Continuing Education at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University

Making documentary films involves more than just pointing your camera at a subject or recording an event. Your film is a historical document that not only tells the story of your subject but reflects you as an artist, and directing a film means making difficult choices, from initial story concept to first screening.

Documentaries are similar to narrative fiction films in that both are based on a series of tools and techniques. This course will focus on helping participants choose how best to tell their story, design their production, develop their aesthetic, and capture their story on film. Through the screening of selected film clips, readings, in-class instruction, and weekly assignments, students will gain an understanding of the art of directing a documentary while developing the skills they need to fulfill their vision. (16 hours / Beginner/Intermediate)

Randolph Benson is a graduate of Wake Forest University and of the North Carolina School of the Arts’ School of Filmmaking. His film Man and Dog has appeared in film festivals worldwide and has garnered numerous awards, most notably a Gold Medal in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Student Academy Awards. His work has been featured on HBO, Bravo, the Independent Film Channel, numerous public television stations, Canal Plus–France, Telewizja Polska S.A.–Poland, and KBS-Korea. Benson received an Eastman Kodak Excellence in Filmmaking Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a First Appearance Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

Documentarians are storytellers. Engaging audiences means developing strong narratives, clear subjects, and taking the viewer on a journey. This requires understanding the desires of a modern documentary audience and the structural tools that can help meet those needs. In this class, learn how three-act, Hollywood-style narrative structure may be applied to documentaries for maximum impact, and dissect film clips for the structure’s elements. Discover its application to your work, uncovering how to produce more resonant, more entertaining, and ultimately more memorable documentaries. Learn how structure helps you deliver more commercially viable documentaries, as well as how it can inform production concerns like budgets, timelines, and physical resources. Added value may be gained in pairing this course with Writing the Documentary Script. (6 hours / All levels)

Josh Dasal is an Emmy-winning film and television director-producer-writer, video marketer, and co-producer of the podcast, ArtCurious. He has created/consulted for outlets like Discovery Channel, PBS, Sony Screen Gems, and director Wes Craven, as well as producing content for businesses like IBM, ADP, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. He began teaching at the Center for Documentary Studies in 2010, and served as an instructor at UNC-Chapel Hill and Missouri State University. Josh holds a master’s degree from the University of Southern California School of Cinema-TV in screenwriting, and his work has screened at venues including the Mann Theatres on Hollywood Boulevard and the Director’s Guild. He is the founder of Kaboonki, a video and podcast production firm.

This intensive course offers an overview of the essentials of a business plan, specifically, the major components of a plan for a startup film-production business. With the instructor’s help, students will work in small teams to draft a business plan for a production company. The goal of the course is to give students a step-by-step introduction to the process of researching and thinking about the business in a structured way. (6 hours / All levels)

Naz is a filmmaker and an educator with over fourteen years of experience in film and media production. She has produced short films and documentaries for public television, nonprofit institutes, and corporate media. She had her first teaching experience when she was a graduate student in media arts at the University of Arizona. Since then, Naz has organized and taught digital storytelling and video production workshops for minority youth and community members. More recently, she taught film production, storytelling, and theory courses at the Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham where she was the lead faculty in the Digital Film and Video Production Program. She is currently editing her documentary, a story of loss and grief, and working on an animation script. Naz lives in Durham, collaborates with local and international filmmakers, serves in various capacities for local nonprofit organizations, and bakes lots of cookies around the holidays.

The Audio, Photography, and Video Projects courses provide documentary artists the opportunity to work with award-winning professionals in small group settings. Each term, CDS invites three established artists to teach the Projects courses, which are designed for individuals who are working on projects in a particular medium and seeking creative guidance. The courses are designed around the specific needs of participants, who share excerpts from their works-in-progress.

Students may take the course for credit more than once. Certificate students are required to take a Projects course in their chosen concentration before enrolling in the Final Project Seminar; in this case, the objective is to emerge with a nearly finished version of their project, ready for a final polish. (12 hours / Advanced)

Jim Haverkamp is an award-winning filmmaker and editor based in Durham, North Carolina. His credits include the short films When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl, It Had Wings, and Armor of God. He has also worked as an editor on several feature documentaries, including Monster Road, Doubletime, and Rarefied. Jim has served on the selection committee and awards juries of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and he is co-organizer of Durham’s Strange Beauty Film Festival.