Documentary Storytelling

"Brilliant and effective...Documentary Storytelling guides readers through nearly every phase of creating a documentary: structuring, working up a proposal, and, of course, shooting and editing" - Backstage "Sheila Curran Bernard's ability to dissect a wide range of narrative apporaches and explore the elements that make dramatic stories so compelling make this guide invaluable for documentary filmmakers as well as anyone who uses information and evidence to portray real events." -Dr. Pennee Bender, Media Director, Center for Media and Learning, City University of New York, The Graduate Center. "With all the buzz over blockbuster docs, Focal Press serves up a perfectly timed winner in a much-neglected area. True to the nature of the beast, the book is more about filmmaking as a whole, and how and where storytelling weaves into the overall process".-Bruce Mckenna, Canadian Screenwriter (Writers Guild of Canada) "Bernard is keenly aware of the power of persuasive images, and her insistence on complexity and integrity is a consistant theme throughout the book."- Alyssa Worsham, The Independent (Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers) "With the availability of high-quality affordable cameras and editing equipment, documentary filmmakers today enjoy a freedom in shaping their films that their counterparts a decade ago could't have imaged. As the new aesthetic is shaped, Sheila Curran Bernard's brilliant and effective Documentary Storytelling, Second Edition: Making Stronger and More Dramatic Nonfiction films aims to guide the Erroll Morrises of tomorrow with great advice and practical knowledge that every documentatian would benefit from."-Backstage March 22, 2007

"Brilliant and effective...Documentary Storytelling guides readers through nearly every phase of creating a documentary: structuring, working up a proposal, and, of course, shooting and editing" - Backstage
"Sheila Curran Bernard's ability to dissect a wide range of narrative apporaches and explore the elements that make dramatic stories so compelling make this guide invaluable for documentary filmmakers as well as anyone who uses information and evidence to portray real events." -Dr. Pennee Bender, Media Director, Center for Media and Learning, City University of New York, The Graduate Center.
"With all the buzz over blockbuster docs, Focal Press serves up a perfectly timed winner in a much-neglected area. True to the nature of the beast, the book is more about filmmaking as a whole, and how and where storytelling weaves into the overall process".-Bruce Mckenna, Canadian Screenwriter (Writers Guild of Canada)
"Bernard is keenly aware of the power of persuasive images, and her insistence on complexity and integrity is a consistant theme throughout the book."- Alyssa Worsham, The Independent (Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers)
"With the availability of high-quality affordable cameras and editing equipment, documentary filmmakers today enjoy a freedom in shaping their films that their counterparts a decade ago could't have imaged. As the new aesthetic is shaped, Sheila Curran Bernard's brilliant and effective Documentary Storytelling, Second Edition: Making Stronger and More Dramatic Nonfiction films aims to guide the Erroll Morrises of tomorrow with great advice and practical knowledge that every documentatian would benefit from."-Backstage March 22, 2007