About 5 — James Robinson

I believe that video is the language of the 21st century, and I am striving for fluency.

What I love most about documentary is the process of earning trust. I’ve shed tears with parents who lost their loved one to tragedy, been caught in a thunderstorm on a shrimping boat in the Louisiana bayou, and circled a middle school track with a fifty pound bag of sand in my backpack so that I could become a certified Wildland Firefighter.

The process is at times circuitous. I ended up dropping the wildfire project but accepted a last minute opportunity to film Sooty Terns in the Dry Tortugas. Regardless of where it takes me, I find that the documentary process pushes me to be a more compassionate and understanding person. One who can ask the cutting question, be comfortable in the silent pauses, remember to record room-tone, and just in case, know the hand signals for landing a rescue helicopter.

I take seriously what it means to present someone’s story to the world. I embrace the process—the shoot, the edit, the headaches, the challenges, the closeness, the silence, and the shared vulnerability that meets at the camera’s lens.

I would love to connect—please use the form below!

-James

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Awards

News Emmy Award, Outstanding Soft Feature Story: Short Form, News And Documentary Emmys (2023, I Stutter), Emmy Nomination, Outstanding Soft Feature Story: Long Form, News and Documentary Emmys (2022, Whale Eyes), Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival — First Place, Audience Award (2022, Whale Eyes), Student Academy Awards Finalist (2020), Oliver W. Koonz Human Rights Prize (2020), Center For Documentary Studies Julia Harper Day Award (2020), EarthxFilm Official Selection (2020), AMI Student Film Award (2020), Robert E Pristo Filmmaking Award (2020), Duke Independent Film Festival Wesley Hogan Documentary Award (2019), Dean’s Summer Research Fellow (2019), Center for Documentary Studies Essay Prize Finalist (2019), John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Award (2018), Power Plant Gallery Professional Development Award (2018), Rubenstein Arts Center Student Residency (2018), StudioDuke Mentorship Program (2018), Duke Independent Film Festival, Accepted Films (11 official selections, 2017-20)