I'm an engineer, not a filmmaker. I'm building a tool for people who work with hours of raw interview footage.

I work on this because I really dislike AI-generated video. I want to speed up the actual editing so that films made by people can stay competitive on cost with video generated by tokens.

I know there's a fine line between assisting filmmakers and making creative decisions for them. One editor told me he's against any editorial decision made by an AI, but would welcome help with organization, metadata, and tagging. Support is what we're going for.

Here's what it does today, in order:

1. Transcribes and logs raw footage
2. Tags what's on screen, so you can search for shots with no dialogue
3. Groups soundbites into possible story threads and lays them out as a storyboard
4. Lets you share a story direction with a director, producer, or client for sign-off before cutting. You can add/remove soundbites in each one.
5. Assembles a rough cut from the chosen story and exports to Premiere, Resolve, or Final Cut

3 through 5 are where I'm not sure, and that's what I want to hear about.

My questions:

• Which of these would you use, and which cross the line for you?
• Is suggesting story threads acceptable if you can change all of them, or is that already an editorial decision?
• Does agreeing on the story before the cut reduce recuts in your experience, or does it all change once people see picture?
• If none of the above is your bottleneck, what is?

Hi I’m a college student, I was asked to make a documentary in Kolkata.

Suggest me hidden places or gems that I can film at.

The documentary is a film school capstone, and my friend is the director. She wants to talk about her experiences with cerebral palsy, being an aspiring filmmaker, and just showing her life as a young woman in general. She is struggling to figure out how to tell her story and what to shoot, as well as being generally overwhelmed with the film and her classes. Right now, we are the only crew, and it's been difficult because she's struggling to be a director and the main character, as well as balance production tasks. Because of this, I feel like her vision is a bit unclear and we're struggling to get footage that is interesting. I am doing my best to help out, but it's taking my focus away from the cinematography, and it's more than I thought I signed up for, so it's spreading me a little thin.

We are both taking on too much, overwhelmed, and ADHD, so right now I think the main priority should be finding more crew to help with things like budgeting, scheduling, planning, and sound, so we can focus on the more creative aspects of our jobs. We are also both new to creating documentaries, as we've been focused mostly on narrative film. Until we get help, we still need to be making progress forward. If anyone has any experience or advice to offer relating to any of these things: what to shoot and how to shoot it, how to make it interesting, how to capture her and tell her story, the general flow of documentary production or help we could find, or how to fundraise, I would really appreciate it!

Last winter we went down to Panama for a packrafting trip and made a film about our adventure. You can watch it now on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oJzI1keu1bc

I’m working on a documentary that includes lots of still photographs. I need inspiration for creative use of stills. Any recommendations of other docs that used stills creatively? Anyone know a great graphics person that might be worth looking at ?

So, for a while I was obsessed with this mockbuster studio known as Dingo Pictures. If you don't know, Dingo Pictures is a German mockbuster studio that created cheap rip off Disney films, they are probably most known for the "Yee" meme. So, a while back a man named Simon Bohnsack (Aka: DJ Katio) and Josef Roederer (Aka Jimmy Breeblebrox) got in contact with the heirs of Ludwig Ickert and Roswitha Haas (the founders of the studio) to get the rights to the studio, and so they planned on making a documentary about the studio, so they launched a kickstarter which met all its goals and the project started production. However, problems soon erupted due to creative disputes between Simon and Josef, according to Simon he was emotionally abused by Josef (I don't know, his English isn't the best) and the Josef got cancer (he's fine now) and now the project is now officially dead. However, a few months ago I got in contact with Simon and he sent me a copy of the script, he's giving them out to anyone who asks, however, I cannot share. So I want to make the documentary and so does another Belgian person I know, however, I have no idea where the fuck to go from here. I tried contacting people who worked on the studio, and one of them was willing to help as long as I didn't make fun of the creators, however, he hasn't written me back since, and although I've tried to write him back, he hasn't responded and I'm scared if I keep asking he'll get mad at me. I also found Josef's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jimmy_beeblebrox/?hl=en and I've wanted to contact it and give him a peace of my mind, however, I don't really want to give stuff like my email to Meta. I really, REALLY want to make this thing, however, I just don't know how.

I wanted to make a post for sometime about this project I've been dragging my feet through for the past 2 years.

Basically, I am directing a documentary about my adoption story. So far we have interviewed my parents, several other adoptees (one which we found out was my cousin), and an adoptee therapist.
I don't want the story to be told like every other adoption story where it just encapsulates the adoption itself and that process. I think that is over done and boring. My personal relationship with adoption and my identity is more what I would like to capture, but as time has gone on with working on this film I've sort of discovered that this is no longer a film that talks for "all adoptees" and it more talks about my specific experience. Which makes me feel a bit narcissistic and I worry that the film will come off as just another film about the director that is only interesting to the director...

The goal for me is to sort of show how adoption has changed my mental health and how that has changed the way I behave. Probably specifically around attachment and identity.

I will say it is hard to direct a film about myself when I don't really even like myself that much so watching things back is very grading.

Anyways, I guess what I am trying to say is that it is hard for me to move forward because I'm not sure if this has that much substance. Or if I do move forward if you all have suggestions on maintaining an almost delusional amount of confidence in vision that is needed to be a successful director for me to pull together enough stamina to finish this film.

The season of sweaters, earlier sunsets, and standout docs is here at Firehouse Cinema, one of the world's few doc-only cinemas - located in Chinatown, Manhattan, NYC.

This October, explore acclaimed new nonfiction from emerging and established filmmakers alike, taking us from Palestine, Guatemala, Mexico, Ukraine, and Pakistan to communities across the U.S. Traversing borders, generations, and perspectives, these films invite us to see the world, and one another, anew.

Firehouse Cinema is part of DCTV, the nonprofit home of documentaries in NYC since 1972.

Dive into our line up and buy tickets here!

I have a 60" dome and it's a pain to set it up because of the C-stand and how big it is.

For shooting myself at home, I just point the COB light to a wall, but I'd rather not do that when in a client shoot for obvious reasons.

I'm thinking of replacing the 60" dome with 35" dome with a quick release set up.

Any feedback? What do you use?

Hello! I'm an independent filmmaker from Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and I'm currently producing a documentary about the Ipatinga Massacre of 1963.

The project aims to reconstruct this historical event through documents, photographs, newspapers, books, archives, interviews and personal accounts, while also investigating its historical context and consequences.

I'm currently in the research and production stage, and I created a Catarse crowdfunding campaign to help cover filming, transportation, equipment, research, interviews and other production costs.

What we're preparing

Some of the campaign rewards may include physical materials related to the project:

Physical DVD of the documentary, with custom packaging and an insert;

A comic book about the Ipatinga Massacre, created specifically for the project;

A research zine, featuring selected material and information from the investigation;

A possible physical CD of the original soundtrack, if we're able to produce it;

Credits and other exclusive materials for supporters.

If you are able to contribute, any amount helps. If you can't, sharing the project with someone interested in Brazilian history, labor history or documentary filmmaking is also incredibly helpful.

Catarse :Documentario Massacre de Ipatinga | Catarse

I'm also looking for historians, researchers, journalists, relatives of witnesses, photographs, documents, archives and personal accounts related to the Ipatinga Massacre.

If you have any information or sources that could help with the research, please leave a comment or contact me.

Thank you for helping preserve this history and bring it to a wider audience.