Hao Wu is an award-winning documentary filmmaker born and raised in China. His most recent film,  76 Days, documents Wuhan’s COVID-19 outbreak. The film is shot completely vérité with no interviews, and gives viewers a first-hand account of Covid's impact through the stories of healthcare workers, patients, and their families.

Hao directed the film remotely in the U.S. while his co-directors Weixi Chen (Esquire China) and a second reporter who wished to remain anonymous filmed inside four of the city's hospitals.

In this episode Hao talks about his experience directing a film remotely, why he chose to make the film completely vérité, and the challenges he faced in completing the project.

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Geeta Gandbhir is a documentary director, producer, and editor who has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and has won two.  As editor, she won a Primetime Emmy for Best Editing for Spike Lee's HBO documentary series When the Levees Broke and also for the HBO film By The People, The Election of Barack Obama.

Her short film Call Center Blues, about US deportees and their loved ones struggling to rebuild their lives in Tijuana, was shortlisted for the 2021 Academy Awards

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Jeremy Workman is a documentary filmmaker and founder of Wheelhouse Creative, a company that makes trailers for narrative films and documentaries. In this interview, Jennie and Jeremy discuss the three acts of a trailer, why trailers are so important, what makes an effective trailer, and why trailers for docs can often be more challenging than for narrative films.

Links from the interview:

Lily Topples the World (new documentary premiering at SXSW)

The World Before Your Feet

Coded Bias trailer

Gatekeepers trailer

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Emily Strong is an NYC-based documentary filmmaker and freelance location sound mixer. She's contributed to Taylor Swift: Miss Americana and New York Times the Weekly, and was just listed in Doc NYC's 40 under 40. Her newest project, We Are the Brooklyn Saints, debuts on Netflix in January 2021.

In this episode, Emily talks about how she came up in the sound world, why sound is so important in documentaries, and how first-time doc filmmakers can achieve great sound.

Emily recommends:

Production Sound Mixing: The Art and Craft of Sound Recording for the Moving Image

The Location Sound Bible

The Freelance Manifesto: A Field Guide for the Modern Motion Designer 

Location Sound Podcast

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Emily Strong on Instagram
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Emily can be reached at [email protected]

Uptin Saiidi was a multimedia journalist for CNBC for 7 years based in Singapore and Hong Kong. His videos about business and tech like this one about Singapore's Airport and this one about 'digital nomads' have received millions of views on Facebook alone. Uptin recently left CNBC and moved to LA to develop his own channels. His family is from Iran and he grew up in Reno.

In this episode, Uptin shares why he thinks some videos go viral on social media, how legacy media companies should pivot to digital, and why he left his job at CNBC to go freelance.

You can find Uptin on Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.

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Julie Cohen is a documentary filmmaker and television news producer. Most recently, she directed and produced RBG about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, along with Columbia J school professor Betsy West. Cohen is now directing the upcoming documentary Julia about chef and TV personality Julia Child.

Before she was a documentary filmmaker, Cohen  was staff producer at Dateline NBC, where she was nominated for four national Emmy Awards and won the Individual Achievement Award for Best News Producer from American Women in Radio and Television (Gracie Award).

In this episode, Cohen talks about how working in  broadcast news made her a better doc filmmaker, her approach to archival footage, and how she was able the compelling opening montage of RBG.


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Director Nick Bruckman and Producer Amanda Roddy talk about their upcoming film, Not Going Quietly. The film follows activist Ady Barkan as he travels the country fighting for healthcare reform. Over the course of the film, Ady's health deteriorates due to ALS, a deadly disease he was diagnosed with in 2016. Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, and Bradley Whitford serve as executive producers, and a clip of the film screened at the DNC.

When they're not working on Not Going Quietly, Nick and Amanda make videos and digital campaigns for companies and non-profits at People's Television.

In this episode, Nick, Amanda, and Jennie discuss commercial work vs. doc filmmaking, how they were able to capture such private moments related to Ady's declining health, and getting the Duplass brothers on board as executive producers.

Not Going Quietly on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
Nick Bruckman on Instagram

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How do you get funding for your film before you have anything to show? In this episode, Jennie sits down with Co-founders Lisa Kleiner Chanoff and Bonni Cohen, and Senior Program Director Megan Gelstein of Catapult Film Fund, which provides development funding to help story-driven and cinematic documentary films get off the ground.

Catapult Film Fund gives early support to propel projects forward that hold the promise of a story that should be uniquely told in film. It provides development funding, up to $20,000, to documentary filmmakers who have a strong story to tell, have secured access, and are ready to create a fundraising piece to help unlock critical production funding. It also enables filmmakers to develop their projects to the next level, at the early stage when funding is hard to find. The Fund supports powerful and moving storytelling, by filmmakers with a strong voice across a broad spectrum of subject matter.

Apply and learn more at catapultfilmfund.org

Also check out Catapult's annual Rough Cut retreat.

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Sven Pape is a documentary and narrative film editor. His YouTube channel This Guy Edits is a collection of doc and narrative editing lessons. It has amassed tens of millions of views since launching in 2016.

Check out his editing course here: https://thegotoeditor.com

https://www.roughcutpodcast.com/

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Marco Williams is a documentary filmmaker and professor of film production at Northwestern University. His films—which center around race, injustice, and American history—have received numerous awards, including the Gotham Documentary Achievement Award and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Marco has also been nominated three times for the Sundance Film Festival grand jury prize.

My films are about America; about whom we have been; who we are; who we aspire to be. I have committed myself to creating a record of America by trying to deal with the topics that challenge our sense of who we are and our sense of justice, but more importantly, to make films that will have sustained impact...I try to tell the stories we’d rather not tell. - Marco Williams

https://www.roughcutpodcast.com/

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Thanks Handale Hsu for mixing this episode.