Quebec Writers' Federation Workshops

Fall Session 2011

THE ART OF WRITING FOR DOCUMENTARY: FROM IDEA TO PROPOSAL

Eight Tuesdays, 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. (October 4th to November 29 – no meeting Nov. 15)

1200 Atwater Avenue, Suite 3
Workshop leaders: Pepita Ferrari
Workshop fee: $175; $155 for QWF members.
For more information, or to register: 514-933-0878 or julia@qwf.org

This workshop will address any combination of the three following scenarios: A) You have a great idea and you want to make a documentary film, you just don’t know how to put it down on paper. B) You’ve got a great story for a documentary and you’ve put some ideas down on paper but it’s not doing a good job of conveying what is in your head. C) You know how to write but you’re not too sure what exactly you need to write to access potential producers and funders for your project. 

From honing your idea, to reducing it to a snappy, gripping synopsis, to elaborating it in all its glory as a full-blown written documentary treatment – the aim is to give you the tools to be able to write a solid documentary proposal.

Participants in this workshop should have some minimal experience in documentary filmmaking, or at least a serious intention or motivation to make one, since the workshop will be very result-oriented. You should have a specific idea or concept in mind that you would like to work on throughout the workshop and be prepared to do writing assignments each week to present to the group.

Prior to beginning the workshop participants are encouraged to visit the website for Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, which can be found at films.nfb.ca/capturing-reality, and screen the excerpts for the first three chapters:  Getting Started, Exploring the Genre and Planning and Preparation. The ideas expressed here and in the first part of the documentary itself (available through most rental facilities) will provide a springboard for beginning this workshop.

The session will begin with analyzing documentary ideas, identifying different types of documentary and the point of view from which the story needs to be told. Each week will address a different element of a documentary treatment or script and understanding the kind of language each of them requires.  Feedback will be given on a weekly basis providing that writing assignments are submitted as requested.

Pepita Ferrari directed Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, a National Film Board production, for which she had the pleasure and honour of interviewing almost forty internationally known documentary directors – including Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, Alanis Obomsawin, Albert Maysles, Nettie Wild and Kim Longinotto – about their filmmaking process. She has worked as an independent writer, director and producer in the documentary field for the past twenty years. Well known as a consultant, festival jurist and project analyst for documentary, she is also an executive at both the Quebec and the national level of the Documentary Organization of Canada. Pepita has given documentary workshops and master classes at teaching institutions in Canada, the U.S. and South Africa.

 

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