Some Good Advice

The UC Berkeley School of Journalism has some pretty awesome people. They even put together a Documentary Cookbook – which gives a brief history of their mission followed by some excellent advice on how to make, in effect, the Ikea of movies – looks really nice, but costs next to nothing.

If you read nothing else, read “Basic Approach” onward. My favorite bit of advice: “Avoid air travel. Is there no good film to be made within 100 miles of home?” That made me think. I live in a place chock full of history, conflict, tradition and rebellion. . . are there no good stories to be told about Cambridge?

There are plenty of narrative films that use Harvard as the romantic, leaf-scattered backdrop upon which any number of fantasies come into play (Elle Woods in Legally Blonde and the romance in Good Will Hunting come to mind). But there’s more to Cambridge than People-Who-Attend-Harvard and People-Who-Don’t. Maybe there’s a story in that.

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