Filmmaking workshop – Theory and techniques of mobile-phone documentaries

credits : Racines aisbl

MADAR partner Racines aisbl organized a workshop as part of the MADAR Network meeting in June 2023 for MADAR Network members and project grantees. The workshop, on “Theory and techniques of mobile-phone documentaries” was held for researchers and activists operating in the field of migration and forced displacement across the Maghreb region. Its primary objective was to enable them to direct short films (professionally and with limited resources) capable of being globally disseminated and to become powerful instruments of advocacy. 

Documentary cinema means not only the “filmed reality” but above all “a reality filtered by the author’s visual sensibility”, it is a way of story-telling and expressing ourselves, and a mobile phone is the most direct, intimate and urgent tool we can use.

The workshop aims through theoretical, linguistic and practical meetings to illustrate the steps necessary to produce a documentary that can offer an insight to a story, a situation, a moment, or a personal diary, with the use of cell phones and apps, with particular attention to the production, conceptual and writing phases but also to the shooting and editing moment. 

The two-day training session consisted of the following: 

• Script: introduction to the Guerrilla Filmmaking concept, from the conceiving of a subject, a treatment, to film’s narratives, with a big focus on ethics, source checking, already existing footage and the “video language” to choose. 
• Shoot:  participants got an overview of various shooting techniques, including lighting, framing, ratio, sound, …  using a smartphone. 
• Edit: the second module covered the essentials of editing, bringing the participants to easy to use software and applications (adding titles / texts / figures, tricks, colour correction, audio effects etc). Practical exercises were also part of the agenda.

The workshop was facilitated by Francesco Clerici (Italy) and Manuele Sangalli (Italy)