Rough Cut

When filmmaker Amanda Kim discovered the artist Nam June Paik, she knew she wanted to make a documentary about him. Five years later, Amanda's debut film Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Amanda came on the pod to talk about what she learned as a first time filmmaker — from bringing on producers, to fundraising, to navigating the edit. Moon is the O...

The Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes has a distinct visual style: long, beautiful, perfectly-constructed shots akin to narrative films. How can one stay true to this style in the unpredictable, often chaotic environments that define documentary filmmaking? Director Shaunak Sen came on the pod to discuss his film's visual style, how he was able to capture so many unique, organic m...

In this episode, we sit down with director, producer, and cinematographer Rita Baghdadi, who's latest film Sirens premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest. Rita talks about how she transitioned from competitive horse jumping to documentary filmmaking, her process in making the film Sirens, how she was able to bring Maya Rudolph and Natash...

Indian filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh were pleasantly surprised when their  independent feature doc Writing with Fire swept up awards, including at Sundance, and became the first Indian feature doc to ever be nominated for an Oscar. But they were shocked when the film's subjects, after traveling with and celebrating the film for 14-months, suddenly pulled back from the project, rel...

What Do Filmmakers Owe Their Subjects?  Souki Mehdaoui is a documentary filmmaker, DP, and subject coordinator. Her cinematography can be seen on Netflix, HBO, New York Times, and the Sundance-premiering documentaries The Great Hack and Mucho Mucho Amor. Souki was a subject in the HBO doc series The Vow, and she brought her experiences as a documentary participant into her work as a subject coordi...

It's a scenario most documentary filmmakers dread: someone else is covering the same story. Dueling documentaries are becoming more common, but is competition always bad for filmmakers? Director Jenner Furst came on the pod to talk about this phenomenon, which he's experienced several times throughout his career. Jenner and his filmmaking partner Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gaspar...

A documentary filmmaker's relationship with their film's participants, or "subjects", is one of the most important but challenging parts of making a film. The director might have to consider: What are the boundaries of my relationship with the subject? Should the subjects be paid? What effects will my film have on the subjects' lives? These questions are at the heart of th...

This episode is all about music in film—choosing the right tracks, licensing music, music supervision, and more. We sat down with all star Music Supervisor Justin Feldman, whose credits include The Last Dance, Silicon Valley, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, and Untrapped: The Story of Lil Baby. Justin rose through the ranks at Hit The Ground Running, an LA-based, full-service music supervision comp...

You've finished a film. Now how do you get it programmed at your preferred festival? Samah Ali is a film festival strategist, meaning she works with documentary directors and producers to achieve their film festival goals. Samah is also a distributor and film programmer at Academy Award-qualifying festivals like Hot Docs, DOC NYC, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. In this episode, Samah...

Jon Gerberg is an award-winning video journalist on the national and investigative beats. He joined The Washington Post in 2017 and was previously a foreign affairs producer at the “PBS NewsHour.” He has reported overseas for the New York Times, TIME, Associated Press and others. Countries he’s covered include Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Venezuela, Braz...

*Republishing an old favorite* Chloe Gbai is the director of If/Then , a Tribeca Film Institute initiative that gives grants and provides mentorship to filmmakers creating short documentaries. She was previously a programmer at PBS POV Shorts .  In this episode, Chloe gives advice on how to put together a strong grant application, and shares her insight on what makes a good shot doc. She is based...

Poh Si Teng is a documentary filmmaker and the Funds and Enterprise Program Director at IDA , one of the largest documentary grant funders. Before IDA, Poh worked as an independent filmmaker in India, a staff reporter at the New York Times, and as the documentary commissioner and senior producer for Al Jazeera English’s flagship strand Witness.  She also commissioned and produced the Academy Award...

Since it launched in 2014, Vox Video has amassed nearly 10 million subscribers on YouTube, and has expanded to platforms like Netflix, HBO, and Quibi. Its new docu-series Level Playing Field , about the intersection between sports and politics, is now streaming on HBO. Joe Posner is the Co-founder and VP of Creative Development at Vox Video. In this episode, we discuss how Vox built its unique bra...

