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Teaching Artist (Documentary Filmmaking Mentorship Program)

Organization: Depth of Field

Location: Los Angeles

Schedule: Part-time | 10 hours/week | In-person

Dates: Mid-September 2025 – May 2026

Compensation: $50/ Hour

Documentary Filmmaking Mentor

About Depth of Field

Depth of Field is a nonprofit documentary production studio that produces original films while creating pathways for young and underrepresented filmmakers to become authors of their own stories.

Our model brings professional documentary production and filmmaking education together. Participants receive access to professional equipment, training, mentorship, and production support while taking meaningful creative roles in films rooted in their own lives and communities.

Rather than treating education and production as separate programs, we build professional filmmaking environments in which emerging filmmakers can learn by making ambitious work intended for audiences beyond the classroom.

About What We Carry

What We Carry is a feature-length documentary exploring family, memory, identity, and the stories we inherit.

The film will be developed and shot in collaboration with a multi-generational family, who will turn the cameras toward their own lives and communities to explore the people, memories, places, and experiences that have shaped who they are.

Participants will work with professional filmmaking equipment, including RED cinema cameras, and receive hands-on training in cinematography, interviewing, sound, documentary storytelling, archival research, and other aspects of nonfiction production.

The resulting material will become the foundation of a feature-length documentary produced by Depth of Field.

The Role

Depth of Field is seeking a Documentary Filmmaking Mentor to work closely with the young filmmakers throughout the development and production of What We Carry.

This is a hybrid filmmaking, teaching, and mentorship position. The mentor should be an experienced documentary filmmaker with the technical ability to train participants on professional cinema equipment and the creative instincts to help them recognize and develop compelling documentary material.

The mentor will work with participants twice each week: one session focused on filmmaking instruction and one focused on reviewing and developing the footage participants have shot.

Because participants will be working with RED cinema cameras, professional experience operating digital cinema cameras and a strong understanding of camera systems, lenses, exposure, focus, media management, and production workflows is required. Direct RED experience is preferred.

At the same time, this role requires a filmmaker who understands the distinction between mentorship and authorship. The mentor's job is not to determine what participants' stories should be, but to give them the technical skills, creative feedback, and professional support to make increasingly intentional decisions for themselves.

Weekly Schedule & Compensation

10 paid hours per week at $50/hour — $500/week

3 hours — Filmmaking lesson: A two-hour in-person instructional session, with one additional paid hour allocated for travel, setup, breakdown, and related session needs.

3 hours — Footage review: A two-hour in-person session dedicated to screening and discussing participants' footage, identifying emerging storylines, and providing creative and technical feedback, with one additional paid hour allocated for travel, setup, breakdown, and related session needs.

4 hours — Lesson planning and preparation: Developing curriculum, preparing exercises and materials, reviewing upcoming production needs, and planning future sessions.

Responsibilities

Develop and teach hands-on lessons in documentary filmmaking, including cinematography, interviewing, sound, story development, documentary ethics, archival material, and visual storytelling.

Train participants to confidently and responsibly operate professional cinema equipment, including RED camera systems.

Teach core technical concepts including exposure, lenses and focal lengths, focus, frame rates, camera movement, composition, audio recording, media management, and basic production workflows.

Help participants translate technical knowledge into intentional creative choices rather than simply teaching equipment operation.

Review participant footage each week and provide thoughtful, specific creative and technical feedback.

Help participants recognize compelling characters, scenes, relationships, themes, and emerging storylines within their material.

Help participants identify gaps in their footage and think strategically about what they should capture next.

Support each filmmaker in developing an individual visual and narrative voice.

Prepare participants for interviews and documentary shoots.

Encourage experimentation, curiosity, and creative risk-taking while maintaining professional production standards.

Foster an environment in which participants feel comfortable sharing unfinished work, asking questions, and developing ideas.

Approach personal, familial, and emotionally sensitive material with care and a strong understanding of documentary ethics and informed consent.

Collaborate with the Depth of Field production team as the feature develops.

Qualifications

Professional experience in documentary filmmaking, cinematography, directing, producing, or a closely related field.

Professional proficiency with digital cinema camera systems.

The technical ability to train emerging filmmakers to operate RED cinema cameras safely and confidently.

Strong knowledge of lenses, exposure, focus, camera settings, sound, media management, and professional production workflows.

Strong instincts for documentary character, story, and visual storytelling.

Experience reviewing raw documentary footage and identifying what is working, what is missing, and where a story might develop.

Experience teaching, mentoring, or working creatively with young people.

The ability to translate professional filmmaking concepts into accessible, engaging instruction.

Sensitivity when working with personal, familial, or emotionally complex material.

Patience, curiosity, flexibility, and excellent communication skills.

A collaborative approach to mentorship and a genuine belief in supporting emerging filmmakers' creative authorship.

RED or comparable professional digital cinema camera experience required; direct RED experience preferred.

Experience working with young people and communities historically underrepresented in film and media is strongly valued.

What We're Looking For

What We Carry is both a filmmaking program and the production of a feature documentary. We are therefore looking for someone who can move comfortably between the responsibilities of a professional film set and those of a classroom.

The strongest mentor will be technically rigorous without being intimidating, creatively ambitious without imposing their own vision, and capable of recognizing a young filmmaker's instincts even before that filmmaker has developed the vocabulary or technical skills to fully articulate them.

Our goal is for participants to leave the production not only knowing how to operate a professional camera, conduct an interview, and construct a documentary scene, but understanding themselves as filmmakers whose perspectives and creative decisions have value.

To apply, please email your CV and Coverletter to jade.lee@ourdepthoffield.org with the subject line "Teaching Artist Application".