the price of each certificate.

To order your certificate go to Jamendo PRO

If you’re not sure if your film is “commercial” or not consider these things:.

Is the film / video using the music available for sale?
Does it cost anything to access the film / video using the music?
Does it come with any advertising?
Was it created to promote a business?
Were you compensated for the products creation?

If you answered “yes” to even one of these things then your project would fall under “commercial use”.

RevoStock

RevoStock is another great royalty free music website where you can’t get free music for your film but you can get very low cost music. They also have a big library of “film score” tracks that work very well for films, documentaries and commercials.

What I like about RevoStock is that their website is very easy to navigate, you can quickly sample all of the media, the quality of their royalty free music is great and you get immediate access to your purchased music. We’ve used this website in the past and we can vouch for their products and services.

“royalty free” simply means you don’t pay a royalty free each time the music is used. This usually means you pay 1 fee to use the music however you wish. However, with RevoStock they have 3 royalty free plans for their music.

1. Standard license ($20) : Corporate, Non-Profit, Trade Shows, Web*, Not-For-Broadcast Re-Production to 5,000 copies. Project and Student Films.

2. Wider Release ($30) : Includes Standard License plus local/cable broadcast up to 300 miles and reproduction from 5,000 to 50,000.

3. Wide Release ($50): Unlimited broadcast and reproduction.

It’s important to remember, that musicians, like filmmakers seek to be compensated for their hard work and creativity. It’s important therefore, that we work together with recording artists and we find mutually beneficial partnerships where we get access to high quality recordings that enhance our films, and the recording artists get compensated accordingly.

Best of luck with acquiring music for your next film!

Not only that, but many consumer and pro-sumer level video cameras don’t allow for lens attachments (other than accessory lenses) meaning that your composition and framing will be incredibly limited.

However depth of field adaptors now allow digital filmmakers to attach professional 35mm lenses to even the cheapest digital video cameras. The result is that you now have manual control over lens choice and depth of field.

Controlling depth of field allows you to focus on a particular object at a particular depth within a frame while gently or dramatically blurring the surrounding area. Usually altering depth of field consists of slightly blurring the background (without removing the context) to help isolate your main characters in the frame and get rid of distracting background commotion.

Until recently, this effect (which is so commonly used in films) was not available to independent filmmakers on small budgets. The result is that films shot on smaller and cheaper video cameras would look too crisp and be too “busy” because the filmmaker couldn’t focus their visual attention through the use of depth of field control.

However, look at the magnificent results of using a depth of field adapter:

The only catch is that these adapters are still quite expensive. The two leaders in this arena seem to be Letus35 and Redrock M2. There are also others such as Brevis35 and BJ35. Both Letus and Redrock adapters cost just over $1000. But as Do It Yourself videos pop up on YouTube, I’m hoping the prices of these things fall.I have a Sony HD camera that I use to shoot documentaries on. It’s small and it allows me to get into places that bigger cameras would be looked upon with suspicion. However, I could never achieve a shallow depth of field which always bothered me about this camera. However, here is some sample footage I found with that camera and the Letus35 attachment. Incredible.