| How To Film a Documentary |
| Written by Alison Duke |
| Thursday, 22 April 2010 21:26 |
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Step 1 - Yeah, that's all good but what's the story? I was asked to be on the 2010 Reel World Film Festival panel about selling your script (whether its a dramatic or documentary) and several people came up to me afterward to ask me what do they write for a doc. I tell them that they need to write a story about what the film is about and who are the characters. And every single of one of them looked perplexed...I could see it in their eyes... "Oh really, I need to write a story for a documentary? Aren't documentary supposed to be spontaneous? I thought I could just shoot it and just edit something together" And then I say to them sure documentaries do have an element of spontaneity to it them but that's created through good writing not just editing... So what is a story? A story is a sequence of events that is ordered in a way to arouse emotion and meaning. A good story has real insight into human nature and provides a tremendous knowledge of the subculture. A good story is worth telling no matter what. So if you think you have a story which does all of the above well then perhaps it should consider making that film. With documentaries you probably would need to write at least a dozen scripts for your movie from the time you start developing the story to the final edit. Somewhere at the beginning of development you should be able to know what your story is generally about and who's perspective or POV is the story being told from. Somewhere in the middle of development you should have the following written documents:
By the end of research and development develop and use it to flush out your 3 -page story treatment to a full story treatment using action, locations, interview dialogue and narrations. This should become your shooting script and story. From development to production to post-production you will always be redeveloping and fine-tuning how you are telling your story. You may discover that the style and structure of how you initially told the story needs to change for the story to be more exciting, mysterious or entertaining. There have been many books and rules written about how to make a documentary. The important thing is to keep an open mind. Getting to the heart of what is the heart of the story and how it should be told is often a process. Writing and re-writing is a great way of making sure you set up a foundation for your story that can be enhanced by editing. The fact is that people what to watch a story. And you want to tell a story that people will be able to sit through and enjoy. |
