#45 Creating compelling documentaries with Jake Swantko

Demystifying Media at the University of Oregon

About our guest:
Jake Swantko has worked on a number of films, shooting for the Associated Press, ESPN, HBO, National Geographic, PBS Frontline, Time Magazine, Passion Pictures, and Nike. He is a 2011 graduate of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.

As director of photography, he has shown three films at Sundance: Entrapped (2016), Icarus (2017), and The Dissident (2020), which explored the story of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

At the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Icarus received a special jury prize, the first ever "Orwell Award" for revealing "the truth at a time when the truth is no longer a commodity."

Find Jake online:
Website
IMDB page
Q&A with Around the O

Show Notes:
0:04 - Introductions
01:24 - What is The Dissident about?
05:14 - The role of hacking in Jamal Khashoggi's murder
06:20 - Audience takeaways from The Dissident at Sundance
09:22 - What goes into film distribution?
11:14 - The ethics of film distribution
13:48 - A documentarian's sense of duty to the subject
16:38 - The relationship between documentarian and subject
19:41 - Choosing a stopping point/conclusion for a documentary
26:51 - The importance of screening one's work
31:06 - How to please your audience
33:51 - How did you launch your career in documentary?
35:55 - What have you learned that you didn't know when you started in this field?
37:59 - Media recommendations for aspiring documentarians

Read the transcript for this episode
Hear more from our guest:
Video interview with Jake in the studio
Listen to Jake's lecture

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You can find more Demystifying Media content, like video interviews and lecture recordings, on YouTube.