How To Make a Documentary

How To Make a Documentary Review

The Documentary on How to Make a Documentary
(or feature film or music video or epic home movie)

How to Make a Documentary is a unique approach to showing the film industry secrets of making a professional looking film. If you have ever had that inner desire to take that idea in your head and turn it into a production worthy of Discovery Channel or NatGeo, then start here FIRST. Using comedy narration along with motivational inspiration, you will journey into a simplified yet realistic approach to planning, shooting and eventually completing any film or video production. This is the video to use as a tool again and again to really help you decide if you are up for the challenge and how to make it happen without driving you, your family or anyone else crazy or into the poor house.

If you ever considered reading a "How To" book on filmmaking, then this is the DVD for you. Within its twenty chapters are real nuggets of industry knowledge to really refine your thoughts and ideas to successfully make a film. With on location interviews, comedic animations and sound advice, anyone watching this DVD, young or old, amateur, or pro, will certainly learn more about making your OWN film in a way that can help bring success.

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

Sicko (Special Edition)

Sicko (Special Edition) Review

Sicko (Special Edition) Feature

• Following on the heels of his Palm d'Or winning Fahrenheit 9/11 and his Oscar winning film Bowling for Columbine, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Moore's new documentary sets out to investigate the American healthcare system. Sticking to his tried-and-true one-man approach, Moore sheds light on the complicated medical affairs of individuals and local communities. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:

SiCKO is more like a controlled howl of protest than a documentary. Toning down the rhetoric of past efforts--no CEOs, congressmen, or celebrities were accosted in the making of this film--Michael Moore's latest provocation is just as heartfelt, if not more heartbreaking. As he clarifies from the outset, his subject isn't the 45 million Americans without insurance, but those whose coverage has failed to meet their needs. He starts by speaking with patients who've been denied life-saving procedures, like chemotherapy, for the most spurious of reasons. Then he travels to Canada, England, and France to see if socialized medicine is as inefficient as U.S. politicians like to claim--especially those who receive funding from pharmaceutical companies. Moore finds quality care available to all, regardless as to income. He concludes with a stunt that made headlines when he assembles a group of 9/11 rescue workers suffering from a variety of afflictions. When Moore is informed that detainees at Guantánamo Bay--technically American soil--qualify for universal coverage, he and his companions travel to Cuba to get in on that action. It's a typically grandstanding move on Moore's part. And it proves remarkably effective when these altruistic individuals, who've either been denied treatment or forced to pay outrageous costs for their medication, experience a dramatically different system. Nine years in the making, SiCKO makes a persuasive case that it's time for America to catch up with the rest of the world. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Following on the heels of his Palm d'Or winning Fahrenheit 9/11 and his Oscar winning film Bowling for Columbine, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Moore's new documentary sets out to investigate the American healthcare system. Sticking to his tried-and-true one-man approach, Moore sheds light on the complicated medical affairs of individuals and local communities.

In the Shadow of the Moon

In the Shadow of the Moon Review

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON is an intimate epic, which vividly communicates the daring and the danger, the pride and the passion, of this extraordinary era in American history. Between 1968 and 1972, the world watched in awe each time an American spacecraft voyaged to the Moon. Only 12 American men walked upon its surface and they remain the only human beings to have stood on another world. Now for the first, and very possibly the last, time, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON combines archival material from the original NASA film footage, much of it never before seen, with interviews with the surviving astronauts, including Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 and 13), Dave Scott (Apollo 9 and 15), John Young (Apollo 10 and 16), Gene Cernan (Apollo 10 and 17), Mike Collins (Apollo 11), Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11), Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17). The astronauts emerge as eloquent, witty, emotional and very human.

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts Review

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts Feature

• One year after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, director Spike Lee presents a four-hour, four-part chronicle recounting, through words and images, one of our country's most profound natural disasters. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the arrival of Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane before it hit the coast of Louisiana, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts tells the

Director Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke is the definitive document of the unmitigated disaster that was, and is, Hurricane Katrina. It's also a contemporary manifestation of an ancient tradition: an oral history, told by the people who lived it, with no narration and only the occasional use of archival cable and broadcast news footage in addition to Lee's own film. And a grim tale it is, an "American tragedy" subtitled "a Requiem in Four Acts," each of them about an hour long ("Act V," appearing on the third of the set's three discs, is a lengthy epilogue with new material not included in the original HBO broadcast) and focusing almost exclusively on New Orleans, as opposed to the Gulf Coast region in general.

