Online Classes
Directing for Unscripted — Ten Classes
Learn each position. It’s a team, and you have to know who is behind you so you can ask for help, and who gets your footage so you can deliver a quality product. Producers, camera, audio, story producers, editors, line producers, showrunners and executives.
Prepping For Production: Casting, picking a look, knowing your network, hot sheets and directors notes, video maps, wardrobe and crews.
Camera coverage for both documentary and the different genres of reality TV — family, competition, docu-follow, and workplace. What shots do you need to tell your story and make your editors happy? Good coverage means your scenes get used. The secret? It’s about the reaction shot.
Directing single-camera, double-camera and multiple camera. How to communicate with your crews and switch from one type of coverage to the other. Directing true documentary vs. soft-scripted, vs. guided reality, vs. competition.
Mastering the interview for sit-down, double interviews, green screen and OTF (on-the-fly).
What is B-roll anyway? From drones to sticks to handheld. Beauty vs. cutaways vs. process. How to shoot b-roll so your shots get used.
Know your cast and what role each person plays in the group. How to get the most out of each of them, using interviews and prompts, without manipulation.
The Power of the Camera: how to use the camera and audio to nudge your cast to the next plot point and to conflict resolution, without manipulation.
How to Get More Story with Less Footage: Problems you’ll encounter and how to solve them before they happen. How to work with other directors and producers.
One private session: I give you direct feedback on your questions, and prep you for production.
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Editing for Unscripted — Ten Classes
Learn the Layout: We go over every position in the post department, and how you serve each other, how projects are arranged, the cut schedule and the notes process, how you work with other editors and how you to work within the project itself.
The Stringout: Editors and Story Producers go through hours of footage to pick out the best material for a scene. How do you work with audio and picture, and how do you whittle it down to the best few minutes? You’ll learn how.
The Clerical is Creative: Most editing is clerical housekeeping. By focusing on knowing the coverage and isolating audio tracks, you actually end up knowing the material better. When it comes time to cut, your subconscious has already made the decisions.
Getting to the First Cut: A good scene advances the plot, reveals character, and entertains. Scenes are either a seduction, a fight, or a negotiation. A scene is about one idea, two at most. People speak in loops and deliver caveats. We want to cut it down so their words sound like well-written dialogue. We use footage in class and cut our first scene.
Working the Audio, Working the Picture, Working the Reaction Shot: The audio often carries the story as much as the picture. The reaction shot tells you how to feel. Room tone allows you to stretch shots and add drama. We explore pacing and how to make a story land.
Working with Substandard Material: Editors always complain about footage. Our job is to make it work, no matter what we get. You learn the workarounds and how to fix problems.
Working with Music: We go over stems and how you can use them to score a scene and an entire project. I show you how to pick music that reinforces what’s happening in scene, and also how you can pick music to undercut what’s happening. We score a scene using a music library.
Are you a Builder or a Finisher? Special FX or Story Expert? Editors often fall into these camps, but you must be comfortable in both. We do a “style pass” on an act of TV and choose effects to give the show a “look.”
Doing Notes and Finishing the Show: Executives often ask you to add more material, but cut for time. They ask you to add interviews, and then ask you to take them out. We go through a notes session and deliver a finished show to time.
One private session: I give you feedback and hook you up with a professional editor to follow for a day.
Book Time - Let’s Talk
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