Travel Filmmaking

How to Get the Best Sound in Your Travel Filmmaking

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:10:21 GMT

The importance of sound design
Plan ahead
Setting the pace
Creating atmosphere
The sound of missing sound
Voiceover and dialogue
Recording sound
Using sound libraries
Post-production sound editing

The time has come and you are finally traveling to that destination that made you dream of shooting an amazing travel video with stunning visuals that everyone will love. You have packed your camera, a nice set of prime and zoom lenses, a bunch of batteries, a lightweight tripod, a pocketable drone, and even a gimbal. You’re all set. Are you all set?

If you are not taking a good microphone with you, you are not fully packed. Sound is essential to storytelling and a powerful video needs not only eye-catching images but also meticulously crafted sound design.

The importance of sound design

Sound design (SD) is the art of creating a world for our story through sound. How much detail and dedication we build that world of sounds with will mean either the step up to our ideal video or the slide to an audiovisual nightmare.

In short: we might watch to the end, or even enjoy, a video with poor image quality but distorting or inaudible audio will hurt everyone’s eardrums and make our followers block us forever on their social networks.

So, we need to work on SD.

Plan ahead

Leaving SD to be 100% done in post-production can be tricky. Especially now that we know that sound dimension is key to film production, why not get to the field with a nice and clear goal that we can keep in mind while filming?

You should always plan your sound design in scriptwriting. This will allow you to choose the correct location for your shots and to re-shoot any scene where you identify unexpected noises that will ruin the desired atmosphere. In the end, thinking about sound design during pre-production will always mean saving a lot of time in post.

A good SD plan for a travel video should consider music, ambient and background, sound effects (SFX) and voice-over and dialogue, all of them part of the sound dimension of any video.

Setting the pace

Music will be your first tool to set the pace and mood of your story and should be chosen wisely. The process of finding the right music track for your video might take hours of diving into music libraries, so patience is key. Many times you will find tracks you like but that don’t match the current project – it’s always a good idea to use those as spare tracks to build a personal music library that will save you time on future projects.

Can you look for music in post-production? Definitely, but finding the correct music track before the shooting can help you understand what the final mood of the video will be and, therefore, to get your shots and your talents to match that epic, romantic or emotional mood.

Author Andi Brenner on location. Photo credit: Brian Rapsey

Creating atmosphere

Ambient and background sounds will dress up your story. Every space has a sound that belongs to it, and you can even recreate it in your mind places through subtle sounds that will transport you directly to the spot where you first heard them. That’s why it’s so important to have a list of sounds to be captured in the field and that will mean the world later on in post-production to create a unique atmosphere for your location.

As a general rule, take your time on location to recognize sounds that you might not have thought of when building your to-record list, and always capture as many sounds as you can: the more you record, the less you will need to spend on copyrighted sounds from music libraries.

The sound of missing sound

Can you think about an action or situation that creates no sound at all? If you imagine someone sleeping, you might hear the sound of their snoring. Think about an empty room of a house and you will notice the noise of a car passing by. Even when your subject is completely silent, the sound of their breathing will be there. All these sounds are essential to the actions they are the product of and not having them in sync will only create noise in our minds.

Yes! Naked actions make noise, so adding sound effects in post-production is a must. It’s all about timing and common sense: make sure they sound like what they are (a big truck sounds completely different to a small car), and in sync and you will have the work done.

And always remember: missing sound could be the noisiest.

Voice-over and dialogue

Voice-over and dialogue are powerful tools. They are not only key elements in the composition of sound – as they need to stand out from music – but they are also essential to drive the plot of your story. They also allow you to add diverse points of view and reflections to what you are showing with images.

To get the best out of these tools, it’s important to have a clean capture of voices, avoiding background interference of unwanted noises. Once in post-production, making them stand out is as easy as lowering the level of the music track. Another technique is applying a low-pass filter to the music track while the voice-over or dialogue needs to be prevalent.

Recording sound

Knowing the elements of sound dimension is basic, but none of the above would help if you don’t pay attention to details when recording your sounds. Here are some tips to make them sound nice and crisp.

Choose the right mic. The camera's built-in mic is never the right mic. Just like when you spend extra money on a fast prime lens to improve your image quality, you should also invest in a good mic. You don’t need to take a loan to get the fanciest mic in the market, a shotgun like this is always reliable and should do the trick for a travel filmmaker that needs to get interviews, ambient and to travel light.
Keep it to -6db to make sure your peaks never distort. You can always adjust the gain in post.
Record many takes, then choose the best.

Using sound libraries

You might do your best to capture great ambiance and sound effects in the field but many times the context just doesn’t help. This is when sound libraries become your lifesaver. You can use the built-in filters to organize your search by mood, genre, instruments, length, etc.

These are some paid and free user-friendly sound libraries that are worth checking: Universal, Envato, Freesound.

Post-production sound editing

The last part of the magic happens in post. This is when you give life to your sound design and to do so, start by syncing clips and music: it makes everything look nicer. Just add markers to your music track to indicate beats and bars of your music track and then adjust the beginning and end of your clips to match the markers.

You don’t need your voice-over to exactly match your image on the screen. Actually, it’s always nice to have it start a few seconds before the image, kind of letting us know something about what is coming next. A sudden cut of the music is another way to emphasize a segment of voice-over or dialogue.

Once you’ve done these, start layering all the other sounds that will be part of your video. Use as many audio tracks as needed: that’s the way you will build your sound dimension with rich depth. You can also add SFX to your transitions to give them an accent.

Your music track might be longer than the total length of your video. In this case, you can go to the end of the music track and cut the last couple of bars to be pasted wherever you need the video to finish. Make sure you respect the times of the track when pasting it, but this will give a natural smooth ending to the video.

Once you have finished your sound mix, take your eyes off it, go for a walk, rest, and then come back later to listen to it again. You might find subtle adjustments to be done if you listen to it with fresh ears.

It’s also a good idea to listen to it on different devices (computer, phone, speaker, etc) to make sure the sound is good in all of them.

Travel video storytelling is the art of combining all your available resources to make people travel when they are actually not. To do so, the ultimate sound design will take you to the next level, offering a faithful experience for people watching your videos.

Travel Vlogging 101: How to Grow Your YouTube Audience

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 04:34:35 GMT

When I started my YouTube channel in 2008, the platform was still in its infancy – no one really knew what it would turn into, and opportunities to generate revenue were few and far between. Fast forward a little over a decade, and travel vlogging is now a legitimate industry made up of thousands of content creators, many of whom ask the same question: how do I grow my audience?

In such a crowded field, how do you make sure your content stands out? How do you get your videos seen? What should your game plan be? While these are important questions, it’s best to start at the very beginning: building and growing your audience.

Figure out your hook
Be realistic
Set up properly
Get social
Set your goals
Don't be afraid to expand
Focus on the content
Don't be too hard on yourself
Aim for a daily vlog
Remember to promote
Stay the course

Figure out your hook

A hook is key if you want to grow your audience. You have to have a clear vision of what your videos will be about and create content around a certain niche. If your travel vlogging focus is on food, understand what type of food content people are searching for – do SEO research (using a site such as Keyword Finder) and see what the other major food travel vloggers are doing. But remember to put your own spin on it, and to create content you love – that enthusiasm will come across to the viewer. In my case, I’m a foodie who loves having authentic, one-of-a-kind local experiences in places that are off the beaten track. So far, I’ve immersed myself in the cultures of 74 countries. I generally spend two to four weeks in a country at a time, and have so far hosted more than 1,000 travel episodes across six continents.

Be realistic

Growing your audience on YouTube is a process. Anyone who thinks they’re going to have a million subscribers in just a couple of years is fooling themselves. This is a long-term process that takes at least five years, minimum. You have to do it because you love it, first and foremost. You’ll have to make sacrifices and actively work at your craft. Take advantage of every opportunity to visit a different country and document it. Some people think it’s crazy that I spend two weeks in a country and film my experiences from sunup to sundown every day. It’s easy for me. I do it because I love it. I don’t see myself doing it without the camera now. It would make me sad to come home after an amazing trip and not have it documented. This is the best legacy I could possibly leave.

Set up properly

So, you’ve started your YouTube channel and have released a beautiful, well-made video. Now what? One of the first things you’ll want to do is ask yourself what action you want your viewers to take after watching your video. Obviously, as a YouTuber, one key goal is to entice your viewers to ‘like’ the video and leave a comment. You’ll also want them to subscribe to your channel and turn on notifications so they get updates every time you upload a video. If your viewers do leave comments, it’s important to learn from them. I like to hear what my viewers enjoyed about the video. It provides me with helpful information on what my audience likes, which points me in the direction of what type of content I should make next.

At this stage, you should have set up your social channels, so you can flag them on the videos. I usually don’t mention my other channels in my videos, but provide a link to my Instagram in a pinned comment (pinned comments stay at the top of the comments under the video). I also provide links to my social media accounts in the video description, as well as my website, where they can then sign up for my David’s Been Here mailing list.

