“I left the duckrabbit course full of enthusiasm and confidence. It must have worked because only my second attempt at gathering material for a photofilm made the front page of the Guardian website.” Emma Wigley, Interactive Media Officer, Christian Aid
THE SKILLS needed to deliver powerful communications in the digital age are rapidly changing. This workshop will help to give you the skills to produce high quality and compelling multimedia productions that tell your story, enabling you to reach your audience through mass and social media channels. Past students have had their work featured on the BBC News front page, The New York Times, TIME, The Telegraph, SKY News Online, The Los Angeles Times, Trust.org and The Observer.
The Workshop
“Duckrabbit demystified the technology behind creating something beautiful in an engaging and informal way. They have given me the confidence to develop my fledgling skills more in my own time. And if that doesn’t get me some fizz then nothing will.” Lucy Brinicombe, Press Officer, Oxfam
This three-day workshop is for up to twelve people and is suitable for photographers, journalists, communications and PR professionals. The course is designed to give participants the practical knowledge and skills they need to produce photofilms. You don’t need to have photographic or audio recording experience to come on this course – the training will include both these elements. Each group of up to three people will shoot and record a story on location and produce a draft version of a short photofilm during the workshop.
The course will take place in Central London. We can also travel to you to deliver the training. In past years we have run courses worldwide including in Canada, Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tanzania and in the UK.
Through discussion and practical work, participants will learn:
- How to identify a story with strong audio-visual potential
- How to grab the attention of an audience with your story
- Recording audio for multimedia
- Audio interviewing skills
- Photographic approaches for shooting stills for multimedia pieces
- Photographic skills
- Introduction to audio editing in Reaper
- Building powerful narrative in digital productions
- Introduction to production editing in Soundslides
This workshop is limited to a maximum of twelve people and is run in Central London.
If you have any questions or would like to book a place, please do get in touch.
For current workshops please visit: Upcoming courses.
Course fee:
£695 – For people from organisations
£595 – For freelancers and students
This price includes VAT at 20% which we have to charge you. Sorry!
Course outline
Our methodology is entirely participatory so over the duration of a course participants will produce their own two-minute multimedia feature as part of a small team.
The course will focus on the complete chain of production, from identifying a suitable story to planning the steps needed to gather the audio and pictures, as well as the final completion of the project.
You will cover practical and technical aspects of recording and editing in the context of telling powerful stories.
Day One
Morning (10 a.m start):
- Introductions/Icebreaker
- Explanation of training
- Deconstruction and review of multimedia features
Afternoon:
- Explanation of group task
- Photographic approaches for shooting stills for multimedia pieces
- Audio training
Day Two
Morning:
- Introduction to audio editing & building the narrative.
- Photography skills on location
Afternoon:
- Recording on location
Day Three
Morning:
- Introduction to picture-editing for photofilms
- Selection, by each group, of shots to use for the multimedia feature
- Introduction to Soundslides (production software)
Afternoon (workshop ends approx 17:00):
- Groups produce their multimedia features supported by duckrabbit
- At the end of the day each group will present their features
Equipment needed
1) Digital camera.
2) Digital audio recorder.
3) Overear headphones.
4) Laptop and mouse with Soundslides and Reaper (audio editing) software. Both are available as free trial downloads.
If you don’t own your own equipment then let us know and we can lend you what you need.
Advance learning
It is very difficult to teach all the skills needed to produce photofilms in just three days. A considerable amount of time is given over to discussing editorial approaches to creating photofilms.
A successful training is where our trainees go away inspired and thinking totally differently about the way they approach their work. This means a limited amount of time is spent teaching software, which can be easily learned in advance. So to get the most out of this workshop it helps if participants have at the very least taught themselves basic audio editing, learning how to edit down a piece of audio, before attending the workshop.
Testimonials
- “Before doing this training I felt I could have a decent stab at recording audio in the Congo. I now know that it would have taken some sort of miracle for me to get really useful audio. I now have the tools to come back with something a bit special. Thank you.” Robin Meldrum, Publications Officer, Medecins Sans Frontieres
- “The guys at duckrabbit not only helped me gain skills in audio capture, interviewing and photo-film production, but also increased my confidence in getting closer to people, and hearing their stories. I recommend this training to anybody with an interest in people, their stories, and how they are represented.” Phil Lang, photographer
- “I learnt an incredible amount in a short space of time. It was informal and fast paced at the right times and more importantly it was really enjoyable.” Phil Catchpole, British Council
- “I just sold my first multimedia feature to the BBC. It just shows what a good decision I made by training with duckrabbit. I love what they’re about and would love to capture even a tiny bit of that spirit in my own work. Audio interviewing was probably the biggest challenge for me but I’m now actually looking forward to integrating this into my own storytelling and being able to make my subjects’ voices heard.” Ciara Leeming, Freelance journalist
- “Duckrabbit were thorough, approachable, collaborative and knowledgeable, and this shone through in their work with us. The training was exceptional.” Jeremy Cherfas, Bioversity International
- “Duckrabbit is true to its name – they challenge, inspire, provoke and encourage over three days of practical and theoretical learning. An informal teaching style pushes you to chase after quality stories.” Anna Ridout, Press Officer, Oxfam
- “As trainers duckrabbit were extremely generous with sharing their hard earned tricks of the trade and very supportive and encouraging in a way that created an unintimidating environment. It felt like a luxury to have such accomplished and skilled people leading us through the process so that we could basically leapfrog thanks to your experience. Your humble and open attitudes for such accomplished people is truly refreshing.” Laura Ivers, Senior Communications Officer, World Bank
- “The duckrabbit training offers you a very good understanding of all the elements related to producing photofilms. It provides you with an extensive checklist you can rely on when compiling your multimedia piece. I can recommend this workshop to those who want to start exploring the domain of multimedia storytelling.” Serge Van Cawenburgh, photographer
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