This week, I taught a course at the Anderson Ranch on creating mini-documentaries.

Rather than jumping directly into production, which I dearly love, we started with the concept of planning before you shoot. Now, for some, this may appear obvious. But for people new to the craft, the whole concept of planning is, um, pretty  perplexing.

Anyway, as I was developing the course, I started counting the number of interviews I've done for either broadcast or my podcast. I stopped counting when I reached over 2,000! Whew.

This caused me to start thinking about what makes for a good interview, whether live or on tape. And those thoughts form the basis of my lead story this week on interviewing.

I had a fun time teaching a great class. The students really got into producing a new 4-minute mini-doc each day for a week and  turned out some very moving work. I'm looking forward to getting back into the office and catching up on my sleep.

Many of you have noticed our new Home Page sliders.  These two-screen gems are the brainchild of our web manager - Tori Anderholt.

Each celebrates a specific event or holiday related to that day on the calendar.  And, as you'll discover, Tori has a VERY broad definition of what constitutes a holiday -- Happy Secondhand Wardrobe Day, anyone?

The quality of your interviews depends upon planning and the kinds of questions you ask.

I've written a short guide to planning interviews, working with guests and crew, and explaining what types of questions yield the right types of answers.

I wish I'd known all this 30 years ago.

It's been a long time since I wrote about Final Cut Pro 7. But this technique is so useful that I wanted to share it with you.

If you are shooting double-system sound, or merging audio and video clips, this article can help you fix problems quickly.

Ultimately, all our projects end up on the web. Which means that if we don't know how to compress our video to make it look good, all our work during production and post is wasted.

In this in-depth video training, Larry Jordan shows you how to make the most of Apple Compressor 4.

Whether you are a new or experienced editor, this training will help you make your media look and sound great!

Here are the top three articles, webinars, and audio interviews for the past seven days.

Articles

We expanded this list to the Top 4 to add some more variety:

• FCP X: 5 Tips to Faster Exports   
• The "Three Formats" of Filmmaking 
• FCP X: Manage Events & Projects 
• FCP X: Compound Clip Secrets  

For a list of all our articles, visit here.

 

Webinars

• #105: Animation and Keyframes in Final Cut Pro X   
• #106: Effects Cookbook for Motion 5  
• #71: Manual Color Correction in Final Cut Pro X 

This list is based on the webinars watched most often by our monthly subscribers. For a list of all our webinars, visit here.

 

Digital Production Buzz Audio Interviews 

• George Jardine: The Birth of After Effects
• William Boodell: Editing "Sharknado"
• Chuck Braverman: Making Documentaries 

For a list of all the audio interviews we've conducted on The Buzz, visit here. 

We are committed to providing the highest quality training at the lowest possible price and distributing it as widely as possible.

From subscriptions to individual downloads to free techniques and articles -- we've got your back.  And there's lots more to come.

Thanks!