Doc U participants begin production

This summer, the Doc U program has been training a group of twelve adults in the basic skills necessary to complete their first documentary films. Participants have taken a variety of workshops, covering subjects like lighting for interviews, structuring a story in a documentary, and introduction to Final Cut editing. Now that these budding documentarians have learned the concrete skills they’ll need, they’re moving onto the one-on-one mentorship period of the program while they shoot and edit their films.

Following their completion of the workshops, each member of Doc U took part in a personal consultation with their Access staff mentor. Participants were given worksheets to complete which covered the basics of their film, such as the topic, style, who to interview, and possible challenges. Mentors made suggestions on what could help make each film more successful.

Some participants found that, following the workshops and consultations, their projects had to be seriously restructured. The participants all had excellent ideas coming into the program, but as they learned more about the filmmaking process they found that fitting complex and wide-ranging topics into a short-form documentary wouldn’t be possible. A third of participants plan to complete their first short project in Doc U and later use their new skills to expand on their topics.

Over the next few months, our new documentarians will work on gathering footage, completing the majority of footage by September. They will then begin to work on editing, and will gather on December 8th for a rough cut screening. As they move forward mentors will be available to help them through the process, ensuring they complete the best films possible. We can’t wait to see how their finished projects turn out!