What kinds of stories are best told in virtual reality? Why is VR so effective, and how can emerging filmmakers get started with VR? Gary Yost and Adam Loften lead The WisdomVR Project, a library of VR documentaries and experiences. One of their latest projects, Inside COVID-19, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2021. Adam Loften is a documentary filmmaker producing award-winning 360/VR films and...

As a freelancer, how do you negotiate a rate? What should you consider when setting a price? Doc filmmakers from both sides of the negotiation share their expertise in this special episode. Guests: Rebecca Davis (NBC News, Vox, NY Daily News) Lea Khayata (Pushpin Films) Javier Briones (Freelance Documentary Filmmaker) Enter your salary/wage into the Video Pay Transparency Project Rough Cut on Inst...

Hao Wu is an award-winning documentary filmmaker born and raised in China. His most recent film,  76 Days, documents Wuhan’s COVID-19 outbreak. The film is shot completely vérité with no interviews, and gives viewers a first-hand account of Covid's impact through the stories of healthcare workers, patients, and their families. Hao directed the film remotely in the U.S. while his co-directors...

Geeta Gandbhir is a documentary director, producer, and editor who has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and has won two.  As editor, she won a Primetime Emmy for Best Editing for Spike Lee's HBO documentary series When the Levees Broke and also for the HBO film By The People, The Election of Barack Obama. Her short film Call Center Blues , about US deportees and their loved ones strugglin...

Jeremy Workman is a documentary filmmaker and founder of Wheelhouse Creative, a company that makes trailers for narrative films and documentaries. In this interview, Jennie and Jeremy discuss the three acts of a trailer, why trailers are so important, what makes an effective trailer, and why trailers for docs can often be more challenging than for narrative films. Links from the interview: Lily To...

Emily Strong is an NYC-based documentary filmmaker and freelance location sound mixer. She's contributed to Taylor Swift: Miss Americana and New York Times the Weekly, and was just listed in Doc NYC's 40 under 40. Her newest project, We Are the Brooklyn Saints, debuts on Netflix in January 2021. In this episode, Emily talks about how she came up in the sound world, why sound is so import...

Uptin Saiidi was a multimedia journalist for CNBC for 7 years based in Singapore and Hong Kong. His videos about business and tech like this one about Singapore's Airport and this one about 'digital nomads' have received millions of views on Facebook alone. Uptin recently left CNBC and moved to LA to develop his own channels. His family is from Iran and he grew up in Reno. In this e...

Julie Cohen is a documentary filmmaker and television news producer. Most recently, she directed and produced RBG about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, along with Columbia J school professor Betsy West. Cohen is now directing the upcoming documentary Julia about chef and TV personality Julia Child. Before she was a documentary filmmaker, Cohen  was staff producer at Dateline NBC, where...

Director Nick Bruckman and Producer Amanda Roddy talk about their upcoming film, Not Going Quietly . The film follows activist Ady Barkan as he travels the country fighting for healthcare reform. Over the course of the film, Ady's health deteriorates due to ALS, a deadly disease he was diagnosed with in 2016. Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, and Bradley Whitford serve as executive producers, and a...

How do you get funding for your film before you have anything to show? In this episode, Jennie sits down with Co-founders Lisa Kleiner Chanoff and Bonni Cohen, and Senior Program Director Megan Gelstein of Catapult Film Fund , which provides development funding to help story-driven and cinematic documentary films get off the ground. Catapult Film Fund gives early support to propel projects forward...

Sven Pape is a documentary and narrative film editor. His YouTube channel This Guy Edits is a collection of doc and narrative editing lessons. It has amassed tens of millions of views since launching in 2016. Check out his editing course here: https://thegotoeditor.com https://www.roughcutpodcast.com/ Find Rough Cut on Instagram Find Host Jennie Butler on Instagram Find Producer Sky Dylan-Robbins...

Marco Williams is a documentary filmmaker and professor of film production at Northwestern University. His films—which center around race, injustice, and American history—have received numerous awards, including the Gotham Documentary Achievement Award and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Marco has also been nominated three times for the Sundance Film Festival grand jury prize. My films are about Americ...