continuing education information session with april walton
Monday, February 8, 6–8 p.m.
Center for Documentary Studies
Prospective and current students welcome! Come and ask questions about courses at CDS, meet instructors, and learn about the Certificate in Documentary Arts. Please register on-line for this free session at www.cdscourses.org. For additional information, contact Continuing Education at the Center for Documentary Studies: 919-660-3663 or cdscourses@duke.edu.
read below for newly-announced cds workshops in photography, radio, and video
finding your voice through photography: a workshop with ernesto bazan
Thursday, February 18, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (5 hours credit toward Certificate in Documentary Arts)
Center for Documentary Studies, Room 001
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Course Fee: FREE
(Application required – Qualifies for 5 hours credit toward the Certificate in Documentary Arts)
“The more I teach the more I realize how difficult it is to edit your own work. I strongly feel that editing is the photographer’s Achilles heel. In this workshop we will look at students’ photographs and some of mine, to learn more about the photographer’s approach, framing, intentions, and ability to discern from the flow of life in the attempt, often vain, to extract its essence. I will also share with you the intricacies of making a book, including the selection of the best images, layout, the sizing and the combination of images and text. I imagine this class as an intense photographic session in which we will listen to the many voices within the group.” – Ernesto Bazan
Each year in a series of workshops around the world, internationally renowned photographer Ernesto Bazan helps committed photographers to edit and create a distinctive body of work around a particular theme or subject. In the CDS workshop, he will draw on his own extensive work photographing in Cuba over the past fourteen years and in developing his recent book BazanCuba, which won the prestigious Best Photo Book of the Year Award at the 2009 New York Photo Festival and will be available for sale to workshop participants. In 2008, Bazan, who has published four previous books with independent publishers, created a new publishing house, BazanPhotos.
The workshop is offered free of charge and will be open to a small group of students (8 to 10) drawn from Duke undergraduates, faculty, and staff, as well as members of the general public who qualify. The workshop is intended for scholars and serious photographers who are well on their way to producing an extended and cohesive body of photographs. A key goal of the workshop is to help participants move toward publication. Students will be required to bring twenty photographs from one body of work on a flash drive in digital form and numbered in sequence suitable for digital projection. Students will have an opportunity to present their work in a seminar setting to Bazan and the group for critique and discussion.
Interested participants should contact cdscourses@duke.edu by Wednesday, February 10, and attach five jpegs (1000 pixels wide x 72dpi) intended for presentation at the workshop along with a brief statement about why they wish to participate. Though not required, priority will be given to individuals with particular interest in Cuban history and culture, in the transformative power of photography, or in artistic practices, representation, and cultural identity. Students will be notified by e-mail by Monday, February 15, about their acceptance into the workshop.
This workshop is supported by funds from the Josiah Charles Trent Foundation.
the documentary theater project • all levels • mike wiley
Students in this class will delve into various aspects of sharing stories through documentary theater. This course explores the way humans narrate, document and illuminate their lives through storytelling, individual and dramatic interpretation. After grounding themselves in the history and methodology of this approach to storytelling and narrative strategy, students will research, write and perform an informal staged reading for a Duke community audience of invited guests. The performance component is a culmination of the class’s fieldwork, archival research, and shared experiences.
Mondays, February 15–April 5 (16 hours) • 6:30–9 p.m.
Course fee: $100.00 • Center for Documentary Studies, Bridges 104
Mike Wiley is the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for spring and fall 2010. Formerly of Theatre IV and Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, Wiley has more than twelve years of experience in theater for young audiences, plus film, television, and regional theater. Wiley’s work, which was featured at the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival, focuses on expanding cultural awareness for audiences of all ages through dynamic portrayals based on pivotal moments in African American history and, in doing so, helps to unveil a richer picture of the total American experience. Wiley’s repertoire of original productions displays his ability of bringing to life multiple intertwined characters, with Wiley often portraying more than two dozen persons in a single “one-man” drama. His work includes Blood Done Sign My Name; Life Is So Good; Tired Souls: The Montgomery Bus Boycott; Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till; Jackie Robinson: A Game Apart; Brown v. Board of Education: Over Fifty Years Later; and One Noble Journey: A Box Marked Freedom.
