Filmmaking Craft
How to choose and hide a lavalier microphone, when wireless beats wired, and how backup recording, headphones and batteries keep a documentary interview safe.
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We write about documentaries and independent films the way a good programmer talks about them in the lobby: what the film is actually doing, who made it and how, and why it might be worth your evening. Some pieces are reviews and essays, some are practical guides to festivals, funding and the craft, and a fair number come back to Canadian screens, where so much of the world’s documentary tradition was invented.
From Alanis Obomsawin and the Indian Film Crew to Isuma and Tasha Hubbard, a short history of Indigenous documentary in Canada and where to start watching.
Keep readingHow documentary makers can protect survivors of violence on camera: ongoing consent, the right to withdraw, disguise methods, secure footage and aftercare.
Keep readingThe first time I faced 200 hours of footage, I did what everyone does. I started at the beginning and watched. Four days later I was somewhere around hour…
Keep readingHow Michel Brault, Gilles Groulx and Pierre Perrault took light cameras and live sound into Quebec life, and how cinéma direct differs from vérité.
Keep readingMusic documentaries about buskers and outsiders: how they record sound on the street, the ethics of filming people without homes, and three films to start.
Keep readingSales agents, broadcast windows, streamers, classrooms, impact screenings and archives: how an independent documentary keeps working after its premiere.
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