Amanda Theunissen has worked in every part of television, from a news reporting to Strand Editor for the BBC Natural History Unit. She dealt with all areas of news, current affairs, documentaries, studio shows and features. As Editor of NATURE, the BBC’s environmental strand, she was responsible for many award-winning films. Since leaving the BBC she has worked as producer and Executive Producer for all the UK terrestrial broadcasters and extensively with US channels National Geographic and Discovery.

Her remit covers natural history, scientific and environmental documentaries and drama-docs.   She also has wide experience in re- versioning European documentaries for the international market.  

She has worked with Wildscreen (the world’s foremost natural history film festival) for 14 years and tutors for Documentary Campus, the European initiative for helping European documentary filmmakers break into the international market.

MASTERCLASS - THE MAGIC ART OF STORYTELLING
by Amanda Theunissen

How do you engage an audience that you can’t see and who’s responses you can only guess? That is one of the problems facing television programme makers. Good story telling should be basis of all good programmes but too often the stories become blurred and the viewer is left struggling to follow the thread.

Because natural history filmmaking is such a strong visual medium sometimes the actual story is left to the last. But a strong narrative adds structure, sense and subtlety to the array of images, and adds immeasurably to a film’s impact. which is what everyone wants - filmmakers, broadcasters and viewers alike.

The master class demonstrates why good storytelling is so crucial and shows how to make the most of your narrative from research through scripting to post-production.
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Charlotte Ackrill is External Relations and Events Co-ordinator for Wildscreen Festival, UK. She joined Wildscreen in March 2010 to work with the CEO and Festival Manager to develop Commercialisation opportunities at the Wildscreen Festival through advertising, branding and sponsorship. During this time she also co-ordinated key festival events such as the WWF Living Planet Report Launch in partnership with WWF International.

Prior to this role Charlotte spent four years managing fundraising and corporate events at Arnolfini, the South West’s largest contemporary arts centre. During this time Charlotte worked with BBC and SKY to bring prime-time broadcast events such as Question Time and the 2010 UK Election Debate to the City of Bristol.

Charlotte has a BA Hons degree in Media Arts and Photography, participated in the Cass business school Cultural Leadership Programme (Visual Arts Network) and achieved the Certificate in Fundraising Management (MinstFCert) from the Institute of Fundraising.

Working in the festival office, Charlotte is in the unique position of having a familiarity with this year’s finalist and winning films and therefore will be presenting an overview of current trends in Wildlife filmmaking  based on the submissions to the Panda Award competition.

MASTERCLASS - TRENDS IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND WILDLIFE FILMMAKING
by Charlotte Ackrill

An illustrated review of the current styles and trends in environmental and wildlife filmmaking and your chance to see clips from the latest Wildscreen Festival's award winning films. This session will look at the different ways of telling your story, across all budgets, technologies and platforms and the variety of techniques filmmakers use to get their message across – from hard hitting internet campaigns to big budget blue-chip blockbusters as well as conservation investigations, expedition adventures and cinematic epics.
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Delon Weerasinghe is a filmmaker, producer, cameraman, audio engineer and editor who has delivered content to almost every media from film to the Internet. In the last five years he has been the leading Sri Lankan producer of documentaries for broadcasters such as Discovery, BBC and Channel 4.

MASTERCLASS - FROM 3GP TO 3D – THE CODEC QUAGMIRE
by Delon Weerasinghe

In this workshop Delon guides you through the minefield of new codecs, broadcast standards and delivery formats.  With video being delivered to media as varied as your mobile phone and Digital Cinema, it is crucial to make the right choices in your workflow.  From acquisition to delivery, make sure you maintain the highest quality while keeping the cost of your productions manageable.
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Dominic Weston is a television producer, director and writer working out of Bristol, in the United Kingdom over the last 20+ years. He has worked across many genres including wildlife, children’s animation and social documentary for the BBC, National Geographic, Jetix, Thirteen/WNET, Discovery and Animal Planet. He studied Drama at the university and the careful crafting of stories through the interaction of pictures, words, sound and music is key to his work.

This is especially true of the scores of short films he directs and series produces for Icon Films for BBC1’s ‘The One Show’, where all these elements are really put to test.