I send out a mailer each week, which features updates on what I’ve been doing and where I’ve been that week. That can include places I’ve traveled to, a travel vlog series I’m in the middle of dropping, and future travel plans that have been confirmed. The mail ends with reminders to follow my Instagram and to watch my adventures on Instagram Stories. I also provide links to my latest blog posts, interviews I have conducted with fellow travelers, and recent YouTube videos. Lastly, I share links to travel news stories, interesting travel blog posts from other bloggers, and a handful of travel deals. Make sure the mailer isn’t just promoting your channel and has useful content they can’t get anywhere else.

Set your goals

As far as viewership number goals go, I never set goals for the number of views or likes I want a video to hit. I can usually estimate, based on how the series it’s a part of is doing, what it may do, viewer-wise. But don’t set goals for things like that. It’s more important to create evergreen content so that each video continues to accumulate views over time instead of being a flash in the pan. Focus on creating videos about things people search for so your videos can always be found and will always be relevant.

Don't be afraid to expand

Once you find your niche, don’t be too quick to expand outside it. Only do so once you have a large audience. I recommend starting a second channel and bringing your core audience over from your first channel. For example, I wouldn’t do a ski vacation video on my current channel. I would do it on a second channel once I was sure I had an audience that would follow me elsewhere. That way I have a ready-made audience, and eventually, twice as much revenue.

Focus on the content

One of the keys to growing your audience is to focus on the content you create. Make sure it’s something you would personally want to watch. Cut out any footage that is overly long, boring, or content that brings down the pacing of your video. If you upload longer content – videos that are 20 minutes or more – make sure the video will keep your viewers’ interest. I want my viewers to feel like they are watching a movie, and not to realize they’re 12 minutes into a 20-minute-long video, because they’re so engrossed with what they’re watching.

Don't be too hard on yourself

If you create a vlog series that averages decent numbers – let’s say roughly 50,000 views per video – and your next series only does half that or less, don’t beat yourself up over it. Be patient and stay positive. Make sure you do your metadata, description, and title correctly so your content can rank for different keywords. After that, just give it time. Just because a video doesn’t do well right away doesn’t mean it can’t do well later.

I have videos that reached a million views that didn’t take off until six months after I released them. Suddenly, videos that had only gotten a few thousand views until that point suddenly had 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 views. That’s why I am a big believer in creating evergreen content to grow your audience. It can catch on at any time and can get big numbers for years and years after you first published it.

If you’re worried about your subscriber count, just remember this: I created my YouTube channel in 2008. I started off doing hosting-style city guides that would take me two to five days to make. I would film several days and make one video out of that footage. I wasn’t releasing consistently at that time. It took me 10 years to reach 100,000 subscribers, which I finally cracked in April of 2018. Just four months earlier, I was at 60,000.

The thing that made all the difference was me. I switched from hosting-style videos to vlog-style videos in July 2017. I started vlogging daily, which helped me grow my audience at a fast rate. Then, I eventually started filming two to three videos per day when I traveled so that, when I was back at home, I had enough videos to tide me over until the next trip, sometimes even longer. On August 1, 2019, I hit 400,000 subscribers. It has been like a snowball effect since then.

Create as much content as possible to reach your goals. Make sure it’s quality content that you like and that you believe in. My current five-year plan involves me releasing a video every day during that time period. It’s how I envision myself hitting my goal of one million subscribers.

And don’t forget: always work to get better at your craft, diversify your content, and go far and beyond what anyone else does. And do the things that other people don’t do on your travels.

Aim for a daily vlog

Repeat after me: content is KING. I have a rule that I got from entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, which is this: release at least five pieces of content every single day. For me, the cornerstone of that content is the daily travel vlog. I also release one static Instagram post, three Instagram stories, and a blog post. The video and the blog post are the two hardest, but releasing this amount of content is, in my opinion, the key to staying on the minds of your followers.

I believe in shooting for the stars. Work like hell to get what you want. If growing your audience is what you want, you have to put in the work to make it happen. It’s a lifestyle, a lifelong commitment, and a forever game.

If you can’t make releasing a daily vlog a priority, then it’s going to be much harder for you to reach the 1 million subscriber mark that everyone on YouTube aims for. After I surpassed 100,000 subscribers, a million was my next goal. I didn’t shoot for 200,000 or 250,000 or even 500,000 next. It was always a million.

Another reason releasing daily vlogs is important is because people will take notice of your hustle. They’ll see that you’re working your butt off. You should strive to be the hardest working person in the room at all times, period. Be willing to outwork anyone and everyone.

When you release content daily, things will blow up out of nowhere, whether it’s a day, a week, a month, or a year later. I have videos that I filmed back in 2012 that got no views back then. Now, some of those videos are approaching a million views and get anywhere from 500 to 1,000 views per day!

It will blow your mind what will happen to you after releasing daily videos for five years. It brings you a steady stream of revenue and helps to continuously grow your audience. You never know which content will catch on and when.

Remember to promote

Now that you’re releasing daily content, it’s time to promote it. I like cross-promotion, personally. Every once in a while, I’ll promote my latest blog post on my YouTube community wall. I make sure not to do it every day because I don’t want to spam my subscribers.

To grow your audience overall, I also recommend utilizing Instagram. I’ll often share footage from my latest YouTube vlog in my Instagram stories and link it to the video. Other times, I’ll post 60 seconds of YouTube footage in a static Instagram post or post a carousel of photos and videos with a caption telling my followers that I’ve just released a new video. Intertwining your YouTube channel and social media platforms is a fantastic way to grow your audience.

I also highly suggest releasing all your YouTube videos on Facebook as well. You’ll make more revenue that way and get more exposure. It’s easy to forget that everyone isn’t on every social platform, so make it easy for everyone in your audience to access your content.

Stay the course

The more content you produce, the more eyeballs you’ll get on it, which leads to more opportunities. If you want to make things happen, make money, grow your audience, and get to the next level, you have to work your butt off. Release content you love every single day and remember that growing your audience is a marathon, not a sprint. Keep at it, stay focused, and remain optimistic.

Video Editing for Beginners: a Guide To Doing it Right

Fri, 02 Aug 2019 10:25:40 GMT

I started editing in the early ‘90s, cutting tape on a 16mm Steenbeck flatbed film editing table (a machine used to edit film). Since then, I’ve been through all the major editing systems. My first travel 'micro-doc' job was flying around Australia making stories about the remote places that the Olympic torch relay passed through – all edited in the field on the first-ever version of Final Cut Pro.

Now is the best time to be a video editor in terms of accessibility: the free and affordable editing platforms now available online can do things I could only dream of when I started. The drawback is that editors used to require more assistants, which was a great way to break into the industry. Those days are over, but aspiring filmmakers can now look to YouTube tutorials in order to learn their craft.

The hardware

The first thing to remember is that video editing is a power-hungry enterprise. I have a Mac desktop and an old light 13-inch MacBook Pro for storing and reviewing material when on assignment.

When you think about editing you need to consider the following: the Central Processing Unit (CPU) processor power (basically the speed the computer processes tasks); Random Access Memory (RAM, the amount of memory storage the computer has); the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU, the size of this determines how quickly images and video can be processed); your hard drive storage size (where your videos and photographs will be stored); and, crucially, the speed between your hard drive and your computer. The best drive is an SSD hard drive (a Solid State Drive – where your footage is stored on computer chips rather than on spinning discs). SSD Drives are fast, small and expensive; Standard 'spinning' hard drives will store much more data for your dollar and are more than adequate – as long as their connection speed to your computer is fast enough. An older USB2 port is too slow, a USB3 port is fast enough, while a USB C port is super fast and now standard on new computers. If you're buying a second-hand computer, the speed of its built-in USB connections is important, so make sure to check that before you buy. Let’s look in more depth at some of the hardware.

Central processing unit

The central processing unit (CPU) performs the basic processing tasks of the computer – the faster and more CPU ‘cores’ your machine has (as computers can run multiple CPUs at the same time), the faster and more responsively your computer will perform tasks. All editing software has a list of minimum hardware requirements, so check out the software links later in this article to find out what you need.

Random access memory

While the information that is stored on your hard drive stays there, random access memory (RAM) disappears when you turn your computer off. The more RAM you have, the easier you will find editing, as video editing software uses a lot of it. My laptop (featuring 8 gigabytes of RAM) can barely keep up with my editing needs and most modern editing software recommends a minimum of 16 gigs of RAM. The trouble with my laptop is that I can’t add more RAM – so it’s nearly obsolete when it comes to modern editing software requirements. My advice: make sure the computer or laptop you buy is capable of RAM upgrades in the future.

Graphics processing unit

Since the advent of 64-bit processing, computer processors have been able to access the processing power and the RAM available on their graphics cards, which is the part of the computer dedicated to displaying graphics and images on your screen. This has been the real revolution in editing software performance in recent times.

