Advice: My film crew just got busted in LaGuardia airport for having a lot of 100 volt batteries - it turns out you can have only 2 big spare batteries per person. Luckily, we were a big party and were able to carry the batteries with us, but apparently FAA is getting stricter with the camera gear on flights. ✈️🎥‼️

Insightful article from Hollywood Reporter! Yes, it's about fiction and Hollywood rates, but some salaries, such as editors', are very useful to know for documentary filmmakers, too: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/hollywood-salaries-revealed-ceo-actor-writer-editor-2024/ceo-2/?utm_source=newsletter.readthedailies.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=untapped-indie-streaming&_bhlid=f1e12defed5735b86be08950062fb672bc867721

In documentary - what topics would you like to talk about and learn about? 🎥 - Gear - Understanding story - Ideas, ideation, writers' block - Research - What to know for Pre-production - How-to make docs from scratch - Interviewing - Documentary market today - Editing - How to find a crew - Mental tools for filmmakers - Festivals - How to put films out there - How to finance films - Distribution - How to get to the networks/streamers Or something else? Let us know in the comments 🥰

Have you seen MARTHA, a documentary on Martha Stewart, yet (it's on Netflix)? It's a good case study on how to tell a biopic: centering on one person, filmmakers choosing specific life events as challenges to build a story upon, and for it to act as film structure markers. Then the director weaves story with its beats: funny - serious - sad - fun, and so forth. There's a rhythm to it, besides telling someone's life story. There are moments that foreshadow what will happen next, building anticipation, like the "Perfect perfect perfect" moment, and boyfriend-jail moment. On top of that, for the film like this, you have heaps of archival to work with: imagine fun and a challenge to dig through all of it. Every film has their archival list in the credits, so you can see where they sorted their archive images from, personal sources, etc. Archival is what really builds Martha's life to us, audiences. The personal photos, those not seen by the public, are of course the most exciting ones, when you tell a story of a famous person. How images are presented - with a flip book feel - help us feel as if we are flipping through old photo books and magazines that Martha was part of. Note that when the filmmakers didn't have archival to fall upon to illustrate the story, they used animation, like in court and jail scenes. Also note that sometimes filmmakers used candid, behind the scene moments and times that should not haev been filmed, to show a more authentic, off the cuff side of Martha. Those are all techniques one can use to help audience understand the character more. Watch it with an analyzing eye, and you will learn a lot of how you can tell a personal story of a person that becomes universal, approachable to all of us. What are your thoughts about it?

David Lynch famously shared his formula on creating a movie: it’s just 70 scenes, strung out. I use this strategy utilizing Post-It notes to gauge where in the process I am, for documentaries I am developing: writing a possible scene (an action on screen, or an explanation of a concept by multiple experts) on separate notes, and shuffling them around. Online programs like Miro work great for this too. The second picture I’m attaching shows my current kitchen wall with a film birthing. Definitely not 70 scenes yet! What do you think - is David right? Is it too easy? Too many scenes? How would you do it?