I've been in video production for over ten years now. I've worked on thousands of videos, whether in news, promos, corporate, etc. All of my projects to date have been short form videos. Well, now I'm starting to work on a feature length documentary. I'm just in the development phase right now. But I'm curious if any of you have ever worked on a longer form project. Do you have any tips on how to manage a video project of this size?
Might be a good idea to ask Philip to write up a blog post he's done a lot of documentaries. I would tweet him he seems to read those a lot.
I have worked both short and long form. I rely on this: http://www.junglesoftware.com/products/gorilla_features.php?cat=15 No, I have no association to them. Just a decent product that gets the job done.
I just got back from shooting a feature doc in the US. We did our budget on Google Docs. Worked a treat. My producer and I could both update it from any computer anywhere and put in expenses pretty much as they happened. It's a great tool when you're shooting on the road in unpredictable circumstances, as was the GPS on my phone. Otherwise, it's hard to give you much advice without knowing more specific details of your project. Are you looking for production tips only or creative advice also?
I'm going to be shooting bits and pieces over the next year. Various trips, many of them here in the US... But possibly some overseas trips as well to the UK, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand. That's the goal... So I'm going to have a lot of footage shot over a long span of time. What I'm concerned the most about is keeping track of it all and staying organized. I just got my CS6 upgrade, so I'm looking into Prelude. Curious if I can use a decent metadata entry workflow to keep track of it all. I'm used to short projects, and on those projects it's easy for me to keep all my assets well-organized. I use a file structure that I learned on Andrew Kramer's VideoCopilot website. For each project, my file structure looks like this: - Assets - Audio - Footage - GX - Projects - Deliverables - Proxies This works when my assets are only used for one project. But I'll be using my assets for the documentary on other projects as well. So I guess what I'm looking for is advice on how to keep all your assets well-organized on a large project...
Hey Kevin, I cannot give you really any tips such that I as well have only managed short docs; however, we both live in the same state and so I would be interested in helping out any if you travel down near Lafayette area.
Just like kevin , i also start with small video clips of 3 - 4 minutes. I was under my 20's so i have opportunity to brush up my filming skills , for this i decided to study abroad in Australia , while studying filming there i also made sponsored travel video and this earned me enough for my expenses.