Before you buy a computer, find out what GPU it has and read the reviews. A good GPU will have at least 6GB of available memory. You can also add more GPU power by connecting an external GPU via a USB C high-speed transfer port. One excellent external GPU is the Blackmagic e-gpu.

Hard drive storage

The major downfall of older computers is the transfer speed of their USB ports: you don’t want a computer that only supports a USB2 transfer speed, as it won’t be fast enough. You need adequate bandwidth (data transfer speed) to transfer high-resolution video from your hard drive to your computer. If you shoot a lot of video, you will fill up the internal hard drive of your computer quickly. I recommend that you have at least two external hard drives: one to play back your video footage, and another as a safety backup. When I’m traveling on assignments, I always hide the backup hard drive under the mattress.

My advice is to buy the best computer you can afford. If you are buying second-hand, you can get more bang for your buck, but make sure you do your research. You need to understand CPU, GPU, RAM and storage and how they affect your ability to edit. It's also important to check if you can upgrade your RAM and GPU in the future.

If you can only afford a slower computer, fear not, as there is a hack: many video editing programs allow you to create and edit your story from proxy media. Proxy media is a low-resolution copy of the original footage that is easy for a less powerful computer to playback, edit and process effects. Editing with proxies takes the burden off your computer when you are editing. When you make the final master of your video, the computer will generate this from your original high-resolution media. Many editing software platforms make this process incredibly easy – and I use it all the time even on my powerful machine as it will playback even the most effect-heavy edits in real-time.

The software

The good news is that you can start editing on free or inexpensive software and then upgrade later. If you are using Apple, you can start with iMovie for free. You can work on a portable device or computer and learn the basics and do most of your editing work – and it is super easy and intuitive.

If you want to get more professional you can import and upgrade your iMovie project into Apple’s more professional editing platform, Final Cut Pro X. You will need to pay upfront for a permanent license, which starts at around $300.

Another option is to use Adobe’s Rush system, which works on any device. If you decide to upgrade to Premiere Pro in the future, you can easily transfer your files from Rush. Rush starts at US$9.99 a month for students and US$19.99 a month for everyone else.

Premiere Pro is probably the most widely used video editing software. Like with all Adobe products you need to pay a monthly subscription fee (starting at US$50 for Premiere Pro), but students can access Adobe’s Creative Cloud services for US$19 in the first year. All of our scholarship winners have used this software to edit their entries.

Another option is Davinci Resolve, which is one of the most sophisticated editing platforms on the market. Originally, it was created as a high-end color grading software (the film Avatar was graded on Resolve), but it’s now a fully featured editing and sound-mixing platform. There are two versions, Free and Studio; beginners should opt for the Free version, as it’s only missing just a few features. The Studio version costs US$300 and has all the bells and whistles. While some aspects of the program can be intimidating for beginners, it’s relatively easy to learn and the basic interface is the same as any other editing software.

Understanding Narrative Structure in Documentary Films

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 13:54:26 GMT

The three-act structure in documentaries
Finding the story in the edit
Drama is conflict
Creating a structure
Find your character
What inspires you?

I’m a big believer in narrative structure in documentaries. I think documentary filmmakers can learn a lot from fictional work and I routinely look to other movies – both drama and documentaries – when looking for inspiration for the narrative structure of my films.

The three-act structure in documentaries

At the very least, your film should have a beginning, middle, and an end. For this reason, the three-act structure is a good place to start. The basic rules of storytelling apply to documentaries as much as they do to narrative fiction. These are:

Story
Conflict
Structure
Character.

You’ll find these elements in all great documentaries, and the more familiar you are with them, the better you’ll be able to draw them out of your own story, even if that story is based on complex real-life events.

Finding the story in the edit

The biggest difference between a documentary and drama is that in a documentary, you don’t write the dialogue, but go out and shoot it as it happens. The ‘writing’ process in a documentary often happens in the edit.

Once you have completed your shoot, your rushes [the raw footage from the day’s shooting] become your raw material. This is where you return to your scene cards and whiteboard and measure them against dramatic criteria. This is where the sifting, eliminating and rearranging process begins. It’s here that you’ll need to work out the story development and find the right dramatic structure for your film.

Those essential elements (story, conflict, structure and character) are the elements that will provide the framework for your film. Without these, it will be difficult to maintain the interest of an audience.

You need to decide what kind of story you are telling (hopefully you will have figured this out before the shoot, but if not, you definitively need to do it now). This will help you find the best structure for your film. It will probably fall into one of the following categories: goal-oriented, issue-oriented or a focus on journey and transformation. You can figure this out by asking yourself some basic questions: what is the issue that underlines my film? What is the goal of my main character? How does he/she change in the pursuit of that goal? What do they learn?

Drama is conflict

You can’t manufacture conflict in a documentary, but if there isn’t any in your story, you probably don’t have a film. Put simply, conflict is the thing that stands between your character(s) and their goal(s). There are many types of conflict – and here are a few examples: inner conflict, relationship conflict, and societal conflict. Conflict can be external (a political system, a mountain) or internal (self-doubt).

Conflict always needs an opponent, which could be nature (as in the film Touching the Void), a simple villain (big business, a mining company), or even time (think of the ticking clock in the rescue of the schoolboys from the Thai cave).

Creating a structure

Often real life doesn’t fit into a classic ‘hero’s journey’ structure. But learning the basic rules of structure will, at the very least, get you asking the right questions. If you think about a basic three-act structure, the same rules apply to documentary as they do to drama:

Act 1 – Sets up the premise. Who are the main characters and what problems do they face? What stands between them and their goal?

Act 2 – This is where your character(s) fight to achieve their goal. Complications set in and things get messy. Problems compound and your character(s) is put under pressure.

Act 3 – This is where your story finds a resolution. Your character either achieves their goal or fails (My film Solo is an example of a classic structure where the hero doesn’t achieve the goal) and hopefully has changed or transformed in some way as a result of the journey.

When you’re developing a film, I strongly suggest you read further on story structure. You don’t need to find books that are specific to documentaries either. Any good book on story structure will help you, just apply the ideas to your real-life situation. Here’s a good list.

Find your character

Even if your film is about an idea or a place – it will always need a character to take us on that journey. This may be a community of people, but you’ll still need at least one main protagonist that articulates their goal. Choosing a protagonist is a very individual thing but choose someone that has a strong goal and is prepared to be filmed.

What inspires you?

The best way to understand all of the rules above is to watch other films and see how these rules apply. When I’m developing a new project, I watch lots of films and documentaries with that specific project in mind.

There are so many great examples of well-structured documentaries out there, all of which draw on the rules above. Some of my favorites are:

Kevin Macdonald’s One Day in September; Touching the Void.

Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man

Asif Kapadia’s Senna; Amy

Errol Morris’s Thin Blue Line (Or any of his films)

Laura Poitras’s Citizen Four.

DocPlay is a great hub for feature documentaries. But I also routinely draw inspiration from the world of fiction. I’ve recently been developing a project about a famous mountaineer and I am watching a lot of drama in order to find the right structure, find examples of theme, and specific examples of how a character responded to conflict or an obstacle. These have included the following movies: Shine, Good Will Hunting, Apollo 13, The Imitation Game, and many more.

The Art of The Plan: How to Make a Great Documentary

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 19:58:04 GMT

Choosing your subject
Planning your film
Research your subject
Create an outline

Making a film, no matter how small, is a huge undertaking. It requires planning, research, tenacity, time and a huge commitment.

Choosing your subject

Ideas for films can come from anywhere, but in my experience, the best place to start is where you have a connection to the story or a subject you’re passionate about. Access is everything in a documentary, so that’s a good place to start. Who do you have access to a world or a character(s) that someone else might not? This is a good place to start in terms of what kind of material to tackle.

Ideas for stories are all around us – books, articles, radio, so stay attuned to things that you’re passionate about. But then you need to think about whether making a documentary is the best way to tell the story. Is it visually interesting? Is the story still unfolding?

Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky has 10 rules for documentary filmmaking and one of them is: Don’t film if you want to say something – just say it or write it. Film only if you want to show something, or you want people to see something.

Planning your film

Every film is different and requires a different approach, but it is important to find a balance between structure and planning on one hand, and ‘going with the flow’ on the other. Either way, you need to be clear about what you’re setting out to achieve by making the film, and why. This includes what the bigger themes and ideas are in your story. Is it David vs Goliath? Triumph over adversity? An underdog story? Or is it a coming-of-age story? By thinking about these bigger-picture ideas in relation to your story before you shoot, you’ll be more prepared once you do start shooting. Then plan for the unexpected, as that’s where the magic happens!

It can be easy to become overwhelmed new storylines and ideas while you’re shooting so it is always helpful to be able to come back to those themes at various points in the shoot. It can also help make sure you aren’t missing any important moments while you’re out in the field. Often it can be hard to get back!

