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About the Project
A graduate of our
course has recently completed the filming of a documentary in South America
about issues of development and poverty. The filming process took about 3 months
and required quite a bit of travel throughout South America. Below is a short
summary of the students experience.
Student Perspective
First off, I have to say that the last 6
months has been a constant rush. First enrolling in Lights Film School and then
immediately after shooting a documentary in South America. If you asked me 12
months ago if I would be completing an intensive online film
course and then shooting a documentary in South America the answer would be a
definite "No, but I wish that were my life".
At this point I think the best thing that
has come from my experience is the knowledge I've gained from the course and the
subsequent projects.
Throughout the filming experience we met a lot of new people with very
interesting and varying perspectives on life. We spent a lot of time in "Villas"
which are slums located in and around major cities and we had an opportunity to
learn a lot from the people who inhabit these areas.
I remember when we were doing
pre-production in New York, the thought of actually filming these issues still
seemed like a dream to me. After landing in Argentina and attending a conference
and filming the President of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez), it all started to hit me;
"I'm a documentary film maker".
From that
point on I had troubles sleeping due to excitement. I had so many creative ideas
going through my head all day and night long (from film angles to interview
questions). I was excited to get filming
again. My nights were filled with scheduling meetings for the next days,
charging batteries and downloading film to the hard drives. It was always very
surreal to me that I was actually doing this.
Best of all, along the way other people got
involved as well. Obviously, being a small production I didn't have the money to
pay people, but when you're working on film and documentary projects people just
naturally want to be involved and help however they can. We had journalist,
photographers, academics, animators, social workers and film crews asking how
they can get involved.
When I
first enrolled in Lights Film School my teacher gave me really good advice. He
told me to "just get out there and create. Take a risk". I was comfortable with
coming up with ideas, but I was never any good at execution. However, because
the course was project based, I received a lot of practical experience with the
camera and editing programs. After the course was over I really felt like I knew
what I was doing and I was confident enough to go out there and "create".
Now, this year I'm hoping we finish post
production in time to meet the deadline for film festival submissions. We've
already been doing some small screenings and the response has been terrific. At
the risk of sounding cliché, I have to say that this whole experience was truly
a life changing one. I've now started my own small production company and
I'm a documentary filmmaker. Amazing!
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Film School
Home
Ideas & Funding
Dec
1st 2007:
Lights Film School secures contract with musician to add a music video
editing component to the course
Read more...
June
19th 2007:
Lights Film School changes course reading material to include a new book on
storyboarding and creating scenes frame by frame
Read more...
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