Desktop Documentaries Tutorial with Kevin B. Lee

Wondering where to start with desktop documentaries? Get going with this beginner’s guide from pioneer of the genre Kevin B. Lee.

The 6th edition of our ‘Creative Responses to Covid-19’ competition invites you to create a desktop doc, responding to the theme ‘Back to the Future’. Once you know the basics of this emerging genre of filmmaking the possibilities will feel endless, so to help get you on the road we’re thrilled to be hosting this session with leading video essayist and media artist Kevin B. Lee.

On Wednesday the 13th of January Kevin gave us a short tutorial on his 5 steps to get started with Desktop Documentaries, followed by a 45-minute Q&A session.

About Kevin B. Lee

Kevin B. Lee is a filmmaker, media artist and critic. He has produced over 360 video essays exploring film and media. His award-winning Transformers: The Premake introduced the “desktop documentary” format, and was named one of the best documentaries of 2014 by Sight & Sound.

He is co-curator of the Black Lives Matter Video Essay Playlist and editorial consultant of Asian Film Archive Monographs, selected by Sight & Sound as the best video essay projects of 2020.

He was awarded the 2018 Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Grant, the 2018 European Media Artist Platform Residency, and the 2019 Eurimages Lab Project Award at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. He is co-director of the Masters Program at Merz Akademie, Stuttgart, the first Masters Program specializing in video essays, desktop documentaries and other forms of emerging critical media production.