Research your subject

The amount of research you need to do depends entirely on how much you know the subject matter already. If you’re making a film about a person or a subject you know well, then chances are, you won’t need to do so much research. In that instance, you’re better off spending time observing that person in a variety of situations.

In contrast, if you’re taking on a subject that involves history, science or politics, you’ll need to do a lot more research. In most of my films, the archive plays a role, so spending time researching archival material is a good use of time. Sometimes your interviews themselves can be the most important research you do. But be prepared. The bottom line is, you need to know what you are talking about, in order to be able to extract the depth and emotion from interviews you’ll need to make your story great.

Create an outline

In any documentary, no matter the length, I think it is worth outlining at very least the beginning, middle, and end of your story. Whiteboards and scene cards are useful at the planning stage. I always plot out what I think the three-act structure of the film might be, that is, the setup, the conflict and the resolution of the film.

You may not know what the ending of your film is going to be, particularly if it is still unfolding, but the clearer you are about the bigger themes that you are exploring with your characters, the easier it will be to get a sense of what ‘resolution’ will mean for them and your story (ie. What the end of your film should be).

Outlining in this way will also help you decide what questions to ask in interviews, what to shoot and why, and be better able to communicate with people about what you are trying to achieve. You can continually tweak this as filming progresses, but it’s good to be thinking about the bigger picture as you’re filming.

5 Tips to Master The Art of Communication for Filmmakers

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 12:46:39 GMT

I love documentary filmmaking because I get to meet and interact with so many people that challenge and enrich my worldview. I’ve found during my time mentoring the World Nomads Travel Film Scholarship that the social skills required in the field are the most significant things the winners learn on assignment – far beyond the storytelling or technical skills.

The kind of relationship that you establish with your subjects is absolutely fundamental to the tone and quality of the film you will make – so it’s important to communicate effectively, tactfully and efficiently in the field. If you do that well, everything else should fall into place, and the filming of interviews, observation and action sequences will be a breeze. You will save time by not following false trails or unnecessary leads, and you will also be less likely to give your subjects false expectations about how they are going to appear in your film.

Understand what you want, but be flexible

You are still forming your ideas, so your initial meeting with the subject of your film is an opportunity to research them. You need to strategically communicate and interact with your subjects from the moment you arrive. It's an opportunity to test your ideas about your film and your subjects’ role in it. Filming a documentary can be a brilliant process of discovery, not just an exercise in executing a preconceived filming plan. I do a few things:

I talk about myself and my intentions as little as possible
I seed the conversation with topics and subjects relating to the themes of the film and see where the conversation takes us
I fossick for ideas and opportunities to film that may better illustrate the themes of my film
I infer what things I might be able to film that can create a portrait of their character. I do this by observing their environment, the things they physically do or how they interact with others.

Be vague

Documentarians need to be deliberately vague about their intentions so they don’t lock themselves into promises they may not deliver on as well as giving themselves scope to refine their directorial ideas. It's also important not to give away too many of your ideas about the project – so that subjects second-guess you and merely tell you what you want to hear rather than reveal themselves in an open way. So, when you first sit down with your subjects, keep it simple and don’t try to explain the whole grand plan. However, it is important to answer any questions they have, and tell them that you will ask them to sign a release form (permission to use their filmed material) at the end of the process: this will hopefully allay any fears they have of being filmed as well as hold yourself up to a high ethical standard.

Keep it fresh

You also need to manage the conversation so your subjects don’t give away the emotion or details of the story that you want to capture fresh in the actual interview. What you need to do is pick up cues about what will be good in an interview and save the actual telling of those stories for the right moment. People will almost always want to tell you their story when you first meet them. You need to tell them to save it for later during a filmed interview.

Strike a balance

You want to establish a genuine connection (by establishing rapport) but also be focused and directed on the task at hand. You need to scope out what you’ll film with them (activities, action sequences, portrait shot moments) by looking for opportunities that you may not have been able to research beforehand and then control your commitments to film ones that actually have a thematic purpose to your film. Do all this scoping in casual conversation so it appears natural when in reality you are actually carefully guiding the interaction with all this in mind. This will hopefully not make them too self-conscious, with the result that they ‘put on a performance’ of what they think you want to see.

Segue into filming

At a certain point, I will segue into filming sequences in an observational way – simply by being able to predict what is likely to happen (or by subtly cueing an activity to take place). At other times there is often a predictable structure of events, which I have clarified and prepared myself for via my conversations with the subject. Also, I often attempt to “naturalize” my subjects to being filmed – as they will most often be self-conscious at first – by filming the less important material first.

This also applies to filming interviews. I usually start by chatting casually before segueing into the real interview content – without drawing attention to the fact that the camera is rolling. I don’t ask questions but guide the conversation along areas of interest. Most amateur filmmakers interview their subject as if it’s a news interview, and this usually doesn’t match the style of travel documentary that they are trying to make. Your subjects usually mirror the energy you project out to them – so you need to be a bit of a chameleon to reflect the sort of person you know they are.

Interview With Conservation Filmmaker Jenny Nichols

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 20:48:13 GMT

How did you learn to be a filmmaker?

I have a background black and white ﬁlm photography and loved the creativity found in the darkroom. After college, I worked for a fashion photographer in New York and learned the digital work ﬂow just in time to meet conservation photographer and force of nature Cristina Mittermeier. I worked for Cristina as her ﬁeld assistant from 2007 to 2012 as well as for the organization she started, The International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). I ﬁrst picked up a video camera in 2008 – it shot on tape and was a whole different beast to my still camera. Cristina is a Sony Artisan of Imagery and it wanted footage of her using its cameras. Cristina was on the phone with them, looked at me and said that her assistant could do the cinematography! So I learned how to ﬁlm video in Madagascar on a borrowed camera – it was trial by ﬁre. I’ve been learning to be a ﬁlmmaker ever since. In 2012, I started my own production company, Pongo Media Productions.

Why is conservation so important to you?

Conservation and climate change mitigation are both important and interesting because we can do something about it! We have the tools. Scientists are laying them out on a silver platter for us. Individuals are imperative in this ﬁght but we also need to have a policy that holds big industries and companies accountable. We are no longer in an era when we can claim ignorance.

How can filmmaking and storytelling change the world?

Visual storytelling can help us understand the urgency of our changing climate. Films can help translate science, can transport you to locations you might never be able to visit, and most importantly reach people on an emotional level and inspire them to act.

Do you have a mentor? How has she shaped you?

Cristina Mittermeier was and still is my mentor, an inspiration and a dear friend. She has redeﬁned the conservation communication landscape and continues to move the dial with her work. She started two very impactful conservation organizations, the iLCP in 2005 and Sea Legacy in 2014. Cristina not only shaped how I view the importance of storytelling but, from the beginning of my career, encouraged multidisciplinary projects and unusual partnerships encouraging people to work together to have a louder collective voice.

Is there any moment you have caught on film that has changed your perspective?

I’m not sure it was any one moment, but all of the collective moments with different cultures. I've learned that what I think is important and my value system is not necessarily the same as in other cultures. This is a very obvious statement, but when making a ﬁlm with a goal to change behavior, it is important to appeal to your audience's values, not necessarily your own.

What has been the greatest moment in your filmmaking career so far?

Being a part of projects that actually do effect change. Some of these moments happened within iLCP, some with Pongo Media Productions, but all of them were a group effort. Awards and being recognized by peers is an incredible feeling, but if those ﬁlms don’t do anything for the places, people and wildlife in the ﬁlm then I have not accomplished my goal.

Is there a documentary that you wish you had made?

I recently saw When Lambs Become Lions directed by Jon Kasbe. What is so unique about this ﬁlm is that it tells a conservation story in such harsh detail that the lines between right and wrong are blurred. Conservation is complicated, there are a lot of harsh realities that make making the right decision difﬁcult for many people. I like that it wasn’t sugar-coated. It told both sides of a story and was unbiased.

How do you develop the story in your documentary ﬁlms? Do you know what your story will be before you go in or do you let it come to you?

I have this conversation with many of my colleagues and the general consensus is that you make a ﬁlm three times, once in pre-production, once in production and one in post-production. Meaning you do your research, you plan, storyboard and dream up a ﬁlm, then, when on production, you are faced with challenges or gifts that change the course of the ﬁlm. Then, once again in post you shape the most compelling story with the assets you’ve gathered, even if it means killing that initial scope of the ﬁlm - aka killing your darlings.

How do you choose what projects to work on?

When choosing a project, it has to have two of the following elements: 1. The story and/or character is unique and compelling. 2. It beneﬁts conservation. 3. It is well funded. I’d love to say I can take on all of the passion projects that I want, but even with a job I love, I have to pay the bills. Additionally, I also have a handful of colleagues that, if they call me up to work on a project, I know I’ll say yes to before even hearing about it.

What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

That all my travel is for vacation.

