Register today for all day filmmaking workshops at SUNY Delhi.
9:30a - 11:15a
Writing for the Screen
Always wanted to write a script, but don’t know where to start? Started a script but can’t seem to finish? This workshop will give you the basics and get you jump-started, including:
- Tips on how to write for the screen;
- The basics of screenplay structure;
- What makes for good characters and dialogue; and
- What comes next?
Bring a pencil or pen, paper, index cards and your imagination!
Kim Cummings is an award-winning writer/director who makes entertaining films about women from a uniquely feminist point of view. Cummings’ first feature, In Montauk has picked up seven awards including Best Director at Toronto Indie Film Fest and the Audience Award for Best Drama at the Woods Hole Film Festival. The Independent Film Critic, wrote In Montauk, “is easily one of 2012’s indie highlights.” In addition, Cummings directed Kate Greer’s charming short, That’s What She Told Me, which is currently on the festival circuit. Cummings’ first short film, Weeki Wachee Girls played in over 70 festivals around the world and picked up three Best Of Awards and is distributed by Buskfilms.com. Her experimental short, Flower Of A Girl, played throughout the Northeast. Cummings has received grants from Queens Council on the Arts and the Long Island Film/TV Foundation and was a finalist for the WIF Foundation Post-Production grant. She has also served as a juror for Queens Council on the arts and a panelist on filmmaking panels and grants panels for various arts organizations.
11:15a - 11:30 a
Break
11:30a - 1:15p
Cameras & Lighting: The Right Tool for the Right Job
In the last several years, the choice of professional digital cameras has grown both in number and in quality. From GoPros and cell phones to $100,000 digital cinema cameras, there is a system for just about any situation, creating the needed quality at the appropriate cost.
The technology of lighting systems have proliferated as well, offering similar cost/benefit challenges.
This workshop will present an overview of the current trends in both camera and lighting systems, giving users a deeper understanding of their choices. Bigger or more expensive is not always better.
Michael Huss has been a director and cinematographer for over 30 years. He has produced a varied body of work and has shot all over the world. He has lived through, and survived, the transition from analog film to the digital video world and lived to tell about it. He is equally comfortable shooting digitally as he was shooting film back in the day.
1:15p - 2:00p
Lunch
2:00p - 3:45p
Audio for Video: What You need to know
This workshop will offer a basic approach to recording quality audio. It will cover:
- Signal flow
- Setting levels
- Recording/monitoring sound
- Different types of mics, how and when to use them
- Lavs
- Booms
- Pzms
- Dynamic
- Wireless mics
- Mixers
- Digital Recorders
- Slate
- Recording sound on camera
- Recording sound separately
- Frame Rates
- Dealing with external noise
- Car keys in the refrigerator! (will explain)
Jeff Edrich has worked on documentaries, corporate, and network news magazine shows for 25 years. He is familiar with all types of equipment used to record sound in the field. His clients include 60 Minutes, 20/20, NBC Dateline, Fox, Merrill Lynch, Pepsi, IBM, Cantor Fitzgerald, NYS Power Authority, McGraw Hill, Bloomberg, Verizon, KPMG, Telemundo, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, and many others.
3:45p - 4:00p
Break
4:00p - 5:45p
Your (Best) Documentary Approach
How a filmmaker presents the subject or characters in a film is as important as the story itself. This workshop will help filmmakers choose the best approach when creating a documentary. Some of the documentary styles discussed will include:
- Cinema verite’,
- First-person personal filmmaking,
- Polemical films,
- e-enactments, and
- New takes on the "talking-head."
The workshop will deal with stylistic questions documentary filmmakers ask themselves, and their collaborators, as they begin a project. Clips from films illustrating a variety of these approaches will be shown.
Bill Kavanagh is a producer/director of social and political documentaries and other independent projects, living and working in New York City. His feature documentary films include Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story and Enemies of War, which have aired on PBS stations throughout the United States. He’s currently finishing postproduction on a documentary called, A Matter of Place, which is a chronicle of fair housing in America.
Linda Porto is a filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally. She served as a producer for Oxford Film & Television’s (London) irreverent documentary series about American business – Naked Sport and Naked News (A&E/Channel 4), Sins of the Father, a one hour HBO film about Catholicism and clergy sexual abuse, and the five-part series, The American Dream (Discovery Channel). She co-produced (with Bill Kavanagh) Brick-by-Brick: A Civil Rights Story (PBS). Linda is also a producer/director of videos for non-profit organizations. She has taught writing for the visual media at Pace University.
5:45p - 7:00p
Dinner
7:00p - 9:30p
Screening of Francine
In this workshop, filmmakers Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky will discuss the process of writing and directing their feature debut, Francine, the production of their documentary, The Patron Saints, and the advantages of working at the intersection of documentary and fiction film. Emphasis will be placed on demystifying the process of making a first film and how filmmakers can utilize the potential challenges and limitations they may face to their creative advantage.
Following the screening of Francine there will be a Q & A with Brian and Melanie.
The films of Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky have screened at the Sundance, Berlin, Toronto and Rotterdam film festivals, MoMA, the National Gallery of Art, ICA London and Lincoln Center. Cassidy and Shatzky have won awards at several festivals including the European Media Art Festival, Chicago, New Orleans, Athens, Planete Doc Review in Warsaw, and RIDM in Montreal. In 2012, the duo was nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director. Their most recent films are the documentary The Patron Saints and the dramatic feature Francine, starring Academy Award winner Melissa Leo.
Pigeon Projects was founded in 2005 as a means of producing the uncompromising fiction and non-fiction films of Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky. Living comfortably at the margins of documentary and narrative cinema, works created by Pigeon Projects forgo conventional storytelling methods in order to accommodate stark imagery, elusive characters and a deadpan realism.
Academy Award winner Melissa Leo gives a fierce and restrained performance as Francine, a woman struggling to find her place in a downtrodden lakeside town after leaving behind a life in prison. Taking a series of jobs working with animals, Francine turns away those who take an interest in her and instead seeks intimacy in an ever-growing brood of pets. Gritty, elliptical, and voyeuristic, Francine is a portrait of a near-silent misfit and her fragile first steps in an unfamiliar world.
7:00p - 9:30p
iPhonography
Is that a camera in your pocket?
Make the most of your portable digital camera in this exciting class where we look at the capabilities and limitations of small video cameras. You’ll learn about audio mic inputs, lens attachments, and apps to maximize the filmmaking processes. This class will bring movie making to anyone with a camera, a vision, and the desire to create.
Items covered:
- Mic inputs
- Lens Attachments
- Tri pod adapters
- Steady cams
- Video editing Apps
Bring your camera and a note pad.
David Kenny is an Oneonta-based artist and owner of the Digital Art Department, focusing on specialty projects and one-on-one digital arts tutoring. David also works in the SUNY Oneonta Art Department with both students and faculty.
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