The Online Video Journalism Workshop with Backpack Journalist Bill Gentile

Learn the Secrets of Creating Powerful Video Stories

We’ve molded the acclaimed, real-life Video Journalism Workshop by Emmy Award winning journalist Bill Gentile into 14 compelling and informative videos to reveal the secrets of making video documentaries.

• Learn to articulate story ideas.
• Capture powerful images and clean sound.
• Recognize and cultivate dramatic story arcs.
• Conduct compelling, in-depth interviews
• Write powerful treatments and scripts.
• Narrate stories.
• Edit for maximum impact.

A Camera, a Laptop and an Internet Connection Are All You Need

The tools for instant, global, visual communication now fit in your backpack: a video camera, laptop, editing software and Internet connection. The era of the backpack video journalist is here. It is revolutionizing the worldwide exchange of information and ideas – and changing the way we live.

The Online Video Journalism Workshop is taught by Emmy Award winning backpack video journalist Bill Gentile – a pioneer in his field with over 35 years of experience. He teaches you to produce powerful TV and online documentaries. Information is power, and he helps you harness that power.

The Video Journalism Workshop can be viewed on laptops, tablets and smartphones.*
*iPhone 4 or newer required for iOS devices.

Learn From Three Decades and Five Continents of Experience

Bill’s career spans over three decades, five continents and nearly every facet of journalism and mass communication, most especially visual communication, or visual storytelling. He is a pioneer of “backpack video journalism” and today he is one of the craft’s most noted practitioners. He is the founder and director of American University’s Backpack Journalism Project.

A Unique Approach to Learning

To produce the Online Video Journalism Workshop we tape one of Bill’s live, face-to-face video production workshops with real students and real, back-and-forth dialogue. This unique feature allows you to share the learning experience in real time.

Online Video Journalism Workshop Benefits

The Online Video Journalism Workshop with Bill Gentile is an intensive 14-part immersion in the craft of “backpack video journalism,” defined as character-driven television/web production with hand-held cameras by a single practitioner.

The workshops cover the gamut of the storytelling craft from the genesis and shaping of story ideas, to shooting powerful images that drive the story, to the capture and use of sound, to script writing, narration, and editing with portable computers and modern movie making software. These workshops are appropriate for beginners with some experience as well as existing practitioners who desire to sharpen their skills or acquire new ones. We welcome photojournalists, print and video journalists, aspiring documentarians, filmmakers and independent storytellers. We have also had great success with non-profits and other organizations wishing to tell their story.

The Video Journalism Workshop follows an actual live workshop with students.
You learn as they learn about making documentaries.

In this workshop you will learn to:

• Tell powerful video stories and make documentary films.
• Jumpstart/redirect your career.
• Join the global conversation on important issues
  and 
impact positive change.
• Compete with the best video storytellers in the field
  and stay ahead of the pack.
• Increase your income and influence.

Click the button below for a special offer.
List price: $395.00
Now for a limited time only $295.00

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Hear What Others Say

With our new, online version, you can now join many others from around the world who have attended the live workshops. Now you can learn along with them. What do others say about the live Video Journalism Workshop?

"Hi Bill,
Attending your workshop was one of the smart moves of my life - it got me to a path that I am fully enjoying."
--Documentary filmmaker Kirsi Jansa, August 2012
Photo by Stephen Chernin

"Bill, I've spent the morning raving about the workshop with colleagues, and I'll certainly make sure to incorporate what I learned into whatever I'm involved in moving forward...You've put together an amazing workshop and I hope many others get to experience what I did over the past four days."
--Brendan Rohr,
World Wildlife Fund, August 2011

The Online Video Journalism Workshop is for People Who Want to Sharpen their Skills and Acquire New Ones

The Online Video Journalism Workshop With Bill Gentile is for beginners with some experience as well as more seasoned practitioners who want to sharpen their skills and acquire new ones. We welcome photojournalists making the transition to film and video. Print journalists seeking to expand their skills will find the workshops particularly useful. Broadcast journalists accustomed to the technology and techniques preceding today’s hand-held digital cameras will find that the newer equipment delivers a more immediate, intimate version of visual communication than their predecessors. Video journalists, documentarians, filmmakers and independent storytellers who want to expand their skill set and learn from one of the pioneers in the field also will benefit from the workshops.

Click the button below for a special offer.
List price: $395.00
Now for a limited time only $295.00

View our Privacy Policy

What Do You Get in the Online Workshop?

The Online Video Journalism Workshop is delivered through 14 videos, all of which have been optimized and can be viewed on desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone. Also included are audio recordings and printable outlines of all the videos, plus an e-version of Bill Gentile’s new and highly acclaimed Essential Video Journalism Field Manual.

Pre-Production

• Introductions, definitions and objectives.
• The Progression: Clips to Sequence to Scene to Story.
• The alphabet of the Visual Language: XCU to XWA.
• The Six-Shot System.
• Composition: The deliberate arrangement of elements in an image.
• The Rule of Thirds and Multiple Planes.
• Character: A critical storytelling tool.
• Three-point test of character.
• “Chain Gang,” a case study.

You can sample the course by watching this free video lesson.

Production

• Review student work.
• Proposals, Titles and The Controlling Idea.
• “Echoes of War,” a case study two models of “character-driven” documentary.
• Sound: The Heartbeat of Documentary.
• The Conversation.
• Participatory Observation via Informal and Formal Interviews.

Post-Production

• Review student work.
• Paint with your camera.
• Editing: “The creative treatment of reality.”
• Characters as vehicles.
• “Nurses Needed,” a case study.
• The Dramatic Arc.
• “Voice of Hope,” a case study.
• Scripts: Write to the Pictures!
• Editing: Mechanics vs. aesthetics.
• “Underground Yoga” vs. “Knife and Gun Club.”
• Characters as vehicles.
• Narration.
• The third dimension of “three-dimensional chess.”
• Deep authorship and connecting the dots of conversation with audience.
• “Afghanistan: The Forgotten War,” a case study.
• Final review of student work.

Bonus PDF Books, Audio Recordings and Transcripts

• Essential Video Journalism Field Manual by Bill Gentile
• Appearance, Location, Material and Parent of Guardian Releases vetted by top attorneys in the field, ready for you to edit for your next project.
• Audio recordings and pdf transcripts for all the videos.
• How to Stand Out Online: Simple Techniques to be Found Online Using Social Media by J. Bruce Jones, Independent Video Producer and Social Media Consultant.
• 10 Easy Tips to Get Your Videos Found on YouTube, by J. Bruce Jones.

30-Day, Money Back Guarantee

If for any reason you are not completely satisfied with the Online Video Journalism Workshop within the first 30 days after signing up, your money will be refunded.

Move Your Career Forward

Harness the power of video to recharge your career and make money while doing it. Learn to harness the power of video with the Online Video Journalism Workshop and introduce video storytelling documentary skills to your organization.

Invest in your future – today.

Learn to create and tell compelling video stories with Bill Gentile’s Online Video Journalism Workshop.

As Kirsi Jansa, Documentary Filmmaker commented, “Attending your workshop was one of the smart moves of my life – it got me to a path that I am fully enjoying.”

The Online Video Journalism Workshop is for beginners as well as seasoned practitioners who want to sharpen their skills and acquire new ones. Learn from one of the masters of the video storytelling craft.

Invest today. Click the button below to begin the journey.

List price: $395.00
Now for a limited time only $295.00

View our Privacy Policy