What's the biggest mistake you see novice filmmakers make?

This comes from personal experience. Coming from the photography sphere and moving into video I overlooked two major aspects of ﬁlmmaking. First, the importance of good audio – both in interviews and natural sound/ambient sound. Second, to hold shots longer than you think. Once I got to the edit I always wished I’d held the shot for 15 to 20 seconds longer, and let the action play through.

Best piece of advice for an aspiring filmmaker?

Take advantage of all opportunities to grow your skills. Don’t wait for the perfect job, take all the jobs offered to you so that you are prepared when the perfect project presents itself.

About Jenny Nichols

Harnessing the power of visual media to tell stories, Jenny works to create films that will act as tipping points in conservation campaigns. Jenny thrives on multidisciplinary projects and continues to collaborate with a dedicated community of photojournalists, filmmakers, writers, illustrators, scientists and conservation organizations. Jenny’s films have screened at HotDocs, Seattle International Film Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, Telluride Mountainfilm, Banff Mountainfilm Festival, DC Environmental Film Festival and the Jackson Hole Science & Media Awards.

Tips for Successfully Pitching Your Travel Documentary

Mon, 28 May 2018 05:50:14 GMT

As a documentary filmmaker, at some point, you will find yourself pitching your work in order to get it funded, produced, finished or in front of an audience. Here are some key considerations when pitching.

Have a One-liner
Pitch with Access
Do Your Research
Have Something to Show
Share Your Creds
Follow Up

Have a one-liner

It can seem reductive to distill your story into a single sentence, but it is a useful asset to have for pitching in any environment. In-person, regardless of whether you regurgitate the line, the process of having to condense your story will help you to communicate it succinctly. On paper, your pitch may be reviewed by a commissioner or buyer alongside 50 others, so having a strong one-liner could decide whether or not they invest more time in reviewing your pitch.

Pitch with access

Don’t pitch your documentary without confirming access to the key people, places or events that will appear in your film. Without this access confirmed, or at least in negotiation, it's difficult for anyone to support the project financially, as there is a risk it may never be secured. Be sure to communicate the status of the access when you pitch, even if it’s still in progress.

Do your research

Before you pitch, do some basic background research on the person you are pitching to, and the company they represent. Take some time to look through some of the work they have recently commissioned or been directly involved with. Research the types of stories they are attracted to, as well as the style and formats they’re told in.

Through this process, you may realize that a few small changes to your project, or how you position the story, could make the pitch more attractive to the people listening to your pitch. If you haven’t had the opportunity to do this, asking them what they are looking for can be a good place to start.

Have something to show

A short video clip that demonstrates your pitch will fast-track the conversation and can be a huge advantage. Don’t get hung up on making a trailer; a short engaging scene of your central character or event is enough.

Consider the quality of the video you’re sharing in relation to the experience your team has. If you’re a less-experienced team, make your pitch video the highest quality you can deliver, as this will demonstrate your skillset. A more experienced team, with a strong track record of projects behind it, may be able to get away with a lower-quality video, that only demonstrates character or story.

Share your creds

So they like your idea, and they know you have access – the next thing you need to pitch is yourself, and the team behind you. Do you and the team have the experience to produce the documentary you’ve pitched? Be sure to include short bios, but most importantly, include examples of your team’s work. Showcase your track record. If you’re working with an emerging team with fewer credentials, consider approaching a more experienced filmmaker to form part of your team, in a supervisory capacity.

Follow up

Even if you weren’t successful with your pitch, closing the loop on your conversation appropriately is important. Whilst your pitch might not have been right this time, use this as an opportunity to establish a connection with who you are pitching to, so you can build on it when you bring them, or their company, your next idea.

Ask for feedback, if it hasn’t been offered already, and take these insights on board for your next pitch.

Documentary Filmmaking: How To Plan Out Your Story

Mon, 14 May 2018 04:57:45 GMT

I began making films back in 2000 as a participant on the Australian adventure series Race Around the World. It was the best training I could have had, because we were completely thrown in at the deep end, and had to do everything ourselves. Here, I quickly learned that the more prepared I was, the quicker I could get to the heart of the story. If you didn’t have a plan for your story, you could spend a week shooting a bunch of footage, and still not have a story – and they would put it to air anyway!

A common experience that emerging documentary filmmakers have is to think the story will reveal itself along the way, and to just point the camera at whatever is happening. If you have a year to spend in a remote community somewhere, this might work, but even then, you still need to have a sense of what you are looking for and what the basic plot of your film is. If you have a sense of what your story is from the start, then you’ll be a long way ahead when you get back to the edit suite with your rushes.

Plot Your Story
Structure, Structure, Structure
Drama = Conflict
Expect the Unexpected
Research
Be Open to Chance

Plot your story

Before I start shooting any film, I spend a lot of time on research and planning. Whiteboards and scene cards are my friends. I always plot out what I think the three-act structure of the film might be, that is, the setup, the conflict and the resolution of the film. This can be difficult when you don’t know how the film will play out, but worth the effort, as it forces you to think about the overall themes and story structure.

Jennifer talking with Sherpa cinematographer, Renan Ozturk. Photo credit: Jennifer Peedom

Structure, structure, structure

A useful way to think about the best structure for your film is to watch and study films that have similar themes to the one you want to make. Even though I primarily make documentary films, I study the structure of drama films as well as documentaries. As you watch the characters in these other films, you can think about your own characters: what they want, what challenges lie ahead for them, and what they might need to learn in order to achieve their goals or achieve their ‘want’.

Drama = conflict

All stories need conflict of some kind, as there is no drama without conflict, and yes, this goes for documentaries, too. People need to overcome obstacles to achieve a goal, otherwise, you’ll have a fairly boring story.

Expect the unexpected

The great thing about all this planning is that when things don’t go to plan in the field, (expect the unexpected), then you’ve still got this basic story structure to come back to.

When I shot Sherpa on Mount Everest, our plan was to follow an Everest expedition from the Sherpa POV, focusing on the main character, Phurba Tashi Sherpa. Instead, an avalanche killed 16 Sherpas and ended the climbing season. Because of the planning I had done, I still knew how I needed the film to end. I knew that my main character, Phurba Tashi needed to be somehow transformed by that experience, even though it was a different experience than what we had planned. When I got back to the edit suite, we realized that the structure we had planned for the film had actually changed less than we would have expected, given the extreme circumstances.

Think of it like this: if the film is the journey, the story structure is the roadmap. Having a roadmap that year on Everest, really helped me pivot when the crisis happened, and still come home with a story.

On the set of Sherpa in Nepal. Photo credit: Jennifer Peedom

Research

How much research to do before you go depends on many things, like how well you already know the subject matter, what kind of story you are telling, and who the audience is. As a rule, you can never be too prepared. I had already worked on three Himalayan expeditions with the same team of Sherpas, so I had a good idea of how some of the conflicts might play out on the mountain. The more you know, the more credibility you’ll have when dealing with subjects.

Be open to chance

The more prepared you are, and the more you understand the themes of your film, the more likely you’ll be able to have your eyes open to characters that you hadn’t considered in the original plan.

A good example of this in Sherpa was the Sherpa women, as they helped tell the bigger story of the Sherpas on Everest. You wouldn’t expect the wives and mothers staying at home to be important characters in a film about an Everest expedition, but in the end, they were probably the most important characters, as they provided the most powerful conflict. We had expected most of the conflict to happen between the Sherpas and the foreign clients, and while this also happened, the more subtle conflict, between Phurba Tashi and his own family, helped highlight the most important themes of the film, family, spirituality and grief.

Be prepared. Expect the unexpected and remember that all the best camera work in the world will mean nothing if you don’t have a great story.

Meet Katy Roberts, VICE Australia’s Documentary Producer

Tue, 08 May 2018 04:35:38 GMT

What does your job entail?

I creatively and operationally oversee VICE’s video output for Australia and New Zealand, across all our online digital platforms (vice.com, Facebook, Instagram etc). This begins with defining the editorial direction, strategy and priorities for the year – what topics we want to focus on, where our audience is and the formats and platforms we want to utilize to reach them. From there, I work with a team of really talented young producers to ideate the series and stories we can produce to fulfill that plan.

I also play an outward-facing role for the company, forging relationships and partnerships with external filmmakers and collaborators. Most recently I spearheaded an exciting partnership with Screen Australia, giving local documentarians the opportunity to access funding to produce an episode of our tent-pole documentary series, Australiana.

I’m lucky enough to work alongside an inspiring and dedicated team, without whom I wouldn’t be able to do this.

What inspires your work today?

Outside of my work with VICE, my love of documentary has been further galvanized through some of the incredible docu-series that have come out over the last couple of years. Series like The Jinx, Making a Murderer, Wild Wild Country, Flint Town and Wormwood are not only challenging and evolving documentary form but are growing the appetite and industry by bringing in mass audiences.

