Courses,
Training &
Guidance

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DocLab is taught by award winning industry professionals who give you the skills you need to pursue your career in documentary filmmaking. It enables you to work on industry standard HDV cameras, sound equipment and teaches you non-linear editing on Final Cut Pro, as well as developing your skills as an interviewer, director, developer and producer.

Through making your own documentary under the expert guidance of your tutors, you will gain knowledge of and insight into the documentary production process, and you will also get pointers on how to get into the documentary industry.

The course is a highly interactive combination of formal information delivery (tutor lectures plus handouts), workshops (evening discussion groups), screenings and practical group and individual exercises. Each participant will develop, create, develop, shoot, edit and direct their own film.

During the first week you are given solid technical training on operating cameras and editing on Final Cut Pro. You are given tasks to complete under staff supervision and in your own time. Thus becoming a confident self-shooter, interviewer, director and editor.

During the evenings you will have screenings and critical discussion sessions, as well as a development session. During the screenings you will watch and discuss a wide variety of documentary films to help you view films more critically and expose you to the huge variety of genres and platforms that fall under the umbrella of documentary.

During the development workshop you bring your idea for a three-minute film idea and put it through a development process, moulding it into a workable short film idea. You will make this film during the second week of the course. IN the wroskhop you will cover issues such as what makes a good documentary idea, storytelling, style and target audience. You will then take your idea away and continue to develop it into a pitching proposal to be pitched in a simulated pitching session later in the week. These sessions are designed to give you some of the keys skills needed to develop, write, pitch and fund your documentary ideas.

During this first period you will also cover production management issues such as legal requirements, and production planning.

The second period is spent making your three-minute films. By the end of the second week you will have finished editing your film. Which leaves the Monday to spend in a workshop on how to get into the industry, covering some of the pitfalls inexperienced filmmakers make, different avenues to use to get into the industry and how to get your films made.

DocLab takes place in partnership with Goldsmiths University of London.