ADVICE, GUIDES & HOW-TOs
Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary (The National Film Board of Canada)
"A journey into documentary filmmaking with some of the world's top directors. What is documentary? Why make them? Where do people get their ideas from?"
How to Write a Transmedia Production Bible (pdf)
"The Transmedia Production Bible is a document that captures key story and design IP elements, rules of engagement, functionality and technical issues across multiple platforms, and provides an overview of the business/marketing plan." A project of Screen Australia.Independent Lens - Inside Indies: Resources
Links to a wide range of resources for the independent filmmaker.Learn from the Pros - A Project of Independent Lens
"How do they do it? Go behind the scenes and get real-life examples from documentary filmmakers. Sit in on conversations between up-and-coming indies and seasoned professionals as they share their personal take on tricks of the trade. From stop-motion animation and using archival footage, to gaining trust and telling personal stories, learn how independents meet creative challenges to get their story told in compelling ways."
Mobile Media Toolkit (a project of MobileActive)"Message in-a-box provides everything you need to make and distribute your own media. This website covers A Strategy for Making Media, Print, Images, Audio, Internet, Video, and Mobiles. Each section includes information, references, links and inspiring case studies that show how the right tools and tactics can be used to make media with impact."
NAPT Producer Handbook"The Mobile Media Toolkit shows you how to record audio, from finding a good recording environment to recording phone calls, editing audio, and listening to and sharing reports with others."
"... serves as a leading resource for media makers in regards to each step of the documentary filmmaking process."
"Video production from A to Z."Production Tips from BBC Video Nation
"... offers a range of tips about different aspects of video making. In each section you will find our Top 5 Tips, short videos from BBC staff and Video Nation contributors, and links for each subject to a range of BBC and other websites offering production advice."
The Toolkit for Filmmakers (The Independent)"...a resource for filmmakers telling non-fiction stories, with an urgent social justice need, across multiple platforms... If you are a filmmaker and find yourself asking (or wanting to scream) "what does transmedia mean anyways?" then this wiki is your opportunity to find out."
Advice on legal issues, production technology, distribution and much more from "the leading source of information for independent, grassroots, and activist media-makers" since 1978.
"... empowering new video makers interested in creative advocacy videos with the skills they need to craft stories that inspire positive change."
"This video series is designed for first time users of video for advocacy, but is also a great refresher for more experienced practitioners. The short videos (ranging in length from 3-5 minutes each) highlight strengths and challenges of using video for human rights advocacy as well as key items to consider before you pick up a camera."
"If you’ve never made a movie before, or if you just need some pointers, the Web offers all kinds of tips to get you started. We’ve collected just a few sites that have information about everything from camera gear to proposal writing to film uploading."
"Take your videos to the next level—get advice from the pros to help you on your way."
LEGAL
PRE-PRODUCTION
"The Center for Social Media showcases and analyzes media for public knowledge and action—media made by, for, and with publics to address the problems that they share."
"Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation."
Electronic Frontier Foundation - Know Your Rights (Whitepaper)
"The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects you from unreasonable government searches and seizures, and this protection extends to your computer and portable devices. But how does this work in the real world?"New Media Rights
"New Media Rights answers questions from the public and takes media inquiries regarding the law and technology."
PRE-PRODUCTION
CeltX
"Designed to help your entire production team work together on a single, easy to share project file - eliminating the confusion of multiple project files, and the need for 'paper and binder'... You can use Celtx for the entire production process - write scripts, storyboard scenes and sequences, sketch setups, develop characters, breakdown & tag elements, schedule productions, and prepare and circulate informative reports for cast and crew."
SUBTITLES"OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more." Screenwriting templates are available as OpenOffice Extensions.
Universal Subtitles
"Created by Miro and the Participatory Culture Foundation, Universal Subtitles is a simple subtitling tool anyone can use. It includes a widget and user-friendly interface for adding captions to any video on almost any site, without the hassle of re-uploading."
"Basic Guidelines for Busy Teachers, Families, and Others Who Shoot Their Own Video by Bill Stark, Described and Captioned Media Program Project Director"
"[At dotSUB] you can view, upload, transcribe and translate any video into any language."Jubler
"[Jubler] ... can be used as an authoring software for new subtitles or as a tool to convert, transform, correct and refine existing subtitles."
EDITING
Avidemux
JayCut"Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs."
Lightworks"JayCut is a... full-featured video editor for the web, comparable to something like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker."
Stroome"... an Academy and Emmy award winning professional-grade editor with over 20 years of history in the film and broadcast industry."
"Participatory video" site that enables collaborative online video editing.
"Combine your video clips, trim the length of your video, add music using AudioSwap, and add transitions between video clips."
WORKING ON FILM: 16MM AND SMALL GAUGE
16mm Directory (a project of 40 Frames)
"16mm Directory is a technical resource directory for supplies and services related to 16mm exhibition. The directory is by no means exhaustive, rather it’s an attempt to collect a large portion of the information available on the internet and catalog it on one site as an information hub."
Includes technical tips and links to small format guides and reference material.
MISCELLANEOUS
The Access Guide to Mobilizing for Digital Freedom
Reference guide to best practices in digital activism covering secure communications, circumvention techniques and much more.
Audacity
"Audacity is a free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems."Blender
"Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems."Call2Action
"It is Call2Action’s mission to become the de facto call-to-action badge. We are dedicated to furthering our partners’ goals through raising awareness, driving engagement, and building community."Change.org - Free Online Petitions
Digital Photography School"Over a million people and organizations are using Change.org’s Online Petition Tools to change laws, influence corporate behavior, and make their communities healthier, safer, and more equitable."
"Founded in 1982, IDA is a non-profit 501(c)(3) that promotes nonfiction filmmakers, and is dedicated to increasing public awareness for the documentary genre... At IDA, we help advocate for, protect and advance the legal rights of documentary filmmakers."
"The Korsakow System is an easy-to-use computer program for the creation of database films. It was invented by Florian Thalhofer, a Berlin-based media artist. Korsakow Films are films with a twist: They are interactive – the viewer has influence on the K-Film."
Guides that provide assistance in using digital technology for oral history research enabling researchers: "to choose a digital recorder and microphone(s) within their budget; to learn about basic digital recording concepts and techniques; and to provide a forum for communicating individual experiences with digital recording technologies."
"Scripto is a light-weight, open source, tool that will allow users to contribute transcriptions to online documentary projects. The tool will include a versioning history and full set of editorial controls, so that project staff [can] manage public contributions."
"This free, open source software allows for the archiving of digital video and audio materials, enabling [researchers] to annotate, analyze, and evaluate materials in their collections."TileMill
"A modern map design studio that lets you design maps for the web using your own data or any publicly available data set."UnionDocs Collaborative
"The UnionDocs Collaborative (UDC) is a one-year program for twelve emerging media producers. It is both a rigorous platform for exploring contemporary approaches to the documentary arts and a process for developing an innovative group project."Ushahidi
Web Made Movies"... a non-profit tech company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping... [Providing] [t]ools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories."
"Mozilla's open video lab... bringing filmmakers and hackers together to explore how modern browser technologies like HTML5 can reshape moving images on the web." Current projects sponsored by Web Made Movies help media producers "bring elements of the web into your videos."YouTube: Create
Partnership site with Stupeflix Video Maker, GoAnimate and Xtranormal Movie Maker that allows users to build content using animation, graphics and images.
"Open-source HTML5 platform for creating interactive documentaries and inventing new forms of storytelling."
