Film & HD Workshops
Welcome to www.The FilmWorkshops.com
The Film Workshops offers short, intensive courses in traditional and digital filmmaking, HD and multi-media storytelling . . and in great locations throughout the world. Founded by one of film's leading educators, David H. Lyman, The Film Workshops offers professional workshops and master classes for the world's creative storytellers: cinematographers; directors; editors; producers; screenwriters; video journalists and media professionals. These short intensive, total immersion career courses are conducted in amazing locations throughout the world. Our mission is to help you master the technology, develop command over the process, become aware of your potential as a storyteller and help you develop your own vision and voice. The Film Workshops life changing courses provide you with an opportunity to work with and learn from some of the world's greatest filmmakers, visual storytellers and Academy and Emmy award winning professionals who are also inspirational teachers and masters. Join fellow filmmakers from around the world on one of these learning adventures into the world of creative storytelling.
What's New . . .
Film & HD Workshops in Liverpool, UK
2 & 3 Day Workshops
One-week Workshops & Master Classes
The Cayman Islands Film Career Weekend
The Film Workshops are unique
These workshops are life changing, total immersion experiences that embrace the whole individual, providing a physical, emotional, intellectual and intuitive shift in outlook, attitude and career direction. The Film Workshops are a continuation of what David Lyman created while building and running The Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine for 34 years. This new enterprise encompasses a series of workshop centres throughout the world . . . on the Islands of Mallorca and Crete, and in the cities of Liverpool, Cairo, and Rio, Brazil. What sets these workshops and master classes apart from the more traditional institutions is their intensity, the focus and the passion of the participants and the faculty. Here's what makes us unique . . . .
• We teach The Magic of Storytelling, as well as the creative use of the latest technology and software
• We teach problem solving and cinematic language.
• We train the artist as well as educate the technician (We offer Above The Line and Below The Line career courses.)
• Our courses are intensive 12 hour days, with hands-on, practical training in methodology, process, industry expectations, protocol and etiquette.
• Each workshop provides the opportunity to make something, to create and explore the process, to use the newest technologies, to make mistakes and discover a new way of working, for this is where the real growth and learning takes place.
• Our Faculty includes Academy and Emmy award winning writers, directors, cinematographers and documentary filmmakers who are currently working professionals.
• Our Faculty provide honest and in-depth critique of all work created in class, as well as on each participant's reel and portfolio.
• We help each participant find their own, unique career path.
• We offer a "Step Ladder" series of workshops to help emerging and working pros reach their full potential as creative professionals
• We offer a total "team experience" - helping new media artists and technicians work collectively and collaboratively as a creative member of a studio or film crew
• Our international student body fosters networking and builds "Peer Groups" that extend far beyond the workshop experience, creating a global community of creative and innovative artists and content creators.
• Enrollment is limited to between 12 and 14 participants in each workshop, sometimes between 16 and 18 depending on the type of workshop.
We are all Storytellers . . . .
A Letter from David H. Lyman, Founder & Director
We all have stories to tell . . . at bedtime, my two young children are always asking me, "Daddy, tell us what you did when you were our age." So, I tell them about growing up by a lake, spending summers on my great uncle's farm, earning money mowing lawns to buy my first English bike and building my first boat. I can remember asking my father the same thing, and listening to his stories, which are not much different from mine. It's a tradition, this family storytelling, one we need to keep alive. The content of the story is less important than the metaphor it conveys . . . which is the reason we tell and listen to stories. The truth is less important. The metaphor is stronger than truth, for it can reach deeper . . . touch people more profoundly, and allow people to accept, at least in a non-intellectual way, the truth that lies hidden beneath.
As a professional storyteller, first as a journalist and photographer, and now through my lectures and writing, I have been telling stories for 50 years. During this time I've discovered two things. There is an art to telling a story. I am an artist, not a journalist. The stories I tell have a much greater impact when I tell them from personal experience. When there is some element of the storyteller in the story, I am more interested in listening. When we as artists tell stories, even someone else's story, we are also telling our own.
Over the past 30+ years, I built a spiritual as well as a physical centre in Rockport, Maine - The Maine Photographic Workshops, now Maine Media Workshops. The Workshops' mission has been to train, educate and inspire the world's storytellers: filmmakers, writers, actors, photographers and the technical staff who support the storytelling process. Now we are bringing this successful concept to the Island of Mallorca, Liverpool, England and other locations throughout the world. Our world wide programme of workshops will help aspiring and working professionals achieve their next career level, and bring emerging professionals into the field, as they find their natural place in the process. While we conduct workshops in the latest technology, it is the creative process, the methodology and the "magic of story" that we teach. We cover story development and writing, financing and distribution, career building and professional growth and at the heart of it all is that desire to connect through story. The courses we offer, the shared knowledge of our faculty, the structure of each course, the experience of our staff . . . these are the true values of The Film Workshops International.
This mission of supporting artists, craftspeople and technicians - a mission that promotes exploration of our inner and outer worlds, helps each storyteller and technician master the technology as they acquire the methodology by which to sh anced/langs/en.js" type="text/javascript"> are their discoveries with others. We help people change careers, become more imaginative, and better as team players, or to launch their own freelance careers. It is our desire that all who attend our courses, workshops and programmes leave with the tools to lead more creative lives as they contribute to making the world a better place in which to live through the stories they tell and the films they make.
David H. Lyman, Founder & Programme Director
Rockport, Maine USA