40 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

Nanette Burstein

Close-Up

Q

In what ways did you first become involved in making movies?

A

I went to NYU fi lm school and started making short fi ction fi lms and

during that time I started my junior year interning in the edit room for

a documentary series. I got hired as an assistant editor, and then they

ran out of funding and I off ered to edit the last movie in the series for

very little money, which they let me do. So I was pretty young, I was

21 when I had my start at a professional documentary, and it was an

interesting experience because the directors weren’t involved in the

editing room, they were just hired to go out and shoot the fi lm and

then it was left to the editor to fi gure out the story line, so there was a

lot of freedom which made me really excited about documentary.

Q

What were your next steps?

A

Th rough having made my own short fi ction fi lms I had to do a lot

of jobs myself. It’s very hands on. And then following that up with

editing non-fi ction fi lms, when I went to make my fi rst feature-length

documentary, I had both of those experiences in fi ction and non-fi ction

and I decided to meld the two and shoot a non-fi ction fi lm, to fi lm real

people but have in mind a story that has a narrative and can be shown

in a three-act structure and not be a meandering story. Something that

would appeal to me thematically would be compelling to me as well,

and I could develop a style that is appropriate for that subject. At the

time of this project, that warranted being very gritty because I didn’t

have any money, so it had to be gritty. So all of these experiences led

up to shooting my fi rst fi lm.

Q

How have you used motion picture form to develop storytelling?

A

For me, the style is always dictated by the subject matter. If I have

a subject matter that I’m interested in telling, I try to fi nd the most

Behind the Scenes with Director

Director Nanette

Burstein on the set of

American Teen with

cinematographer

Wolfgang Held. Her

other directing credits

include The Kid Stays in

the Picture and Going

the Distance, and she has

produced such projects

as the television series

Film School. (Courtesy of

Nanette Burstein)

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