This session of DOCUMENTARY FUNDAMENTALS is about finishing your next documentary. How can title design and graphics be effectively utilized in documentary? What about my approach to music or working with a composer? What do I need to know about using archive materials? This session will dig in to graphics, music and archival issues that come together during post production.

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DOCUMENTARY FUNDAMENTALS: A professional development series designed to give the emerging or intermediate documentary filmmaker an inside look at the filmmaking process from pre-production planning to post-production and distribution. Over the past few years, UnionDocs has developed this ongoing program for documentarians that desire a better foundation for navigating the modern landscape of independent filmmaking. This six-part program takes place over the course of one weekend at UnionDocs. Buy a SERIES PASS ($125) or choose to attend individual sessions ($25/each).

Instructors

Jessica Kingdon is a Chinese-American director/producer named one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine and selected for the 2020 DOC NYC “40 Under 40” list. Her work has been supported by organizations including SFFILM, Chicken & Egg, Cinereach, Sundance, Field of Vision, and Firelight Media. Jessica has served in producorial roles on Tania Cypriano’s BORN TO BE (NYFF 2019), Nathan Truesdell’s THE WATER SLIDE (True/False 2018), and Johnny Ma’s OLD STONE (Berlinale 2016). Residencies include UnionDocs and a MacDowell Fellowship. She is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective and Brown Girls Doc Mafia.

Jessica Kingdon’s first documentary feature ASCENSION 登楼叹 (2021), won a nomination at the 94th Academy Awards in the Best Documentary Feature category as well as Best Documentary at the Tribeca Festival and Hamptons International Film Festival. The film has received nominations from the the DGA Awards, Spirit Awards, the Gotham and the International Documentary Association along with five Cinema Eye nominations and six Critic’s Choice nominations.

Gisela Fullà-Silvestre is a composer, producer and sound designer/mixer from Barcelona, based in Brooklyn, NY. Some of her recent credits include award winning films such as Suite Française, Z Nation TV series, The Wannabe and The Europa Report. Under NOIA, her solo project, she combines traditional singing with electronic production. Se has released 2 albums via Cascine Records and has reached over 4 million plays on Spotify.

Cédric von Niederhäusern is a Brooklyn based colorist and photographer. He has worked on documentaries, narrative films (shorts and features) and branded content for web and broadcast. He is the colorist of Ascension, which has been awarded Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Daniel Deacon is an American composer and electronic musician based in Baltimore, Maryland. Deacon is renowned for his live shows, where large-scale audience participation and interaction is often a major element of the performance. Since 2003, he has released five solo albums, including 2015’s Gliss Riffer, released by Domino Records. His work as a film composer includes scoring the 2021 documentaries All Light, Everywhere and Ascension, both released as soundtrack albums by Milan Records, as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt (with Osvaldo Golijov). His fifth solo studio album, titled Mystic Familiar, was released January 31, 2020 on Domino.