The One Thing

Editing is about making decisions, thousands and thousands of them. Everything from whether to use a one-frame audio dissolve that will ultimately go unnoticed to how to arrange the scenes of your story in order to create the most powerful dramatic arc—the kind of choice that will ultimately determine the success of your work. Decisions lead to other options which lead to other decisions and on and on, seemingly forever. It’s easy to get lost in trying to predict how a single choice will affect the rest of your work when you arrive downstream. It can feel overwhelming. And Lord knows, I’ve done my share of fretting. When I think about the work to be done on my current project, part of me wants to crawl under a bed with a bag of candy and a stack of comic books. But I don’t because I have two weapons in that fight. I…

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Photojournalist Kitra Cahana Defends A Different Kind of Freedom at TED

In her recent TED talk, photojournalist Kitra Cahana shares the stories of the nomadic, homeless youth she roamed the United States with for months. Tracing her attraction to vagabonds to a bag she packed to run away as a child, Cahana draws parallels between the alternative lifestyle of nomads and the need we all have to escape the confines of everyday life. "Many of you might be wondering why anyone would choose a life like this," she says. "Under the thumb of discriminatory laws, eating out of trash cans, sleeping under bridges, picking up seasonal jobs here and there. The answer to such a question is as varied as the people that take to the road, but travelers often respond with a single word: freedom." Her five minute talk shares images and arguments for the validity of taking the open road less traveled. Learn more about Kitra's intimate approach to photography that…

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Kalish Workshop 2014 Dates Announced

The Kalish Workshop will be holding its next workshop June 6-11, 2014 in Muncie, Indiana.

This five-day storytelling workshop is taught by Emmy and Pulitzer Prize winning editors. Application deadline is April 1st.

The Kalish Workshop

The Kalish Workshop is an inspirational and intense five-day experience in editing visual storytelling. It is designed to benefit anyone who touches photography with a narrative storyline for online and print.

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Four Lessons in Filmmaking

I’m currently wrapping up editing on a new short film. Here are four lessons I’ve learned over the years from making movies. Crew Work with the best people you can afford. And if you can’t afford a great Director of Photography, call in favors and plan to trade services in return. You’ll have to work around others' schedules but nothing can ever replace working with talented people. Advice Feedback is critical. And there’s never a shortage of opinions. As the saying goes, everyone’s got one. It may be tempting to seek out as many opinions as you can. But doing so often leaves me at least feeling like I’m drowning in conflicting ideas. I’ve had more success seeking out the advice of two or three trusted friends who understand what I’m trying to do. In the end though, I think we have to learn to trust our own vision, even if others…

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