Course in Documentary

Students entering the Prague Film School documentary program typically come socially-minded, prepared to tell truth to power, and already sensitized to the infinite number of fascinating stories embedded in real life around us. The documentary program gives its students the skills to tell these stories –structurally, aesthetically, and technically.

Documentary Year Program

The Documentary Production Program at Prague Film School emphasizes storytelling. Through intensive practical and theoretical work, each student at PFS develops his/her voice as a documentary storyteller and learns the techniques to grab the audience and take them on an emotional journey.

In the first semester of the Documentary Production course, students complete numerous shooting assignments designed to develop critical skills in documentary film language, camera technique, and editing. Lectures, demonstrations, screenings, and analytical exercises provide the foundation for the fieldwork.

Students crew on each others’ assignments, gaining extensive practice in directing, producing, shooting, and recording sound. Rigorous critiques are a vital component of the course. In addition to these exercises, each student will produce and direct a 10-minute documentary short film on a subject of his/her choosing, and crew on his/her classmates’ projects.

Specialized courses in Editing and Cinematography are the other key components of the program. Students learn to edit on Avid Media Composer and learn shooting and lighting theory across a range of formats.

Supplementing the practical component of the course, the documentary program will draw upon a rich pool of international and historical documentaries crossing themes and genres providing the student with a varied palette of documentary styles, techniques, and approaches they can apply to their work.

In the second semester, we focus on in-depth development and pre-production of the diploma film. Students complete weekly assignments for instructor and peer review and learn to write a compelling Proposal & Treatment. Each student produces and directs his/her diploma documentary film and crews on classmates’ projects. Through extensive brainstorming and pitching sessions, students also leave the course armed with a portfolio of critiqued project ideas to further develop and make a reality after completion of the program.

Students further develop their technical skills through weekly shooting and editing exercises in the documentary workshop. Topics covered may include Advanced Interview Techniques, Documentary Reenactments, Archival Research, Writing Narration, Music for Documentary, and various Cinema Vérité-style shooting scenarios.

Content of the 1st semester

The first-semester curriculum of the documentary filmmaking program covers foundation courses including (1) documentary theory/history (2) documentary workshop (3) cinematography, (4) editing, and (5) documentary industry, in addition to several other subjects which can be taken as electives (see below).

Foundation Courses (obligatory)

• Documentary Theory/History
• Documentary Workshop
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Documentary Industry

Production Workflow (obligatory)

• Operation of film-making equipment (camera, lighting, and sound systems)
• Crew production protocol
• Sound production (recording, mixing, design)
• Grip equipment (camera support systems)

Elective/Specialization Courses (each student takes 2 courses)

• Aesthetics of the Film Shot as a Component of Film Language
• Acting Styles
• Advanced Cameras
• Central and East European Cinema
• Directing Actors
• Directing the Camera
• Film Industry
• Film Comedy
• Film Analysis
• Lighting
• Photography for Cinematography
• Post-production effects
• Post-production workflow
• Visualization

Studio Work: End of Semester Film

64 hours of studio work.

Content of the 2nd semester

Documentary Core Classes

• Documentary Production
• Documentary Workshops
• Documentary Editing Practicum
• Documentary Editing Theory
• Diploma Film

Elective Courses

• Advanced Editing Theory
• Acting Styles
• Camera for Cinematographers
• Cinematography Workshop
• Cinematography Advanced
• Computer Animation
• Directing Workshop
• Directing Actors – Advanced
• Directing Actors – Beginner
• Documentary Production
• Documentary Workshop
• Documentary & Fiction Film History
• Editing Techniques: Commercials /Music Videos / Movie Trailers
• Editing Workshop
• Film Analysis
• Film Industry
• Photography for Cinematography: Composition
• Post Production Effects
• Post Production Work Flow
• Screenwriting Diploma Films
• Screenwriting Feature
• Screenwriting Across Genres
• Screenwriting Adaptations
• Visualization

Studio Work: Diploma Film

64 hours of studio work.

Documentary Semester Program

The semester documentary film program is the first semester of the year documentary course. The curriculum is aimed at imparting technical hard skills through weekly filmmaking projects and a solid knowledge of the discipline through a rigorous examination of important documentary works throughout history and from around the world.

Concretely, the first semester covers the following: documentary camera and coverage, interviewing techniques, research, preproduction, story structure and analysis, ethics, authorship, and voice. Students learn to edit using Avid Media Composer and shoot using Blackmagic Pocket and Ursa Mini, Sony 4K HDCam, and Canon.

Film and practical exercises play an extremely important role in the program. Classroom-based courses are supplemented with many practical exercises in the studio and at different locations. In the first semester, each student completes seven film projects.

The semester program is the first semester of the year course. It is possible to enroll in the semester course and then prolong one's studies to the second semester of the year course while studying in the semester program. However, doing so incurs higher fees than enrolling in the year program directly.

The first-semester curriculum of the documentary filmmaking program covers foundation courses including (1) documentary theory/history (2) documentary workshop (3) cinematography, (4) editing, and (5) documentary industry, in addition to many other subjects which can be taken as electives (see below).

Foundation Courses (obligatory)

• Documentary Theory/History
• Documentary Workshop
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Documentary Industry

Production Workflow (obligatory)

• Operation of film-making equipment (camera, lighting, and sound systems)
• Crew production protocol
• Sound production (recording, mixing, design)
• Grip equipment (camera support systems)

Elective/Specialization Courses (each student takes 2 courses)

• Aesthetics of the Film Shot as a Component of Film Language
• Acting Styles
• Advanced Cameras
• Central and East European Cinema
• Directing Actors
• Directing the Camera
• Film Industry
• Film Comedy
• Film Analysis
• Lighting
• Photography for Cinematography
• Post-production effects
• Post-production workflow
• Visualization

Studio Work: End of Semester Film

64 hours of studio work.

What makes Prague Film School special?

Praxis-oriented

Students hit the ground running, shooting documentary projects from week one and then throughout the semester and year every week. Each documentary student will shoot around 8 documentary projects per year.

Skills-oriented

Students completing the program are guaranteed to have acquired skills in working with Avid Media Composer editing software, DaVinci color correction, ProTools sound design, and After Effects special effects programs. They will know how to operate the Black Magic Pocket, Sony 4K HDCam, Red Epic Dragon, and Arri Alexa cameras. They will be proficient in recording with portable mixers, directional, shotgun, omni, and wireless microphones, and knowledgeable of how to light using a wide range of lights, from 100 W Dedolights to 4K HMIs.

Knowledge-oriented

The program instructs the history and theory of documentaries, involving students in viewing a substantial number of documentary films weekly. Production-based but academically rigorous, Prague Film School programs are approved for university credit by many top-tier colleges, including Vassar, Bowdoin, Oberlin, Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Barnard, Northwestern, to name a few.

Creates the Self-Sufficient and Versatile Filmmaker

Students graduating from the course will have the technical skills to fulfill all key positions on a film set and be able to singlehandedly write, produce, and edit their works.

Stories Available

Living in Prague, a city with a tumultuous past (WWII, communism, etc.), students have access to a wealth of local historical, social, and cultural subjects.

Size

The Prague Film School Documentary Filmmaking Program offers the additional advantage of being a boutique course – run with a small and selective group of students paired up with top academics and documentary professionals.

Intensive

The type of student who chooses Prague Film School comes to us because he or she has essentially only one year in terms of time or financial resources to cross from where he or she is in life at the moment into the world of professional filmmaking. We then have only one year to bring these students to a level of competence where they can operate professionally. As such the program is highly squeezed.