Interview With Film Maker Ted Fisher Part Two

(See Interview Part One)

Today I continue my interview with documentary film maker Ted Fisher, as he discusses his process and the challenges of moving from short documentaries to feature length documentaries.

Hoop Springs Eternal is a very interesting story of a woman who makes a living using hula hoops.  How did you find this story and what compelled you to tell it?

Ted: When we participated in the Doc Challenge, our worst fear was drawing “sports” as a genre. Sports documentaries can be great, but when you only have five days, you’ve ruled out following a team for the season or watching a competitor struggle to improve. So I became hypersensitive to sports or activities that…

Ted Fisher is a multi-talented writer, producer, editor and documentary short film maker.  His documentary Bend & Bow can be seen on Netflix as part of the International Documentary Challenge DVD.  I spent some time chatting with Ted about his process as a film maker and as a teacher.




Interview With Film Maker Ted Fisher Part One.

Your documentary Bend & Bow was created in five days for the International Documentary Challenge – how did you choose your subject and what steps did you take to finish within the time constraints?

Ted: When people imagine making a documentary, they picture going on a shoot somewhere beautiful, exotic, perhaps…

Today I’m talking with Emmy award winning Executive Producer David P. Levin.  David’s work includes TV Land Confidential, Inside the Kid’s Choice Awards, MTV’s Uncensored and most recently the VMA 2009: What You Didn’t Know.  David is also known in many circles as the master of the interview.  He has the uncanny knack of getting people to tell him their untold stories.

You’ve executive produced many television shows that have become popular based on their ‘un told nature’.  It began when you wrote and produced for the hugely popular series MTV Uncensored.  How did the idea come about?

David: MTV Uncensored started as a special for MTV’s Ultrasound series.  The first in the series was the Video Music Awards Uncensored. …

Join me tomorrow for an exclusive interview with Executive Producer/Show Runner David P. Levin as we talk about MTV’s  Uncensored success and the making of his latest special, VMA 2009: What You Didn’t Know.

You can enjoy the show at MTV’s website as it is no longer available for sharing on other sites.

The Writers Guild of America, East submitted a letter to the FTC on Friday expressing their concerns over layoffs, budget cuts, and demands to wear many hats when producing news programming.

Today, anyone with a computer and a thought can throw up a blog and ‘tell the news.’ Whether its news they’ve taken from another site, found on Twitter or heard from a friend, it’s clear the public has access to lots of information, and it’s free.

The union feels at some point people will want to pay for quality news, but if that’s their premise, what will define ‘quality?’ If anyone can go on line and get news from the NY Times, CNN, Huffington Post, or your local…