For many reality TV, news, and documentary filmmakers, you’ll often go out into the field as both a camera operator as well as the story producer. How do you juggle both of these tasks, being a producer-shooter, while also staying safe in unpredictable environments, and come away with excellent cinematography as well as a thrilling story? In this module from Graham Sheldon’s Producing from the Front course on MZed (we reported about it here), we hear from Benji Lanpher, an Emmy-award winning filmmaker known for his work on National Geographic’s “Life Below Zero,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” and his riveting documentary films for Vice on HBO. Why work as a producer-shooter over a large crew? In the Producing from the Front course, Graham and his interview subjects guide you through the many facets of the work of a producer. For the most part, he talks about scripted content – short films, features, and TV series. But in this lesson he dives into the work of a doc producer-shooter. As a producer-shooter, the main guiding force is the ability to pre-plan while being able to pivot on the fly. That is one of the main reasons why producer-shooters are hired in the first place – their ability to quickly adapt while getting close to subjects, which means that they can be embedded into the story more easily. A small crew can chase the story, move quickly from location to location, and help make the subject feel more comfortable. A...
Published By: CineD - Thursday, 4 November, 2021