For those of you who did not make it on our trip to WGBH I wanted to sum up the key points from our discussion with Frontline Producer, Mike Sullivan. He had some really great advice to offer us.
1) Since mediums change from technology, it is more important to take your interests and values and apply them to any medium
2)Gather like minded work, collaborate with those who share your outlook, regardless of their field of work
3)Pay attention to the ideas that inspire you when you are young. Throughout life you will better understand how to skillfully materialize those ideas, but the ideas themselves will mostly remain.
4) Follow your instinct on documenting subjects you find important, the important problems do not go away and will be timely.
5) It is good to experiment with unconventional storytelling techniques as long as it’s believable. It needs to echo THIS IS REAL, and over doing it can ruin that.
6) While narrative films are built from scripts, documentaries are built in the cutting room. Editing is an essential skill and all documentarians should practice.
7) The key to editing is developing a structure that works, once that is in place the rest is easy.
8) The key to drama is reversing the audience’s expectations, do not do what is obvious in editing.
Examples:
A)
Lawrence of Arabia Match/Sunrise cutB)
2001 a Space Odyssey Bone/Spaceship cut
