Introduce Yourself: Sign In Here First

Anand – firstly please note that the D-Word is a "Real Name" community, meaning that everyone is asked to register with their full name, not initials, so please log-in and adjust your profile accordingly.

Secondly, there is no single technical standard for festival submissions – this can be anything from standard definition DV to full-blown HD. Check the festivals own submission guidelines although as James says, the main criterion is to submit a good film.

Hi
John Burgan
Thanks, my full name is Anand A.
I am a new person so have these types of question. To make a good film it can be shooting in simple camcorder also and I have simple camcorder almost 4 different companies and one is Sony DCR-HC26 but I am not sure shooting from these camera will be accepted by festivals. So before I start it is good if get clear idea from some professional people like You, James and so many other people then may I can start shooting. And thanks for your advice.
If you say festivals just need a good film then can you say that I can even shoot my documentary with sonny DCR-HC26 and I think this is the simplest camcorder.
Thanks

Folks, this topic is for introductions only. Newbie questions can be answered in the Mentoring Room . (And you won't be very happy with the HC26 because it basically offers no manual controls...)

Anand, is your last name really just "A"? Are you from India?

hello, I'm rachel leah jones, a documentary filmmaker based in Berkeley, CA (but who want to admit to that, especially these days?! so i wrote berkeley, ca instead...). i'm working on my 3rd doc (previous titles as director include 500 DUNAM on the MOON and ASHKENAZ). i'm editing with FCP right now, which isn't very popular in israel (its an AVID kind of country...) and i need some people to troubleshoot with. i'm not a technophobe, but i'm also not a tech-freak. so, hello...

hello to you, rachel. i'm a bit confused, you say you're based in berkelely but writing berkeley instead? reading between the lines, did you mean to say israel? either way, happy to have you aboard the good ship d-word.

Hi Rachel – great to see you finally made it to the safe shores of D-word. It's been ages. What's the new doc about?
I know how you feel, BTW:
I'm based in Seattle, but I didn't want to admit I was in the United States so I wrote "Iran" instead.

Hi Rachel – Greetings from Wales where Hassina and I now live after leaving Berlin for Denmark back in 2006, living here since last Autumn. Good to see you here at the D-Word, have to get Phillippe on board one of these days.

Quite a few of us use FCP and there is also a dedicated topic if you come unstuck...

In reply to Doug Block's post on Mon 2 Feb 2009 :

doug: yes i meant to write based in tel aviv... but i guess i was so ambivalent, and ambivalent about being ambivalent, that i couldn't even get the words right... anyway, i was born in berkeley, ca. and grew up there as well as here in tel aviv...

james and john: hello! i'd love to see you both in person again sometime.

james: sorry i missed you in seattle, i was there in november showing ASHKENAZ. the new/old (started shooting almost 10 years ago) doc is called GYPSY DAVY about david serva (nee jones) a white boy with alabama roots who reinvented himself as a flamenco guitarist in andalucian boots who fathered five children to five different women along the way, and one of those children is me...

john: sorry you're no longer in berlin, i keep imagining a repeat visit. i guess wales will have to do (after all, i am a jones)... warm regards to hassina!

ok, this probably isn't the time and place to do all this chatting, though i'm glad to encounter friendly familiar faces, so what's my next step in terms of posting a tech problem?

Good to have you here and yes, a Jones should acknowledge her Welsh roots!

Take a look at our Technical Topics: if it's FCP specific, use Final Cut Pro , general post-production Editing .

So what's wrong with chatting? We live to procrastinate! And have no fear, Rachel, I highly recommend you change your "Current Location" to Tel Aviv. Always helpful to know where people are currently. And it will keep all our SF area members from being disappointed when they discover you're not in Berkeley.

Hey gang!

I have been working for the past ten years as a photojournalist and I am now looking to make the jump into documentary film work out here on the left coast (of course I am located in the Bible-belt of the San Joaquin Valley, smirk). A former professor now colleague mentioned this site as a place I should join.

