Yes! You! Can! (Re-Mentoring)

Re-Mentoring is a key part of the ethos of the Toronto Youth Documentary Project. It breaks down the idea that you need to be an 'expert' in order to teach someone else. Not so. You just need to be willing to share your experience and offer a little advice now and then.

Students who complete the workshops and their documentary are encouraged to come back and share their learning experiences with the next group of students. Talking about their successes and their failures are equally useful... plus it's evidence that they can actually do what can seem to be more than they can handle.

Last year's students have already made an appearance at the first workshop, and will be there again this Saturday. In the meantime, they offer this advice from their first time making a documentary, which was only a year ago......

From Soroosh:

1. Before you begin editing, go over all the footage you have recorded. It's important to know exactly what you have to work with and to become familiarized with your footage. While you're watching think of what scenes you can use and what scenes you should omit. Although you have recorder the footage yourself you'd be surprised with how much you can learn from reviewing it over again.

2. Grab a piece of paper and begin brainstorming about how you think you are going to structure your film. In my experience with editing, I found that it's a lot harder than just selecting clips and putting them together. You have to know what order you want the scenes to appear in, whether or not you are going to use narration. By writing a rough sketch of what you think your film is going to look like you have made it that much easier for yourself to organize your footage during the actual editing stage

From Kirsten:

#1. bring your camera with you everywhre if possible, you never know when opportunity will arise!!!

#2. keep an open mind about the course of you doc. and the story, you may have a set idea in the beginning but don't be afraid to let it evolve!

#3. have fun + love every minute

From Michael:

1) During an interview, instead of just having it as one long shot, try intersplicing images or pictures related to what the person is saying (makes it more interesting to watch).

2) Just because it is a documentary, doesn't mean you can't make it personal or put your own unique twist on it.

They sound like veterans already!

Good luck to all!