AFTRS Transforming Futures

AFTRS is home to the best screen and broadcast training facilities in the country. These include three professional film and television studios, state of the art digital video and audio suites, recording studios, post production suites and a dedicated factual workspace.

Documentary resources and facilities available for student use include:

• Access to the AFTRS technical store that holds video, lighting and sound equipment and associated consumables.

  Access to film equipment in the camera store. The AFTRS camera store holds all film and digital cameras, lenses, filters, camera heads, tripods and any other related items.  AFTRS documentaries are mostly shot on digital beta cameras, video tape and mini DV, with some  projects shot on film.

• 6 x film editing rooms fitted out with 4 or 6-plate Steenbecks.
• 3 Hi band U-matic offline edit rooms with Shotlister 4, frED and Editors' Pipedream.
• 2 offline edit rooms with Digiteyes dAVE, 9 and 4GB removable hard disk recorders, Shotlister 4, frED and SP Betacam source machines.
• 4 AVID Film composers, all with Version 7 software attached to 500GB of shared Fibre Channel storage
• 1 Lightworks,Version 4.1, 36Gb
• 2 Media 100, Series 5 36Gbs
• A grips van is equipped with: a comprehensive set of tracks and an Elemac dolly with associated arms and mounts, a Picollo Crane Arm and a Steadicam.
• A gaffer truck carries a range of luminaries, stands and accessories
• Location sound equipment including: Mobile sound and vision trolley, 2 x AD sound mixers (4 channel & 10 channel) a Cooper desktop mixer (7 channel), 2 x SQN mixers (4 channel), 1 Wendt mixer (4 channel), 5 x PSC M4 mixers (4 channel), 4 Sony DAT-TCD10 pro recorder, 4 HHB DAT recorders, 3 Foster PD4 DAT recorders, 5 Nagra 4.2 kits complete with Sennheiser 816 and 416 microphones and
  9 Radio mic kits.

Documentary Bibliography (PDF)

Top Tips: Making a Documentary

To educate our interactive audience we decided to create a series of Top Tips in all areas of production that can assist keen amateur filmmakers to create a higher quality film.
Good luck with your documentary.

Top Tips:
Concept by Michele Thistlewaite
Researched and written by Tiina Laasonen and Michele Thistlewaite
Photography by Loosie Craig and Tiina Laasonen
Thanks to all staff who assisted in the script-editing