I have been working in FCP, doing mostly web shorts, but I would really like to not make too many 'tech' mistakes moving forward into documentary work. Looking forward to asking lots of newbie questions and then getting deeper into the process.

What's with everybody missing part of the heads? I guess I'll have to upload a new pix. Wecome Michael.

Nice to have part of you here, Michael. Welcome.

Thanks Doug.

David, apparently I did not pay the photographer enough.

Used to live right near Kingston, Ontario and climb at the Shawanagunks. The cool part about Cali is now I can get to Yosemite and just visited Galen Rowell's gallery in Bishop.

Hi all,

I'm a new doc film maker who just completed Thom Powers' documentary production class at NYU. There I not only had the pleasure of having Doug Block as a guest lecturer but I also learned of The Stranger than Fiction series where I recently saw Upstream Battle by Ben Kampas, so it seemed only natural to come and sign up for D-Word next.

Right now I'm working on my first doc about the little known but widespread influence of two men who in 1991 made a series of predictions about major social trends and events to come (specifically including events such as the current financial crisis) which have since turned out to be surprisingly prophetic. At the time they published their predictions, Newt Gingrich called their book "an intellectual tour de force" and Al Gore called it "the most stimulating and politically relevant book on American history that I have ever read” and sent a copy of it to every member of congress. (I’m really looking forward to explaining this more and getting as much feedback as possible in the Works in Progress section here.)

While working on that I’m trying to earn a living as an assistant editor Avid/FCP (I own my own Avid system) and also trying to earn extra money by doing transcription by voice with Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software. It’s not something I want to be doing full time but it’s so much faster than regular transcription that when I used it recently during an internship on an Obama documentary everyone there told me it was so much faster and better that there would really be a good market for it in doc films.

Anyway, I hope this intro wasn’t too long but I'm looking forward to meeting some really interesting people here and getting some great feedback and advice on making docs.

Cheers!

Evan Schlossberg

Thanks for coming to the STF screening and welcome to The D-Word, Even. (I will spell your name like this until you get my surname right.) ;-)

Good to have you here, Evan. Congrats on surviving your course with that notoriously ruthless taskmaster, T Powers.

D'oh! Sorry about the typo Mr. Kempas. And yes it was rough suffering under our friend Thom's vicious whip all semester so thanks for the sympathy Doug.

And thank you both for the welcome!

I forgive you. I don't know what it is, people either make me a "Kampas" or "Kempers". But somehow they never make me "Kampers". :-)

or "Happy Kampers"

Hello everyone.. My name is Yixi Villar and my partner and I are looking to fund our documentary, "Life In The Balance" . It highlights the work of two cutting edge doctors and their patients. These doctros are changing the face of cancer treatment in America, they are saving the lives of people who have been sent home to die at the hands of doctors from some of the leading cancer centers in America.   
We are looking to raise $100,000. For a number of the grants out there we need to have a non-profit status, does anyone know of any grants that don't have that criteria?
Please help, Thank you

Yixi, welcome. The traditional workaround is to find a fiscal sponsor, an organization that has non-profit 501(c)3 status that agrees to collect funds you raise in exchange for a percentage that they take for themselves. This allows you to pursue grants that require non-profit status, usually for about 5%-6% of what you raise. There are a number of organization that offer it, include the IDA or Public Media Inc. or IFP New York

Hello out there,

I'm currently living in Shanghai, China and at work on a documentary about cotton and globalization. I'd like to meet any D-word folks and documentary filmmakers who are living/working in Shanghai or nearby provinces (Chinese or expats of all stripes). I'm building up my network here and would like to know more filmmakers, film venues, etc.

Welcome, Laura. I have a good friend (she's Chinese) doing doc work but she's in Beijing, so not sure if that's helpful. If you want to get in touch anyway we can take this to email.

Hi I am a young filmmaker; new on the scene and looking to investigate these types of community sites as an outlet for... anything really. Just want to gain experience and learn from others...