What’s the most memorable documentary you’ve helped create?

Probably the most memorable documentary I’ve worked on was one I personally produced a few years back called The Billion Dollar Cockfighting Industry. It was a story I actually stumbled into whilst in The Philippines shooting on a different project. We were outside of Manila and drove past these vast fields littered by rows and rows of miniature huts that roosters lived in. This spurred an in-depth conversation with the local crew I was working with about cockfighting, which was not only a notable part of their history but a modern-day, billion-dollar, entirely legal industry.

We ended up pre-producing and shooting the entire documentary within a five-day period, which was impressive considering the incredible access we got. I think this one sticks in my memory because it was a very intense but pure experience of documentary making, where the story just presents itself to you.

How do you choose which stories to tell?

There are definitely key things we’ll assess when considering any story. Specifically, for documentaries and VICE, access is a major consideration. Some pitches can be great on paper, but without confirmed access to the person, place or event that is essential to the story, it isn’t something I would move forward with.

Another is character – the people you have confirmed to be in your documentary. I look for really strong, interesting characters that will be able to carry the story, and that are engaging to watch and listen to.

And, of course, you need to consider whether the story will connect with your audience. At VICE, our core audience is 18-35, so we’ll assess whether the larger themes and issues the documentary is speaking to are relevant to a young audience.

Lastly, you should always look at whether the story has been told before and whether you are adding a new angle or insight with your documentary.

Vice deals with issues such as drug addiction and mental health. What draws you to these subjects?

VICE has grown from very counter-culture beginnings, originally as a magazine. Whilst the company has evolved and expanded the types of stories it tells considerably, the drive to give voice to the marginalized is definitely still part of our DNA.

Shining a light on ignored and overlooked issues in society through documentaries is a way to keep up people’s awareness of them. Documentary is such an important tool to be able to do this. Reading about issues like drug addiction and mental health doesn't always carry the same impact as they do in documentary format.

Is it important to remain impartial when making a documentary?

Absolutely. You need to be able to approach a subject with your own personal opinions and preconceptions removed. However, you should also be well-researched and informed before you leave the desk to shoot anything. Having a thorough understanding of the topic is key to feeling confident in your decisions about where to point the camera, and which questions to ask.

How do online audiences differ from viewers watching on more traditional mediums?

Online audiences have so many more options compared to the traditional experience of watching television. These days online platforms offer viewers hundreds of thousands of options to watch – which makes holding a viewer’s attention significantly more competitive.

This is why considering the audience and platform from the beginning of your project is so important. You need to know the behavior of both and let this inform what you shoot and how you edit. For example, if you know you are trying to engage a particularly young audience, you might consider creating some bespoke Instagram story assets during the shoot as a way to drive that audience to watch a longer documentary.

My approach also has to consider the consumption habits of my audience. Online videos need to have an attention-grabbing first 10 seconds and use succinct storylines along with concise pacing to be successful.

What’s your advice for aspiring filmmakers?

Don’t be scared to work on a range of different projects when you’re starting out. Even if it’s not exactly what you want to be making in the long run, you’ll build skills, experience, and contacts. Once you have these in place, try to make the type of film you are passionate about, even if it's on a smaller scale. Your work will begin to form your CV and lead you from project to project.

How to make your audience feel when they watch your film

Tue, 23 May 2017 06:56:08 GMT

Creating a connection between viewers and characters in a story is key to creating visual works that stand the test of time. When a viewer feels empathy and emotionally vibes with a character, they're more likely to let the video inspire them, change them, or execute a call to action.

That’s why the tagline for my production agency, WhereNext, is #feelsomething. It’s the baseline for everything we do.

If our stories don’t trigger some sort of emotional response from viewers – if they don’t make our audience think, cry or dream – then we start from scratch until we have something that moves people.

I don’t believe that there’s a definitive formula for this: it’s a unique and personal process between the creator and the subject.

There are, however, three moments in my life that have accidentally shaped my internal compass. I hope these will inspire you to create your own guide for channeling an extra dose of emotion into your work.

Understand your emotions

When I was 18, I had the good fortune of being offered a scholarship to join the University of Oregon’s track and field team. My specialty was the triple jump.

My high school coach, Peter Shmock, also competed for the University of Oregon and went to the 1976 Olympic Games in the shot put. His coach during those years was Bill Bowerman.

Among his athletes, Bill is remembered as one of the most innovative and inspiring coaches in the sport’s history. To the rest of the world, he’s known as the founder of the sporting goods empire, Nike.

During my senior year in college, Bill invited Pete and me to his ranch for a day of hanging out – three generations of athletes and coaches.

That day, I learned that if a coach wants to understand and motivate the emotional state of their athletes, they must first develop a keen self-awareness of their own emotional state.

This is the principle I now use to tap into the #feelsomething mechanics of storytelling. If a filmmaker wants to understand and anticipate the emotional state of their subjects, they should first be in touch with their own emotions.

I practice this self-awareness through visualization. I look for a nice quiet place to be alone, take some deep breaths, and begin to search through some powerful memories: my first time having sex, when I wet the bed at a slumber party, sitting alone at the lunch table when I moved to a new school, winning my first sports competition, the first time I saw a dead person, a romantic heartbreak... I find that when I practice feeling my own emotions, I become more aware of the emotions of the people in the world around me.

When I’m out in the world, directing or producing, having self-awareness of my own emotional highlights and lowlights allows me to better understand and capture my subjects’ emotional states.

Your feelings affect your subject's feelings

When I turned 30, I decided to trade my career in software for a life on the road. I spent two years cycling from Alaska to Argentina. The beauty of independent travel on a bicycle is that you meet loads of different kinds of people along the roadside, every day.

Each time you meet someone new, you’re effectively re-inventing who you are at that moment – quickly sizing up the other person, and adjusting your behavior to create the desired first impression. It’s a bit like being an actor.

Unlike my friends back home, the people I met on the road didn’t have a preconceived notion of who I was.

For example, when a Swiss tourist stopped to ask if I had a map, I was changing a flat tire on the side of the road in Alaska – flailing and cursing over being bitten by thousands of herculean mosquitos. He probably thought I was an asshole.

That mosquito-bitten vibe was very different to my random encounter with a cute, bohemian, French traveler on a beach in Nicaragua, after a day of rest, at sunset, with a beer in hand.

After thousands of roadside encounters from my bicycle seat, I started to refine how my emotional state could reflect on the person I had just met.

I use this with my storytelling today and always try to approach my subjects with the vibe that I think will allow them to most comfortably reflect their true emotional state on camera.

Travel is the best way I’ve found to practice this skill. Get out into the world – out of your “normal” zone – and have fun. Meet people. Play with changing your vibe when meeting different people in different situations, but keep it authentic.

Bookmark how the resulting behavior from fresh encounters can be applied to your work as a storyteller.

Anticipate like a secret agent

There’s a scene in the movie The Bourne Identity, where Jason Bourne struggles with his bout of amnesia. He’s just beginning to understand who he is: a secret agent.

Over lunch at a diner, he’s explaining his hunch about why he’s not a normal civilian to his friend Marie: “I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed, and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs 215 pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab, or the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run, flat out, for a half-mile before my hands start shaking.”

After finishing my cycling trip, I met Rich Clarkson, the former Director of Photography for National Geographic Magazine. He offered to mentor me as a visual storyteller. He sent me to National Geographic’s home office in Washington D.C. to talk with Susan Smith, one of the best – and toughest – photo editors in the business.

She asked me to prepare a set of images taken from my bicycle trip. I naively assembled my best sunset, landscape, and pretty pictures.

As soon as we sat down, she swiftly dismissed my photos as generic, postcard images. She pointed to a photo made by one of her favorite photographers, David Alan Harvey.

The image was a group of four French women, hanging out along the Seine in Paris. Two of them were taking a drag, while the other two kissed on the cheek in greeting. There was a Japanese tourist in the background, taking a photo.

“To make a photo like this, you have to be curious, observe the world around you, and anticipate that world,” Susan commented. It clicked.

In that moment, David Alan Harvey was like a secret agent. His photo wasn’t just beautiful: it told a story.

He was so tuned in to the world around him, he was able to anticipate the kiss, the drag of the cigarette, and the Japanese tourist, and he positions himself at a perfect angle – all before it happened.

I practice being a visual-storytelling secret agent by quietly observing the world around me from park benches, restaurants, etc. I try to pick up on patterns. Who goes where, when, and why? What is that person feeling? Why are they feeling that way?

When you’re out in the world making stories, it’s just as critical to be able to anticipate and position yourself to capture a #feelsomething moment as it is to recognize an emotional state in your subject.

Think like Jason Bourne to make it happen.

Want to be mentored by a professional filmmaker? Keep an eye out for our Travel Film Scholarship.

Or watch the Travel Documentary Masterclass for more exclusive advice.

Behind the Lens: Interview with Filmmaker Brian Rapsey

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 16:53:00 GMT

When did your passion for filmmaking begin?

