Masterclass with Gordon Quinn

PART I: Documentary Ethics

Drawing on his 50 years of experience, Gordon Quinn presents a masterclass on the ethical challenges filmmakers inevitably struggle with when making a documentary. Ethics would be easy if there was a pre-determined set of rules. But in documentary, where directors often work with vulnerable subjects over long periods of time on highly sensitive issues, rules are not the solution. The core problem is to find the balance between what we feel we owe our subjects and what we owe our viewers. Gordon Quinn provides the insight that will help you make those tough decisions

PART II: Fair Use, Other People’s Work and How to Use it

We live in a visual age. People speak in images and people speak with music. If filmmakers were to buy every image and every song that appears in their documentaries, they would end up spending millions in rights. Like that time when Kartemquin Films paid $5.000 on “Hoop Dreams”, just because someone sang “Happy Birthday” on camera. Things have progressed since then. There are four classes of situations in which documentary filmmakers may legitimately claim fair use. Critiquing, Quoting, Capturing, and Contextualizing. Gordon Quinn has all the details.

The event in Athens is exclusively reserved for students of the Communication & Mass Media Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.