Activity Details (ID# 20592)

Activity Synopsis

This five day workshop was discussed and organized for NTU, after their request expressed on 20 August 2007. It was developed by Nathalie Labourdette and the 2 trainers. It was delivered by Marion Creely, RTE, EBU executive producer, head of Documentary and Marijke Rawie, ExpertDocs, Netherlands, former AVRO head of Documentary for participants from NTU in Kiev for 2 successive groups of NTU professionals.

The objective was to give Participants a good understanding of the various elements that make a good Documentary and an improved understanding of storytelling.
 

Participants were very pleased, as noted at the end of the workshop by Nathalie Labourdette:
''It was very interesting to learn new genres of Documentary, modern European documentaries.''
''It was very exciting to compare documentaries and fun to see other styles of Documentaries. Here in Ukraine we do not use natural sound. ''
''It was very valuable, professionally. We are competitors of the world. It was nice to listen and discuss together. It was very useful. All the presentations and expertise were valuable and meaningful.''
''The content was plausible. There are different faces of development. NTU need to fill the gap. Thank you for the competence. It was a fresh look at routines.

They liked the methods which helped to strengthen the newly created NTU Documentaries department
''Practical, new techniques '' ''It allowed us to get to know each other better. It instilled new ideas, optimism and confidence.'''' It helped to break stereotypes.''

Recommendations
- Information is needed about the documentary world outside the Ukraine
- Documentary training sessions to find new ways of storytelling, and to make connections with the international documentary world.
- Further training still needed, both for production staff and for their managers.
- Training could cover resources management and planning, scheduling techniques and theories as well as further training in the area of making documentaries in the ‘fly-on-the-wall’ doc style.
- This training might also take the form of ‘executive coaching’. Executive coaching offers detailed one-on-one assistance to the management team charged with setting up the new system.
- Executive coaching could also be useful in helping a new team trying to set up a new documentary style such as ‘fly on the wall’. This could take place on a one-off basis to get teams successfully started on this new area of production.
Finally, it must be said that the new department can have a major role to play in documenting the changes taking place in the new Ukraine and in furthering the cause of Ukrainian democracy.
For more details, see the report.
 

We delivered twice a two-and-a-half day workshop comprising of five modules: Formats and genres for Documentary, The new trends in Documentary, International co production market, Storytelling Treatment, Framing the perfect interview & Actual shooting practise, Watching together , Conclusion & evaluation.




The organization of this workshop was excellent. All people were very well selected comprising all production people - from music composers to film director -. They stayed for the entire duration of the workshop. There were many young and willing people with good ideas. We noted great story telling talent, which should not only be used for traditionally made documentaries.
NTU management supported fully our workshop and we had an excellent debrief with them. see also the thanking letter NTU sent to us.
 

NTU's employees who work for the Documentaries and Feature film Department.
Film directors and editors.