Classes are held five days a week
10AM to 5PM - Classroom instructions and screening.
Students are expected to work additional hours daily, outside the normal
teaching hours including on weekends for on-location shooting or editing exercise.
Documentary Filmmaking: A rewarding career for creatively vigilant & social minded
As a form of social commentary and entertainment, documentaries have never been so popular and relevant as they are today. The industry for documentary film is really booming.
Now with the tools of the trade financially accessible to all, documentary production is limited only by the reservoir of ideas and story telling skills one has at his or her disposal. The digital revolution has ushered in a new era of documentary filmmaking with high quality portable cameras and non-linear digital editing systems available to a growing community of documentary filmmakers.
Even the advent of Reality Television has taken the entertainment potential of documentary technique and documentary style story telling to new heights. When combined the emerging outlets for documentary on ever increasing news channels and the hunger for reality based programming on national entertainment television, we are truly experiencing a documentary revolution.
For the creatively vigilant and social minded, our one year long intensive Diploma course on Documentary Filmmaking offers an opportunity to dive right in to this cutting-edge art form through hands-on experience in documentary filmmaking. For students with little or no documentary filmmaking experience, this course provides a comprehensive and in depth study of the subject.
They learn not only how to research the subject, write a documentary script, operate camera or edit a film. They learn how all the aspects of filmmaking relate to, interact with, and depend upon each other.
This course aims to equip students with artistic and technical knowledge of documentary filmmaking covering a curriculum in core areas: conceptualization, visualization, preproduction, dramaturgy, interviewing techniques, shooting strategies, lighting, camera operation, sound and editing- while giving them the opportunity to gradually develop their creative talent through production of tightly schedule 8 documentary films of increasingly sophisticated and more complex in their ambitions,
Thereby placing them under same strict time constraints they will encounter in the professional world and thus, teaching them discipline and efficiency of world of documentary filmmaker.
By the end of the course, each student has an experience of working on close to 20 films.
Hands-on experience on latest cutting edge equipment
Our all student films are shot on actual locations. The equipments which our Documentary Filmmaking course student uses are comparable to that of the leading Film Schools in India provide for the production of their student films.
Each student gains a thorough proficiency with different camera types including Sony Full HD PMW-300 Camera and Camcorder for camera work and editing experience on non linear AVID Xpress HD. The final Diploma films are made on broadcast level Sony Camcorder and post production on Final Cut Pro.
At the conclusion of the course, students' final documentary films are celebrated in the IMI screening- open to Press, crew, friends and family. Students retain the copy of digital master of their finished film to include in their demo reel- the ultimate calling cards. Upon successful completion of the program, each student receives a Diploma in accordance with industry expectations. The students are also offered work experience opportunities on IMI Advanced Diploma films.
IMI's Diploma in Documentary Filmmaking program simply gets the ball rolling for the students who wish to start full time independent career in documentary film making. Students gain fast track entry in News Channels as assistant producer. The program truly builds a strong foundation for working way up in the Reality Television.
Three cheers to IMI!!! Attending the IMI program was my way of taking some concrete action towards fulfilling my biggest dream- becoming a documentary filmmaker. I was, however, apprehensive initially. But thanks to the immense involvement of all the faculties in shaping our knowledge, their method of teaching, their personal passion towards movies and their desire to see us students succeed in this career has had a very positive and profound effect on us. There is excitement always when they teach and most of the things which they taught will probably stay with us through out. I have definitely gained more than I expected and cannot help feeling a sense of loss as this course ends.
