An interactive course in the Art of Filmmaking and Storytelling
Los Angeles based EdTech startup, EditMentor, – the interactive, video storytelling training system – announces the release of its first premium course: Advanced Film Editing Workshop with Stephen Mark, ACE. The premium course has enhancements not available in the free and publicly available Art of Filmmaking – Basics course, including videos and 150 new hands-on challenges. The course is now available to individuals, expanding EditMentor outside the classroom for the first time.
Students familiar with editing software may believe they have grasped editing, but understanding technology is not the same as understanding visual storytelling.
EditMentor re-imagines the way to teach filmmaking through a hands-on, web browser-based curriculum that places storytelling at the center of video and media education.
“We designed EditMentor to assist in teaching the universal language of visual storytelling,” said Misha Tenenbaum, Founder, and CEO. “When I learned to edit, I dove into books about technology, but my favorite classes were always about the craft of editing. I discovered that the creative process is often neglected in education because it’s difficult to teach. But there are grammatical rules of thumb that students can practice and master.”
The Advanced Film Editing Workshop’s instructor is Stephen Mark, ACE, the talented editor of The X-Files pilot, the HBO series Deadwood, and Hell on Wheels. EditMentor translated his unique understanding of the rules of editing into challenges that students must interact with to solve.
“All editors are doing the same thing, reacting to the film they receive and deciding how to put the best bits of it into the best order at the best length for telling the story,” said Mark in an interview with CineMontage. “What we’re doing in this course is guiding the user, step by step, through my personal creative process.”
Course Content
The course includes 13 lessons, 150 interactive challenges, and more than two hours of videos, that range from topics like what makes a story, continuity, key moments and reading lined scripts to revising scenes with collaborators.
EditMentor’s first course, The Art of Filmmaking – Basics, was made available primarily to teachers upon the site’s launch in 2020. The basics course is now free for all users, and this new course is also available to individual editors. Since the subject matter is advanced, both new and seasoned editors will find value in the course. Teachers benefit from signing up for EditMentor because they can track student progress, connect to LMS systems, and receive teacher guides for EditMentor’s standards aligned curriculum.
Unlike other online courses, EditMentor does not exclusively employ video tutorials. Instead, it guides students through a revolutionary hands-on method for learning in which the student must interactively solve creative editing challenges.
As a student reads the lesson description, watches the footage, then answers the challenges. Challenges consist of:
- Trimming edit points
- Deleting clips
- Answering multiple-choice questions
- Marking specific shots
EditMentor records their progress as a score for themselves and the teacher. Teachers can instantly use the lesson scores to understand where individual students or the entire class needs additional instruction to understand concepts further.
“This is my second semester teaching Video Editing with EditMentor, and I can’t imagine teaching without it,” explained Debra Sea from Bemidji State University. “The transition to using Premiere Pro has never been smoother. In the past, I used to talk and demo terms and techniques — and they never really got it. Now they are learning by doing. EditMentor helps all of my students become better editors — from beginners to those with some experience. It gives them the confidence they need to succeed.”
As EditMentor continues to grow, the curriculum will expand to include a broadcast curriculum and other creative content courses. Our community is expanding daily to include everyone from middle schools to high schools to universities and entire school districts.
Larry Jordan, award-winning editor of Edit Smarter, wrote in a recent article, “EditMentor is amazing. It is deep, extensive, and well-thought-out. It is obviously a labor of love on the part of the EditMentor team, with a clear focus on education. There is a very large world of media creators that EditMentor could enable.”
EditMentor’s curriculum aligns with Common Core standards, CTE, and ISTE. Documents such as teacher guides and standards alignment are available on the website. Teachers and students interested in trying the EditMentor Basics Course may sign up free at EditMentor.com. The Educational version with additional features is available based on the number of student licenses. Stephen Mark’s Advanced Film Editing Workshop is available for $199.99.
For more information, visit EditMentor.com or contact [email protected].
