Documentary Bootcamp – Seven week intensive online filmmaking course

Documentary Bootcamp is a seven-week, immersive learning experience covering the fundamentals of documentary filmmaking from pre- to post-production. Participants learn storytelling principles, the aesthetic and technical skills for image making and sound recording, scripting, interviewing, and editing. Knowledge and skills are developed through presentations, discussions, at-home or in-community exercises and reviews. Students have the opportunity to plan, shoot and edit a short documentary film during the class.

You will:

  • Produce a short documentary;
  • Learn how to pick a great story and engage your audience through the lived realities of your characters and scenes;
  • Acquire the aesthetic and technical skills needed to record moving images and sounds that are editable and stimulate the eye and ear;
  • Practice the art and science of interviewing and how to avoid unusable answers;
  • Develop, script, and organize a project from start to finish.

Course offered through MassArt Professional and Continuing Education

Start Date: 5/22/24

End Date: 7/17/24

Meeting Days:

Wednesdays
5/22, 5/29, 6/5, 6/12, 6/26, 7/10, 7/17 (Class does not meet 6/19 and 7/3)

Meeting Time: 6-9:30pm

Instructor: Michael Sheridan

Price: $575

Location: Online via Zoom

Prerequisites: No previous experience needed. See previous student work here.

Equipment and Material Requirements:

Participants use the production equipment available to them in their home environments– from phones to more advanced video cameras and DSLRs.* Students are expected to know their equipment’s basic functionality. For recommendations about documentary production equipment see Sheridan’s Low(er) Budget Production Equipment.

All registrants are provided free access to Adobe Premiere Pro, which they will need to download and set up on their computers in advance of the class. General digital literacy is required. Make sure your laptop computer meets the minimum specifications required by Adobe Premiere Pro.

It is highly recommended that students have an external hard drive to store and edit their media.

Please contact the instructor with any questions.

* Limited equipment is made available by MassArt on a first-come-first-serve basis to students who opt into the Digital Media Certificate program.

 

REGISTER