publishing your video on the web • all levels • carol thomson
You’ve finished your short documentary, and you want it to be seen. While the Internet is a great way to reach an unlimited audience, you aren’t a webmaster and you don’t know where to start. In this one-day workshop, you’ll learn the basics of preparing video for the web, loading video to a web page, and establishing a low-cost and easy web presence by creating your own blog. We will discuss how to set up blog pages as well as video compression techniques and pitfalls and video formats QuickTime and Flash. Please note: Students should bring a short video clip (three minutes or less) on an external drive. The video will be imported into Final Cut Pro, compressed, and published on newly created blog. Experience with Final Cut Pro is required. Instructions will be emailed to students prior to the workshop on how to create a source video clip and load it on a hard drive.
Saturday, May 1 (6 hours) • 10 a.m.–5 p.m. (please bring a bag lunch)
Course fee: $130.00 • Center for Documentary Studies, Bridges 104
Carol Thomson has been creating websites and multimedia works since 2000 when she began her documentary studies in Australia. Carol completed her Certificate in Documentary Studies at the Center for Documentary Studies in 2005. She is working on a multimedia documentary, Bridging Rails to Trails: Stories of the American Tobacco Trail, which will be published on the Web and as a CD-ROM. A work-in-progress version can be seen at http://bridgingrailstotrails.com. Thomson’s Web and multimedia company, FireStream Media, LLC, is located in downtown Durham.
camera techniques for documentary • beginning/intermediate • wendy smith
This class will focus on using the body as a camera support through physical exercises, breathing techniques, and camera movements, to add stability and creativity to handheld cinéma vérité camerawork. The process is based on training with renowned French ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch as well as fifteen years of Taiji practice. This series of breathing and walking techniques allows filmmakers to “become one with the camera” by making it an extension of the body. These techniques are particularly useful for capturing exceptional images with a one- or two-person crew.
Saturday, May 15 (6 hours) • 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Course fee: $135.00 • Center for Documentary Studies, Bridges 007
Wendy Smith is an independent film/video maker who studied documentary and ethnographic film with Jean Rouch, the renowned documentary New Wave filmmaker, in Paris, where she lived for fourteen years. She has produced numerous films, both fiction and documentary, as well as the 16mm portrait Perry in His Garden, which went to the Cinema du Reel film festival and the Cannes film market. Since her return to the United States, her documentary work has become more experimental, incorporating digital processing, computer graphics, and animation. Smith is currently doing pre-production work on cross-cultural representation and transnational identity for a video documentary called Dwelling in Displacement that looks at how political exiles and ex-patriots cope loss of homeland. This piece will be the third in her trilogy on memory, identity, and home, which began with Home Sweet Home and The Road Home.
writing for radio • all levels • katie davis
In this two-day workshop, students will be introduced to short essays by some of the best writers in radio, including Noah Adams, Vertamae Grovesnor, Ira Glass, and Scott Carrier. Students will then write their own essays for radio. Katie Davis, using short writing exercises, will guide students through the process of composing and polishing a 500-word piece. Davis will then “edit” each piece in the group, and students will revise their writing so that they walk out with a finished piece ready to voice or pitch to a radio market.
Saturday and Sunday, May 1 and 2 (12 hours) • 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Course fee: $175.00 • Center for Documentary Studies, Bridges 201
Katie Davis has been working in public radio for thirty years. Her experience includes wide-ranging production and on air work at National Public Radio; she’s been a reporter and host. Currently she writes short pieces and essays for All Things Considered and This American Life. Her work is included in the new book Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound from UNC Press and the Center for Documentary Studies.
SEE MORE COURSES: www.cdscourses.org