that actually sounds kind of painful… so all the more congrats that you made it through. I hope you can enjoy your work.
How to make a documentary film
It made me 
"It was a great way to learn a whole lot"
How I did it: Decided to do it Jan 2006. Decided to do it like a Pennebaker film (nutty idea in retrospect). Shot it all in June 2006. Took 2.5 years to figure out how to cut it together. Probably should've flown back down for pickups, but I decided to go with what I already had (read: I'm stubborn to a fault).
Lessons & tips: 1) Don't try to do everything (shoot, do sound, edit, mix, color, master) by yourself. Leveraging other people leverages their talent and makes the whole thing better. And it goes faster too. (and you get to sleep more!)
2) With enough persistence, desire, and work, you can do anything you want.
3) Pickups are perfectly acceptable.
Resources: dvxuser.com; In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch; Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos by Barry Hampe; Everything I tagged with flimmaking and sound on delicious.
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