I became hooked on photography from a young age and won a book of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson from a community photography competition. Then my family migrated to Australia in the mid-80s where we had relatives working in film and TV – and so I began to love the moving image. In my first Anthropology tutorial at the University of Western Australia, our teacher asked us what we wanted to become and the first thing that sprang to mind was “Documentary Filmmaker." I still carry my stills camera everywhere to keep my eye in practice.

Did you have a mentor when you began in the industry?

I’ve had many mentors at different stages in my career. My mum, a costume maker, always critiqued my photos and encouraged me to be less clever and more direct. My dad, a scriptwriter, would read my scripts and give me professional feedback. At the Swinburne Film School, my teacher Peter Tammer instilled in me a passion and purpose for filmmaking. When directing a documentary for Australia’s SBS TV my editor Rochelle Oshlack (Series editor – First Australians) inspired me with her ethics and excellence in her craft.

How would you describe your style?

My style is defined more by how I go about projects. I try to marry a visual style with a story or script. When shooting travel films my approach has a lot to do with skills I learned when trying to be a documentary photographer – always being ready, working quickly, and having sharp reflexes. I’m best at observing and capturing the movement with minimal interference. My aim is for people to become naturalized to my presence (or forget about me) and behave more or less naturally. Henri Cartier-Bresson said something along the lines of: “I put myself at liberty with chance” – and that’s what I try to do in capturing something special.

What is the best and worst part of your job?

The thing I love most is meeting people, traveling to new locations with a sense of purpose, and exploring ideas. The worst part of my job is being stuck editing for long periods on projects that weren’t properly thought through in the first place.

What do you get most excited about shooting?

The best thing is when the circumstance comes together that brings together people, a subject or location that I feel the passion and where style, story and purpose all seem to work in harmony. The best moments when filming in Brazil earlier this year were pure serendipity: seeing a children’s Samba parade go past through the streets of a favela while shooting a story about DJs or filming a song at Pedra Do Sal (the birthplaces of Samba) on the night before Carnaval. I played in a street Samba band “The Sambanistas” in Perth 20 years ago – so this was so special for me to witness and to capture.

What would be your dream assignment?

I care about the underlying purpose or politics of a story as about a particular destination. Going to New Orleans would be a dream assignment. Years ago I got hooked on an HBO TV series called Treme, a show about a community trying to rebuild itself in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It brings together everything I love – music, community traditions, politics, and social justice. I would also love to go to Cuba to experience these same things from across the Gulf – especially now in the last days of Fidel Castro. I’ve also always imagined traveling to visit the three kids living in Sri Lanka, Honduras and Brazil that my family sponsors through the charity Childfund.

What are some of the challenges of filming on assignment in another country?

Fatigue! It’s such hard work and so exciting on assignment. I recommend making solid plans and doing research in advance of your trip – you’ll often be too tired in the field to do this well. You can also easily get tripped up with language barriers, but hopefully, you’ll hook up with locals on the ground who can help you get through.

Where do you see things heading in travel filmmaking?

I’m interested in what I call “modular content” – films that can be purposed in many ways. For example, this could be short-form stories that can be plugged into websites, airline in-flight entertainment and social media – that can also be woven together with other stories to make longer-form pieces for broadcast distribution. The idea is that shorter stories can be used to build an audience for a future long-form version. Being able to be flexible in your formatting of the content is crucial, especially when working for in the digital world.

What tips do you have for aspiring filmmakers?

There are so many great examples of travel filmmaking styles on the internet. My advice? Study all of the different approaches... and then practice as much as you can!

Interview and Tips From Visual Storyteller Gregg Bleakney

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 16:53:00 GMT

What is visual storytelling?

Visual storytelling is a term that’s become popular over the past five years or so to describe the disciplines of photojournalism and videography. There’s a trend among commercial clients who want their brand story told in an authentic way, akin to how a photojournalist would work. Visual storytelling is often used to label this type of commercial work. Something that I always like to articulate to clients is that storytelling is different than content production – it requires an actual story. Bob Dylan’s songs are different than elevator stock music. He is an artist, a master storyteller, and his work makes people feel something. David Alan Harvey is a master photojournalist. His photos are a result of his innate talent to read people and anticipate moments. Most of his photos can’t be replicated. They are different than stock imagery made for Instagram. Again, they make people feel something. In my opinion, the true roots of storytelling come from art and journalism – they require an innate talent to execute. Think of your friends, is there someone you know who always has the best stories around the campfire?

How did you break into visual storytelling?

In 2005, I decided to sell my home, car, and most of my physical possessions to bicycle through the Americas. Along the way, I picked up a camera so that I could upload images to a monthly blog I’d created for the trip. I decided to enter one of my pictures into the Seattle Times’ photo contest and it was featured in the paper. Shortly afterward, an editor from National Geographic Adventure Magazine emailed and asked if I’d be willing to send a few more photos and blog posts from the trip – and they ended up publishing them in the magazine. I never looked back.

Tell us about your storytelling style?

My storytelling style comes directly from lessons learned during my bicycle trip through the Americas and a photojournalism mentorship I received from National Geographic. For example, I always prefer to be light and fast with my gear. This comes from the fact that I didn’t have the physical space to lug a bunch of heavy camera equipment on my bicycle. My gear had to fit in a small handlebar bag with just enough space for a DSLR camera and one do-it-all 28mm to 300mm lens. This forced me to always have my camera easily accessible and to focus on moments rather than fiddling with complicated setups or constantly changing lenses. During my mentorship with National Geographic, I learned from Rich Clarkson, William Albert Allard, and other icons of the photojournalism world that curiosity, capturing moments, and building a visual story matter so much more than gear. Equipment is important for sure, but without a compelling story, it's just electronics.

What are the challenges of running your own production company?

My biggest challenge is stepping back and letting my team do what they do best. I remember the first time we had two productions happening at the same time – one in Jamaica and the other in the Brazilian Amazon. I decided to fly to Jamaica for three days and then on to the Amazon for 10 more days. I couldn’t imagine not being personally involved in both projects, so I struggled trying to be in two places at the same time.

What I learned is that my time would have been better spent back at the office, or focusing on just one of the projects. I also learned that I need to trust my crew and embrace their varied storytelling styles. Everyone has a different way of interpreting and capturing a story through their unique viewpoints. A video or still camera is truly a mirror reflecting the operator’s soul. Now, I cherish and value sending off a budding videographer to some far-flung place and watching him or her grow and come back with their unique vision of the world as much, if not more, than going on a shoot myself.

Tell us about a memorable assignment

My most memorable assignment came purely by accident. I was covering the world’s most grueling bicycle race called La Vuelta a Colombia. During the three weeks, I spent on the road covering the race, I became close with a rider who grew up in a small mining town outside of Medellin, Colombia. He told me that he saved the money to buy his first bicycle by working in the rough and tumble coalmines on the edge of his town. After the race, he invited me to visit. The mines were terrible, sketchily built by hand, and I was out of my mind with anxiety as we descended 600 meters through the earth on an oil barrel sled attached to a rope and a small motorcycle engine. The working conditions were appalling. The air was wretched, there were tons of bugs, and it was excruciatingly hot. And then this worker appears out of the darkness and he tells me he’s coaching a team of amateur riders who all work in the mines. They’re called the coalmine bikers. They commute to the mines on their bicycles and do cardio intervals during lunch breaks by crawling up and down the mineshafts on all fours. Eventually, Bicycling Magazine picked up the story and ran it as a feature article.

This assignment taught me the value of connecting and listening to your subjects and trusting in serendipity. You never know when a story idea can strike. I always surrender myself to what the universe presents me.

What skills are most important in this field?

The number one most important skill for a storyteller is to be a nice person. Subjects and co-workers always respond better to nice people – there is no room for assholes on any of our productions. The next skill I look for is curiosity. If I hire someone whose both a nice person and has a strong sense of curiosity, I can be confident that they will come back from an assignment with an incredible story.

What makes a good story?

There’s a phrase that a retired Russian military captain told me after I met him in a campground in Alaska during my bicycle trip, “Adventure is misery and discomfort relived in the safety of reminiscence.” A great story is often terrible when it is actually happening, and only great in retrospect. Good stories reveal the wounds of their subjects; they expose both highlights and hardships. The hashtag for our agency is #feelsomething. If one of our stories doesn’t make viewers feel something, if it doesn’t connect emotionally, then we start over.

What tips do you have for aspiring visual storytellers?

1) Be nice. Your subjects and your crew will always respond better to nice people.

2) Be curious. Curiosity is the number one trait I look for in potential storytellers.

3) Fail. People who go out in the world and completely fail in their attempt to tell a story develop as storytellers – those who play it safe typically stagnate.

4) Read books. Listen to music. Learn from the best storytellers who use words and rhythm rather than visuals to make people feel something.

