Workshops
Learn the art and techniques of crafting an effective profile, guided by an accomplished writer and interviewer.
There are no available registration dates at this time.
Note: This workshop will be held in a live, online format utilizing the Zoom platform.
Class meets on Wednesdays, 10:30am-1pm ET & includes 1:1 meetings with the instructor.
This class is an intensive introduction to the Art of the Profile. The word says it all: a “profile” is a glimpse of a subject from an oblique angle, an opportunity to see someone, even someone familiar, in a fresh and revealing light.
What makes for a gripping profile? A revelation of character, a scorching insight, a sense of intimacy? Is a profile a chronological re-telling of a person’s life or an artful interpretation?
While our primary focus will be on writing, the dynamics and skills explored in the class are cross-platform and will benefit filmmakers and podcasters as well.
Students will be introduced to specific skills, especially interviewing, which is at the heart of the profile. Adam Harrison Levy has interviewed a vast range of fascinating people including Meryl Streep, David Byrne, James Brown, Daniel Craig, Michael Bloomberg, Philip Glass, John Waters, Kurt Vonnegut, and veterans of the D-Day landings. You will learn from his years of experience in the field.
We will cover techniques such as how to put interviewees at ease, how to pace and order your questions, and how to deal with tangents. Issues such as power dynamics will also be addressed.
The class will be writing intensive. Short pop-up exercises will grow in length, nuance, and complexity culminating in a full length profile of approximately two thousand words. In addition, there will be seminar-style discussions, workshops, and readings.
Leave with new tools to help you craft a powerful and memorable profile.
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Instructor: Adam Harrison Levy
Adam Harrison Levy is a documentary filmmaker and writer. He specializes in the art of the interview. For the BBC he has conducted interviews with a wide range of actors, writers and musicians including Meryl Streep, Philip Glass and Paul Auster. His documentary directing credits for the BBC include Step Right Up and War Machine and he was the US Producer for Selling the Sixties, a film about advertising in New York in the early 1960s. He has produced and directed interviews for films such as Lou Reed Remembered and D-Day to Berlin. He has also made short films about the sculptor David Smith and the poet laureate Tracy K. Smith.