Mike Dodds – Frontline Club

Cinematography Saturday course

Charlotte Cook — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0000

This one day course will look at the methods to create the best cinematography for factual filming. You will learn a diverse range of considerations and techniques to improve the visual quality of your work. The course is divided into theory and practical learning to understand the concepts behind creating stunning footage through the understanding of cinematography theory and practice.

Morning:

Cinematography theory
Composition and framing
Focus, field of view and depth of field
Rule of thirds and the Golden Rule
Shooting techniques in controlled and uncontrolled environments

Afternoon:

Practical demonstration
Film grammar
Creating cutaways, sequences and narrative framing
Setting up a variety of shots
Moving with the camera
Utlising natural and available lighting.

Saturday 13th August, 10am-5pm

Course Leader:

Mike Dodds has shot over 200 documentaries for the late current affairs series ‘World in Action’, ITN’s ‘This Week’, and documentaries for CBS, ABC and NBC. His media awards include: Royal Television Society (twice) and an Emmy in the US

Interview techniques for Documentary Saturday course

Charlotte Cook — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Politicians and Industry leaders are these days usually well briefed by their PR teams and by specialised behavioural courses in how to conduct an interview with the media. Most audio media journalists working in this area also have learned how prepare and conduct an interview to illicit clear and specific answers to questions of public interest. It can be a cat and mouse game – a testing of egos and reputations which can sometimes betray the primary role of the interviewer/interviewee relationship.

This course will look at the ways that on-camera interviews can be conducted not only in high profile situations as mentioned above but in cases where both interviewer and interviewee have little experience.

Course Leader:

Mike Dodds has worked behind the camera with a great number of interviewers in documentary and current affairs programmes: John Pilger, David Frost and Mike Wallace to name a few.

Saturday 30th July 10am-6pm

Newsgathering and Production Weekend Course

Charlotte Cook — Sat, 22 May 2010 10:00:00 +0000

This course will run over 2 weekends – May 22nd-23rd and 29th-30th 2010

Suitable for all those wishing to embrace the fundamentals of documentary and newsgathering production capabilities in broadcast television, corporate promotions and Web publication.

Multimedia researchers
Print Journalists
NGO’s
Corporate PR’s – and all those wishing to enter the video production sector.

This 4 day course over 2 weekends will introduce the basics for producing documentary and newsgathering programming and promotional information videos.

The first weekend will cover: industry standard research, writing and pitching techniques; UK broadcasting guidelines on sex, race, violence and the interpretation of the terms; interview techniques including cut aways, ‘crossing the line’, ‘noddies’; covert filming: uses and abuses and legal issues; legal requirements when shooting in public and private places; permits, release forms and other considerations; insurance issues: public liability; personal insurance etc… ; copyright protection; ownership of materials and developing relationship between all those involved behind and in front of the camera. You will also learn how to prepare an industry standard production budget, a production and post-production schedule.

During the intervening week, in your own time, you will be required, working in teams of 2 – 3, to research a 5 – 10 minute production idea of your choice, write a production treatment, prepare a production budget, a production schedule and a verbal ‘pitch’.

The second weekend you will ‘pitch’ (a verbal presentation) to the tutor and, as is common practice, must be prepared to justify your idea verbally towards an objective and coherent production. You will be able to finish or otherwise modify your treatment, budget and schedule after which your written treatments will then be evaluated along with your budgets and schedule details. Your submissions will be evaluated by your tutor along with staff members of the Frontline Club. There will be no grades awarded but your treatments and the clubs’ evaluations may be published on the Frontline web site. You will also be provided with a certificate from the Club stating that you have completed the course successfully and references can be provided in the event of a job interview.

Tutor: Mike Dodds.

Experienced documentary filmmaker; first as a DOP on current affairs series ‘World in Action’, ‘This Week’ and ‘Panorama’ in the UK and ‘60 minutes’ for CBS and arts programmes for WNET in the USA; later a director of an independent production company functioning as director/producer or executive producer for some 40 hours of programming for Channel Four and the BBC in the UK. Awards include: RTS, EMMY, and Prix Italia. Past teaching experience: European Film College in Denmark; Westminster University; Thames Valley University and the NFTS.