Sam Pollard is a legend in both the documentary film world and the world of narrative film editing. Last week he came to North Carolina, both to participate in the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and to do an interview for an upcoming documentary project that is scheduled to air in this fall on PBS.
Perhaps I should not have been surprised, but in less than a minute, Sam knew where he wanted to sit, what he wanted the camera to see, how he wanted the lights balanced, and the crew got to work. We were actually ready a full 45 minutes before the talent was scheduled to arrive.
The sound department was also quite happy: no ambient noise to fight, no unfortunate echoes or resonances to filter out, and lots of great room tone.
And yes, that is another hero of the documentary world, Rex Miller, running the camera. We’ll update this posting when the working title becomes official and the show is actually scheduled for broadcast. We hope you will tune in!