KENT MOORHEAD'S APPROACH

HANDS-ON LEARNING
USE FILM CLIPS BY GREAT FILMMAKERS
EXERCISES THAT TEACH SPECIFIC SKILLS
APPLY THE LEARNING TO A CLASS FILM

It's not easy to teach film, its much harder than actually making a film, but its also a lot of fun. To pass on the knowledge and skills I've acquired along the way is probably the most satisfying thing I've done. And I've got a lot to teach – I'm the last generation to be trained by the old Hollywood masters, and I've been an independent filmmaker for a long time now and I've learned a lot of things.

Take interviews. We often think, "it is just talking" and put no effort into them. Therefore we miss the questions that would give exciting answers. I show interviews that failed and I show those that gave great stories. And I do exercises that give more than just "talking heads", stating the obvious.

That is how I work. What you put into it, in the start, you get back in the end, many times around.

So if I want to teach cinema verite filming, I'll have half the class create a mock scene, and the other half will become the crew to film it. Then we look at the footage and analyze the shot choices that the students made. Then they go out and do another exercise, this time in a real situation – and the exercise always has a specific goal – something they have to capture on film.

And of course I teach the technical side as well, how to use a camera – film or video – how to edit on AVID or Final Cut Pro. In the Mississippi workshops I got high definition cameras from Canon, and editing software from AVID.

Most challenging part of the workshop?  Learning this new AVID system, because like Final Cut Pro, iMovie, those are kind of cool.  But then AVID is like different but easy.   But you’ve got to learn it for it to be easy.