About Us
The Workshops Experience - What to Expect
David H. Lyman's famous film workshop program is coming to Europe . . . . and other locations around the world. For the past 35 years, David's workshop program in the USA has offered life changing experiences for the world's photogaphers, filmmakers, journalists and storytellers. Here's a look at how this process works.
Each one-week workshop is an intensive, total immersion "Transformational Experience." Each workshop or master class has been designed to move you beyond your current technical and artistic level to a new level of understanding and accomplishment. These workshops will help you expand your vision, improve your skills, uncover your talents and change the way you see, feel, think and work. When you return home you will feel different. You will be making better decisions about the work you do and the career choices you make. You won't have become someone else, you will have become more of who you are.
Each one-week workshop, will help you learn new ways of doing things, integrating your intuition with your skills and your intellect as you become more aware of your "inner artist." While the pace will be demanding, you will find yourself eager to rise before dawn to rehearse a scene, photograph in the early morning light or rewrite your script before the morning class. After breakfast, you, your classmates and your instructor will be deeply engaged in lectures, discussions, demonstrations and tough, honest critiques of your work. Yes, the work you bring with you will be reviewed, but it will be the work you do during the week - the way in which you approach the work, your creative process, your energy, your ability to take a risk . . . these things will receive the deepest critique. If we can help you to improve your attitude toward your work and the process by which you do that work you may just discover a new, more natural way of working. . . your creative work will naturally become better. It is this process that concerns us, not necessarily the resulting product. Afternoons are devoted to field and studio work: rehearsing; blocking and shooting scenes; interviewing people for a documentary; editing; writing and photography. A workshop is more than instruction . . . it is the social fabric that is the most important part of the week. Before bed, there may be time to share a drink with other students and the faculty, to discuss careers, technology and life in general. This non-stop pace is what you came for: to eat, drink, live and talk image-making and storytelling. Here you will find people like yourself who are creative, driven and who share your love for and commitment to the process of making images and telling stories. Here is an opportunity to work with the Masters, whose careers and work inspire you; people who will mentor your career and help you develop your own creative purpose. Here too you will learn how to use the latest technology and new, more effective methodology as you develop your personal aesthetic.
Magic happens during a one week workshop. We see this magic all the time at The Workshops for it is magic that we are teaching, the ability to weave images, sound, music, the human voice and ideas into a seamless experience for our audiences.
When you return home, you will find your work has improved; you'll be making better choices, working with greater command of the craft, focusing your energy more effectively and being more creative and productive. This is not something you acquired during your workshop, rather, it is something you possessed all along - it just took a week at The Workshops to help you discover how to access this new "inner" potential.
To get the most out of your workshop, you have to put yourself on the line; you have to take risks and be willing to make mistakes. If you roll up your sleeves, pitch in and do the work that's asked, the experience can be one of great personal reward and professional growth. This week could very well be the most important thing you do for your career, your craft and yourself this year.
I hope you will have the opportunity to join us. All of us at The Film Workshops look forward to helping you achieve your creative potential and realize your career goals.
- David H. Lyman, Founder and Director, Rockport, Maine
Our Mission
Our mission is to help you develop your personal and professional career, to master the latest technology and develop command over the creative process as you become aware of your talents and your purpose as a storyteller. We specialize in workshops in digital photography, video, multi-media, traditional and HD filmmaking, as well as screenwriting, acting and video journalism. Each of these life changing adventures is led by a world renowned professional artist, each a recognized master in their respective field. You will be among a small group of like minded and passionate image makers, working and emerging professionals, committed amateurs, college majors and professionals from other fields.
We have been designing and developing these career and life enhancing experiences for over 34 years (see History below) . . . we have led the the media workshop field for most of that time, inventing new ways to teach and to learn. In those 30-plus years our unique philosophy has changed the lives of tens of thousands of people, who in turn have used their gifts, their voice and skills to change the lives of countless thousands more.
What sets us apart from others . . .
There are dozens of workshop programmes throughout the world, most are based on the work David Lyman has done while building and running The Maine Photographic Workshops. David is now launching a series of similar learning centres on the islands of Mallorca and Crete, and in the cities of Liverpool, Cairo, and in Rio, Brazil. What sets these workshops and master classes apart from the more traditional learning is the intensity, the focus and the passion of the participants and the faculty.
Our workshops are short, from several days to a week to ten-days, to perhaps a month.
Our workshops are intensive, requiring full-time participation.
Each workshop is focused on a specific technology, career level or genre.
Each workshop includes in-depth and honest critique, of the work you bring, as well as the work you create during the workshop.
Enrollment is limited, usually no more than 12 to 14 participants per workshop, (sometimes 16 to 18, depending on the type of workshop)
We tailor each workshop to ensure a class that shares common levels of technical skills and visual awareness.
Each workshop is a life changing experience, one that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
Our faculty includes many of the world's leading photographers, filmmakers and media artists, each a knowledgeable mentor, a nurturing teacher with a proven record of teaching at The Workshops.
Questions? We Have Answers
If you have questions not answered within this website, or want to talk with someone about a specific destination, or your career in general, email David at DHLyman@mac.com. He'll respond by email, or a phone call.
Suggestions and Comments
We are always open to your comments about this website and the programmes we offer. We welcome your suggestions for new destinations and course content, as well as workshop leaders we might include in future programmes.
David's Thoughts on The Workshops Process . . .
" . . . . I am interested in the artist's voice, the storyteller within each of us. We all have stories to tell, and some of us are called to make a living from them. It is through stories that we learn in school, and it's the stories we read and hear that continue to enlighten us throughout life. The workshops and programmes I create are all about storytelling, whether for a photographer, writer, journalist or filmmaker. We are telling the world's stories, as well as our own. My job is to help you acquire the technical skills, mastery over the latest technology, but more importantly, mastery over the processes and methodologies by which you tell stories. I am excited by the new technologies that allow us to create books, multimedia slide shows, blogs, websites and get our work in theatres, television and online to share with others. We are incorporating this "publishing process" in many of the workshops we will conduct this year and next.
Every artist and storyteller is on a personal quest, a search for life's purpose and spiritual meaning. Workshops are part of that quest. Workshops provide an insight into the process, within a community of like minds, led by a guide who has made the voyage before. A one or two-week workshop can be a transformational experience. Let me explain . .
The Transformational Experience
Over the past 30-plus years, I've watched thousands of people go through the one-week "workshop process." They come for a variety of reasons, but one thing they all share in common . . . a desire to reach a higher level of artistic accomplishment. This is a very personal search and it requires courage to share your photographs or showreel with a class full of strangers. It also requires courage to tackle an assignment or project for the week, and to come in each morning for a critique of the previous day's work, for not only are your images studied, dissected and critiqued, your way of working is called into question. This can be very hard on a person's ego, but it is necessary if real growth is to be achieved. By midweek (we call it BMW day: Bitch and Moan Wednesday), participants may find themselves at their lowest, but this signals the opportunity where real growth can begin. It is not technical knowledge that's the reward for a week's worth of struggle, it's an awareness of one's gifts, an insight into the process and knowledge of where one has yet to go that is the reward. This is the "Transformational Process." I have been intrigued by this paradigm for years. I have worked to create meaningful experiences that enrich each student's intuition, for it is the intuition from which all artists and creative people operate. You will make better decisions if you rely on your intuition, but to have trust in that intuition, you need experiences to fall back on . . . for it is the experiences in our lives that show us the way, which can often counter our rational thought.
At the end of an intensive, week-long workshop, participants have acquired a deeper appreciation of their talent and their purpose in life. Some find the courage and support to alter or completely change careers, some renew their commitment to their present path."