Suzan Beraza and David Byars Share Their Secrets for Creating Impact Documentaries

Seeking to encourage young Dominican filmmakers, the Globo Verde Dominicano Award and the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF) presented the workshop "Creating and developing concepts for short film documentaries." The presentation took place yesterday in Santo Domingo at Funglode’s headquarters. During a lively class led by documentary filmmakers Suzan Beraza and David Byars, 60+ participants had the opportunity to learn basic
techniques for developing a documentary film and some "secrets" to creating works of impact.

Some topics covered included how and where to find ideas, interviewing and filming techniques, and how to deal with characters, in addition to the basic structure of a documentary.

Suzan Beraza is the founder of the Reel Thing company. In addition to having presented some of her documentaries, such as Bag-It and Uranium Drive-in, in previous editions of DREFF, Beraza is also part of the International Advisory Committee and has been a judge of the
Globo Verde Dominicano Award.

For his part, David Byars, apart from being a director of independent documentaries, has also been a cameraman, editor, and sound engineer of the documentary film Uranium Drive-in. Currently, both of them are filming a documentary in the city of Puerto Plata entitled No Soy Puta (I Am Not a Whore!), which addresses sex tourism from the point of view of women.

The GFDD Multimedia
Manager, Alexandra Tabar, encouraged young people to practice what they have learned in developing their projects, so that they can submit them to the fourth edition of the competition. The winners will be announced during the fifth edition of DREFF, scheduled to take place between September 8 and 13, 2015.

As part of the workshop, the Globo Verde Dominicano Award also gave 10 participants the opportunity to receive one-on-one guidance from Beraza and Byars, who served as
mentors to the winners in their respective projects.

The Globo Verde Dominicano Award seeks to encourage young Dominicans to make films and documentaries capable of raising awareness on the importance and preservation of the environment and sustainable development.

Related Links:
www.globoverdedominicano.org
www.dreff.org