I started Down and Dirty DV as a way to share my little bit of guerrilla knowledge and insight with those who are walking the same filmmaking path I began almost 20 years ago. I've discovered along the way that moreso than filmmaking even, I really enjoy teaching, inspiring and encouraging others to make the films in their head.As I wrote in the introduction to The Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide, I believe in it's best form documentary has the power to change the world, not necessarily in big sweeping ways, but in a thousand little but very real ways- one-person at a time. (The only way anything ever really changes in society.) I believe this is doubly true of teaching and I often get emails from former workshop students and readers that affirm this idea.
Most recently I got an email from new filmmaker, Susan Shaw, who attended an all-day series of workshops sponsored by Panasonic that I gave along with DP/camera guru, Bernie Mitchell, at the B&H Event Space. Unbeknownst to me, that day changed her life.
In the space of less than a year, Susan went from never having made a film to directing her first short, an experimental documentary entitled Michael's Snow, getting it on the big screen at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival ...And to top it all off she just received an artist's residence in Vermont to work on her next two films.
Most humbling to me though, she credits the info she received at that day of seminars, as well as what she learned in The Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide and on this blog with educating and inspiring her to make that first film - and now two more. Her case-study is the very definition of what I mean when I say "Shut Up and Shoot".
Read Susan Shaw's full blog post about that fateful day in her own words HERE.
If you want to see for yourself what got Susan so fired up to go out and make films, every seminar I gave that day at the B&H Superstore Event Space is now available with expanded content in the new deluxe 6-DVD Set of Indie Film Bootcamp, plus this set includes 3 more seminars from my fellow indie filmmakers, Pete Chatmon and Benjamin Ahr Harrison.
I try to not just offer straight filmmaking instruction, but go out of my way to give you the inspiration and practical filmmaking wisdom that you also need to ultimately succeed. And yes, it is possible that at the very best it could just end up changing your life...
You wouldn't be the first.
*If you have a story of how any of Down and Dirty DV's workshops, podcasts, or other products have helped you, I'd love to hear from you too. Drop me a line here.
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