5) Go make stories. Practice, practice, practice. Tell your friends at a bar a story, cut something for Youtube, and write in your journal. This is not a job, it’s a lifestyle. It’s who you are.

What's the future of travel filmmaking?

Storytelling is often confused with the other industry buzzword: content. Do not confuse the two. Content can be anything under the sun. A hodgepodge of images against a soundtrack is content. An aerial video of random drone shots is content. I often refer to these types of travel videos as visual postcards. For something to qualify as storytelling, you actually need to be telling a story. I think that brands are starting to distinguish between stories and content – which is critical because as journalism outlets continue to see their budgets slashed, brands are now commissioning visual work. It’s important for the editors and decision-makers of these brands to take the responsibility to communicate to their audience what is content, and what is a real story. In the future, I think we will see a return to the roots of journalistic values across all disciplines of storytelling to rekindle trust with the audience. I also think that immersive, 360 video will play a more important role in travel filmmaking.

Watch our Travel Documentary Masterclass for more exclusive advice.

Travel Filmmaking: Tips and Tricks From a Professional

Sun, 18 Aug 2013 17:18:00 GMT

Work with a premise in mind
Be quick on the draw
Always use headphones
Shoot for the editor
Rapport is essential

Work with a premise in mind

What is your story about? Don’t be merely descriptive, for example: "We are going to see a soccer match in Rio on the first day of Carnival". Try to think of a premise that can be encapsulated into a single word like: "Passion!" Brazilians LOVE their soccer. As a traveler, you may not know a thing about the teams or allegiances, but you can experience and participate in the passion that they have for this game. Passion became the guiding principle for how I framed and filmed everything on the last assignment in Rio – always trying to capture this quality. This was also what guided the editing of the story.

Note: Often, I start with one premise in mind and decide on a stronger one as the experience unfolds (sometimes a truer premise only becomes apparent in the editing process).

Be quick on the draw

Be ready to capture the moment without too much hassle in setting up your kit; you want to be able to pull your camera out quickly fully loaded and ready to roll. There is a lot of forethought that can go into keeping it simple and taking just what you think you need. Last year in Rio it was hot, humid and the crowds were huge (not to mention constantly having to watch out for pickpockets and petty thieves). The last thing you want to do is draw too much attention to yourself with a big cumbersome camera setup.

Note: Everybody loves shooting on DSLR cameras these days (I’ve personally been shooting on a Canon 5D Mark3 DSLR camera). The look is amazing – but they are fiddly and unless you have them totally under control, you can miss the moment before you get your sound gear connected.

Always use headphones

Sound is greatly underrated, but its quality is key to how well your audience will connect with your story. In documentary-like filmmaking, you can get away with average-looking pictures – but if your sound recording is bad then you won’t have a film. Always wear your headphones in order to judge whether you are capturing the necessary sound. Wearing headphones you will hear if the sound is clear or whether you need to move closer to your subjects – or get them to move somewhere quieter.

Note: A classic mistake is to forget to switch on the microphone: without wearing headphones you can film for half a day and not realize you’ve recorded nothing. We've all done it before! You need at least a ‘directional” shotgun mic mounted on your camera (I like Rode's Video Mic Pro) so that you don’t rely on the crappy internal microphones on the camera. Mic's like this use a 3.5mm input (great for DSLRs) but they can be plugged into any professional XLR sound input using a simple adaptor. I always have a radio mic at hand – but there are cheaper options if you can’t afford them (check out the Rode Smart Lav that can plug into an iPhone).

Shoot for the editor

I’m always thinking about what the editor will want or need to craft a strong story. As I'm usually the editor, I make sure I film multiple shots to give myself options – especially if the story isn’t panning out the way I initially thought it would (so that I'm covered if the story changes).

My advice for getting a range of shots?

Get a wide shot of the subjects in a crowd to put the character in the social landscape as well as shots of the subjects interacting or listening to each other.
Consider the necessary contextual information the audience must have to understand the story – then seek it out and film it.
Shoot like a dramatist – using camera moves and framing to visually punctuate the emotional experience of the people you're filming.

Rapport is essential

Rapport occurs when two or more people feel that they are in sync or on the same wavelength because they can relate well to each other. In documentaries, and by extension in many types of travel films, the quality of the rapport the filmmaker has with their subjects is fundamental to the tone and success of the film. Conversely, as the presenter, there is also the rapport you have with the camera – which is, by extension – the audience. Often the camera person stands in for the audience by virtue of being there (behind the camera).

Note: when presenting to the camera or recording voiceover it often helps to imagine that you are talking to someone in particular (your mum, your best friend, a group of your mates) – play with it until you strike just the right tone. This is how you will find your particular “voice” in front of the camera – one that hopefully allows you to connect with your audience.

How To Make It as a Successful Documentary Filmmaker

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:59:00 GMT

Shooting 'Surgeons of Hope'

It is 6am in Managua, Nicaragua and I’m working through my 30^th sleepless hour at the La Mascota Hospital. Holman Padilla, the main character in my documentary Surgeons of Hope, has just woken in pain from one of the most complicated surgical procedures possible: a pediatric heart surgery. Holman and his mother knew that without the procedure, Holman would eventually die. Still, it was hard to watch his sternum cut open by a bone saw.

Eventually, I’ll have to leave and go back to the hotel. I need to transfer my footage, sleep, and eat. There isn’t anywhere to sit except for a few chairs outside of the ICU bathroom and I hate taking up a chair when Carmen, Holman’s mother, is sitting on the hospital floor.

I catch a taxi back to the hotel, and a phone call wakes me six hours later. It’s Holman’s nurse.

“Where are you? Do you know that Holman and Carmen are about leave? They’re waiting for a taxi to take them back to their village.”

In an instant, I am on my feet. I fell asleep cradling my camera and now there is an angry red impression of it pressed into the side of my neck. How could he be leaving the hospital less than 12 hours after heart surgery?

“The doctor thought it would be best to stay away from the hospital. Most kids die around here from infection.”

I race back to the hospital, sprint past the gate, and find them standing outside in the rain. Holman’s aunt brings an umbrella and they huddle together. They are shivering, but so happy to leave.

I am sitting in the back of a taxi now; Holman is sitting in the passenger’s seat on his mother’s lap. They are not wearing a seatbelt because Holman’s chest is still sore. We are going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit and we hurtle toward their home in the rain, to a tent pitched against the side of a rock; no heat, no doors, no bathroom, which is somehow safer than any hospital.

I realize absent-mindedly that I have no idea where I am going or how I will get back. I have a vague impression that the village is 30 minutes away, but my Spanish vocabulary is limited to basic needs and I am the clichéd American who cannot speak another language.

We pull into an alley and the taxi driver scoops Holman up and carries him to the house. He sits outside on a plastic picnic chair for a few minutes then quietly slips away to rest.

It is dusk when my camera runs out of battery and I am forced to surrender the thing that constantly prevents me from living in the moment. Into the night, the extended family arrives, one by one, to hear the great tale of Holman’s trip to Managua. My Spanish and I struggle to stay a part of the conversation but after much effort, we finally admit defeat and stand in shadows, watching Holman’s family experience the universal joy of having a family together, once again.

Tips for budding documentary makers

The following are pieces of wisdom I have stowed away. These have been learned through bitter and repetitive trial and error.

1. An organization very rarely makes a good story. Make sure that your story is about a person or a group of people.

2. Trust your instincts. Shoot things that are interesting to you. Ask questions that you honestly want to know the answer to. Then, listen.

3. When away from home, always wear comfortable shoes and carry anti-diarrhea medicine.

4. Although it is easier said than done, the more constructive criticism you welcome and receive, the more you’ll know your film.

5. Push your film as long as you make your film.

6. Travel the festival circuit by making a strong documentary short.

7. For a first project, choose a subject that is about to experience something that will take place in a finite amount of time.

8. Journal after you shoot.

9. Cast your net wide. Be choosy with your story. Finding a good story is your job. Force the issue. Ideas come from other ideas so actively look. Educate yourself and notice when your interest goes up.

10. Think about reality casting. People who have one foot in two worlds are good because they can comment, reflect, compare and contrast perspective.

11. Read, listen to music, and watch documentaries. It’s important to know what your peers are doing.

12. Don't let the world you describe be smaller than the one you inhabit. It's okay to fill your story with joy, discovery, surprise, pleasure, and humor.

About Maranatha Hay

In 2009, Maranatha Hay received the World Nomads Documentary Scholarship to Vietnam. Since then, she's been a director for the series Loma Linda 360, a documentary magazine show broadcasted on PBS affiliates across Southern California. Her works combine her two loves, science and storytelling, and specialize in humanitarian aid. She's a five-time Emmy-award winner, known for her work on Stocked Love (2016), Skeleton Woman (2017) and Baby Blue (2009). She has received numerous international awards for her short documentaries and her works have been featured on PBS, Funny or Die, and BBC Channel Four.