Act I sets the scene; as the hurricane nears the Crescent City, some residents leave town, while others stay behind, figuring they'll just ride the storm out (Mayor Ray Nagin's "mandatory evacuation" order rings fairly hollow, as there's no public transportation provided for the many who don't own vehicles and thus couldn't get out even if they wanted to). The real problems begin after Katrina makes landfall on August 29, 2005. Displaced New Orleaneans crowd into the Superdome, soon to become a living hell for those stuck there; the incredibly poorly engineered levees break, flooding some 80 percent of the city; and people start dying by the hundreds, victims of drowning, lack of food, water, and medicine, and other causes. And so it goes. Act II finds the survivors struggling to keep it together while the federal, state, and local assistance they've been promised fails to show up; Act III traces the dispersal of these so-called "refugees" (as one man puts it, "Refugees? You mean they took away our citizenship, too?") all over the country, not knowing where their families, friends, and neighbors are, or even if they're still alive; and Act IV deals with the slow rebuilding of the city while insurance companies refuse to pay claims and money keeps going toward the Iraq war effort instead.

Several themes predominate here. One, of course, is the appalling performance of authorities on nearly every level, who ignored specific warnings about the levees and then professed ignorance after the fact; Lee doesn't have to go out of his way to make George W. Bush, FEMA chief Michael Brown, and other members of the Bush administration (not to mention his own mother) look bad, as they do an excellent job of that themselves. Another is the shameful ineptitude of the response; it's hard not to be disgusted when it's pointed out more than once that while we were able to provide supplies and assistance to Indonesians within two days of the 2004 tsunami, American citizens were virtually ignored for five days or more. Most of all, When the Levees Broke (which includes optional commentary by Lee for all four acts) leaves us feeling the sheer rage of the poor and dispossessed of New Orleans, where the population is 70 percent African-American. Confronted with the ignorance, arrogance, and callousness of the people whose job it was to protect them, they can point to just one cause: racism. --Sam Graham One year after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, director Spike Lee presents a four-hour, four-part chronicle recounting, through words and images, one of our country?s most profound natural disasters. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the arrival of Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane before it hit the coast of Louisiana, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts tells the personal stories of those who lived to tell about it, at the same time exploring the underbelly of a nation where the divide along race and class lines has never been more pronounced.

Life

Life Review

Four years in the making, filmed over 3000 days, across every continentand in every habitat, Life is the latest wildlife blockbuster from the BBC’s award-winning Natural History Unit, the producers of Planet Earth and The Blue Planet. Packed with excitement, revelation, entertainment, and stunning screen firsts, this breathtaking ten-part epic presents 130incredible stories from the frontiers of the natural world. Discover theglorious variety of life onEarth and the spectacular and extraordinary tactics animals and plants have developed to stay alive. This is evolution in action; individual creatures under extreme pressure to overcome challenges from adversaries and their environment, pushing the boundaries of behavior.

Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary

Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary Review

FEATURE: Approx 90 minutes
BONUS DISK: Approx 4 hours

From cinema-verite pioneers Albert Maysles and Joan Churchill to maverick moviemakers like Errol Morris, Werner Herzog and Nick Broomfield, some of the doc world's brightest lights reflect upon the unique power of the genre in CAPTURING REALITY: THE ART OF DOCUMENTARY.

Featuring intimate interviews with 38 directors and 163 film clips from classics such as Grey Gardens and The Thin Blue Line, as well as arresting recent work such as Darwin's Nightmare, Touching the Void and One Day in September, Capturing Reality offers insight into myriad aspects of the complex creative process. Deftly charting the documentarian's journey, director Pepita Ferrari fashions this kaleidoscopic mix into her own engaging narrative, while probing the perennially contested status of the 'truth.' Can film capture reality?