MASTERCLASS - SHORT FILMS & BIG OPPORTUNITIES
by Dominic Weston

Short films are very versatile – they can provide an affordable introduction to filmmaking, a taster for a big idea, a springboard for a career and an easily accessible platform for an important message. But what they lack in length they make up for in complexity. If the beginning, middle and end of your story is condensed into only three or four minutes - just a single sequence in many other films - then every shot, every word and every sound matters. For several seasons Dominic Weston has been writing, directing and series producing a large and diverse range of short films for BBC1’s ‘The One Show’ and in this masterclass he explores many of the issues that can make or break a short film.
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Martin Elsbury is an award winning, BAFTA and EMMY nominated editor with over 30 years experience of editing documentaries and drama for television and cinema. After studying Documentary Film at Newport Film School, Martin joined the BBC in 1978 as an assistant film editor. In 1983 he became a film editor and quickly gained a reputation for his work with the BBC Natural History Unit.

His work for the BBC has included many landmark series. He has also edited numerous films for the BBC strands ‘Natural World’, ‘Wildlife Specials’ and ‘Wildlife on One’. He left the BBC in 1989 to follow a freelance career.

He has twice won the ‘Best Editing’ category at the Missoula Film Festival. In 2001 he won a Royal Television Society award for editing ‘Blue Planet’. Although he’s most well known for editing BBC ‘blue chip’ wildlife films, Martin has worked with many other production companies across a diverse range of film styles and subjects on highly acclaimed projects for UK, European and American broadcast channels. The series ‘Nature Tech’ commissioned by ORF won the ‘Best limited series’ award at the Jackson Hole Film Festival in 2007 and an Emmy in 2008.

Martin worked on the groundbreaking BBC series ‘Planet Earth’ and went on to edit the theatrical release ‘Earth’ launched by Disney Nature on ‘Earth Day’ 2009 as a part of their new line up of theatrical release wildlife films. He is currently editing the latest ‘Disney Nature’ feature – ‘African Cats’ for cinema release in 2011.

MASTERCLASS - EDITING: HOW TO RELEASE THE POWER OF YOUR FILM
by Martin Elsbury

This presentation will look at how the craft of editing can be used to maximise the impact of your film. Martin will demonstrate some of the basic techniques he uses and will attempt to show why they work. He will show examples from films he has edited over many years as well as clips from some classic feature films. He will demonstrate his belief that any film whether it is a low budget documentary, or an expensive ‘blue chip’ wildlife film, needs to be presented in a dynamic and entertaining way in order to engage the viewer and get its message across. You will be shown that editing means a lot more than just ‘joining shots together’.
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Sri Lankan Taya Diaz has collaborated in making over 20 full-length international wildlife documentaries, working as a writer, wildlife film maker, narrator or presenter. Much of his work has centred on the conflicts between humans and wildlife, and explored a number of ecological flashpoint issues from the viewpoint of a dedicated conservationist. He strongly believes in educating the next generation of film makers and environmentalists, in order to help preserve the breathtaking diversity of wildlife in Sri Lanka.

His interests are not limited to wildlife; he has also devoted much of his time to subjects such as archaeology, ancient irrigation systems, history, and the Lankan aborigines.

MASTERCLASS - UNTOLD STORIES OF SRI LANKA
by Taya Diaz

Sri Lanka is a pot of plenty in every aspect -- the opportunities for a documentary filmmaker are astounding. But sadly, what most audiences see on the airwaves is very standard and boringly similar, touching on the same topics year in and year out. I'll be trying to expand on these opportunities while relating lessons learned during the filming of several documentaries such as "Hanging out with Bats", "The Mischiefs of the Wild" (on monkeys), and "Simple Traveller". I also want to share what we learned while working in Sri Lanka with foreign producers, serving variously as a scientific investigator, presenter, narrator or Sinhalese scriptwriter on such films as "Temple Troop" (for BBC), "Urban Elephants" (for National Geographic), "Last Tusker".
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Anoma Rajakaruna is a sociologist with an interest in communication sociology. She has travelled extensively in South Asia documenting the lives of community groups and, in particular the lives of women and children in these communities. Anoma teaches communications skills to women and children  using photography and filmmaking. Her skills as a photographer won her the opportunity to work both at the UN conference on women in Beijing in 1995 and the Beijing +5 conference in New York in 2000. Her films some of which have won awards have been screened at film festivals around the world. She works as the Chief Editor for weekly television programme “Bonsoir” for Channel Eye, SLRC since 2004

MASTERCLASS - FRAMING A DOCUMENTARY
by Anoma Rajakaruna

There are many ways to tell a story. But what is the story? And what is the story behind?

The importance of research in documentary filmmaking will be discussed with examples from “When water decides the way of life…”, a documentary on cascades or clusters of village tanks in the dry zone of Sri Lanka where water resources are so vital for the sustenance of life and is threatened due to climate change.