I spent last week in San Francisco, doing a Video Documentary course with DV Workshops.

It was amazing.

Aron Ranen was the instructor, and he is one hell of an instructor. (Aron is an award-winning documentary writer, editor, shooter and producer) The course was six nine-hour days (which were usually longer than that), and it flew by. The coursework covered technical aspects of lighting, camera, shot composition, Final Cut Pro editing, and, of course, the documentary storytelling process.

Anyways, the piece I produced at the end of it was is below:

Dollar Optional: The Hardest Job on the Wharf from Lincoln Dunn on Vimeo.

I loved the process -- except for the "finding the story" portion of it. I'm innately introverted in unknown situations, and being put in the space of "finding a story" by approaching people (usually working), and asking if I can do a piece on them = my own personal hell.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the results, though I'd recut the audio (and use a wind sock on the mic) if I had the chance to do it again.