Featuring 38 Legendary Filmmakers including: WERNER HERZOG, ERROL MORRIS, KEVIN MACDONALD, HEDDY HONIGMANN, NICK BROOMFIELD, ALBERT MAYSLES, PATRICIO GUZMAN, LAURA POITRAS, JENNIFER BAICHWAL, JOAN CHURCHILL, ALANIS OBOMSAWIN, JENNIFER FOX, SCOTT HICKS, HUBERT SAUPER, SABIHA SUMAR, PETER WINTONICK, JESSICA YU and many more!

WWII in HD (DVD)

WWII in HD (DVD) Review

WWII in HD (DVD) Feature

• Seventy years in the making. Three thousand hours of color footage no one knew existed. The first documentary to show World War II from the perspective of both sides in full, immersive HD color, the world premiere HISTORY series WWII In HD uses the diaries of soldiers who fought in the war s biggest battles to create a personal, introspective and detailed look at life on and of the front lines.Wha

At first glance, the very concept of WWII in HD seems like an oxymoron. After all, isn't the footage from back then nothing more than grainy black-and-white newsreel? And really, how much definition can be added to film that was shot more than 60 years ago? The answers: no, and quite a lot, actually. The quality of much of what is seen in the course of these 10 episodes (each around 45 minutes long) is surprisingly good. Add to that the fact that most of it is in color (not colorized, but originally recorded in that medium, some at the behest of the United States government), and the result is nothing short of astonishing. It's not easy viewing; there are sequences that are shockingly graphic (vivid examples include the carnage on view after major battles and the shots of Japanese civilians on the Pacific island of Saipan hurling themselves off cliffs to avoid capture by American troops). But all of it has been put to good use in what is undoubtedly one of the most compelling accounts of World War II ever produced.

Other documentaries have chronicled the same events seen here, from the earliest days of the war (when Hitler was overrunning Europe and the ill-prepared Americans were still years away from becoming involved), through Pearl Harbor, the major confrontations with the Japanese in the Pacific theater (like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the incomparably bloody Iwo Jima) and with the Germans in Europe and North Africa (the invasion of Tunisia, D-day, the Battle of the Bulge), and straight on to victory in Europe and finally the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But what separates WWII in HD is the filmmakers' decision to view these events through the experiences of a dozen individuals who were actually there, including a couple of war correspondents (one of whom, Richard Tregaskis, was the author of the seminal Guadalcanal Diary); an Austrian immigrant who escaped the Nazis and almost immediately enlisted in the U.S. Army; a nurse with General George Patton's Third Army; an African-American pilot who was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen; a Japanese-American medic who fought heroically while his family was held in an internment camp; and others from the rank and file. All of them are voiced by such actors as Rob Lowe, Amy Smart, Steve Zahn, Josh Lucas, and LL Cool J; and with Gary Sinise providing voice-over narration, the whole piece comes off as a dramatic film as much as a straight documentary (an effect also enhanced by some brilliantly creative juxtapositions of words, images, and music). Not all of these men and women made it through the war (those still alive also appear in on-camera interviews), but none could ever forget the horrors they witnessed, and while those of us who did not serve will never really comprehend the sacrifices they made, this remarkable program may be as close as we can get. --Sam Graham

Stills from WWII in HD (Click for larger image)

The only people to see the war like this were the ones who lived it. Until now…

Seventy years in the making. Three thousand hours of color footage no one knew existed. The first documentary to show World War II from the perspective of both sides in full, immersive HD color, the world premiere HISTORY series WWII in HD uses the diaries of soldiers who fought in the war’s biggest battles to create a personal, introspective and detailed look at life on and off the front lines. Though it was illegal for U.S. soldiers to carry diaries, many hid them away in their packs and recorded their experiences in detail.

Now, through the use of these diaries and other source documents, as well as HD color and on-location shooting around the world, WWII in HD transforms their journey into a tangible piece of history. Culled from rare color archival footage from an exhaustive worldwide search and converted to HD with meticulous technique, WWII in HD provides a picture of World War II as it has never been seen before.