#documentary tips

[electricgrasshopper]

So, You're Making A Documentary?

So, You’re Making A Documentary?

Some basic advice for students…

As a Media Student, you will be asked to complete a number of videos. Music videos, Presentation Techniques and Documentaries (more than one; yes)

Having watched the process, what have I discovered is the hardest thing for young film/documentary makers to do? Use a camera? Film in inclement conditions? Edit? No. what I have discovered is – students find it incredib…

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[differentplant]

Making a documentary

I have never really cared for documentaries. But after working on one in my school, i have grown to like them. Well, making them at least. I was the editor and second director of our documentary about a jeweler. Teachers liked my work the most, one even went and bought a ring for his wife from the jeweler after seeing the documentary.

I believe editing is the key thing in making a documentary. Editing a document is like painting, you have shots and you make the film to be whatever you want it to be.

These are the things that I believe make very important difference in making documentary:

- Just like editing a movie, you have to make a base first. Because documentaries don’t have a script, you basically make the script by editing. After you have a solid structure with act one (for this documentary; introduction of the jeweler, telling about insecurities), act two (how she works, how her co-workers describe her) and act 3 (resolution; she is happy with herself and accepts her faults), you can start making the less important changes.

- Sum things up! When interviewing you should ask a lot of questions but once editing, don’t be afraid of shortening speech to make it more short. Once the viewer loses their interest because one scene or speech is too long, it’s hard to gain their interest back.

- Make little adds. For example make green plants more green, add bird’s singing in the background. I shamelessly turned the colour of fire and melted gold more reddish than they really are in order to make the audience really focus on them. Remember that the viewer can focus on one thing at a time, so use only one element at a time.

- Use audio. In order to add more depth to scenes, use two or more shots together with just one audio, so it feels like all the shots are happening at  the same time. For example I made one scene with the jeweler and her co-worker doing their work. First you see the jeweler drawing while you hear someone beating something. Next you see the source of the sound, her co-worker beating silver jewelry. Then while you hear the same sound, you see a shot looking outside the store.

- There is no such thing as too many shots - Really. Record as much as you can, almost everything can be used as something. 

- Everything has a purpose. 90% of the time the purpose of showing a random shots while interviewing is so that the viewer doesn’t know you cut the interview in the middle of it. I didn’t have enough “filling” shots and it was too late to go shoot more of them, so I had to use shots were you can literally see the crew talking with the jeweler or chilling in the corner. I had to use these unprofessional shots, so I made it a thing. In the finished piece you can spot the crew almost all the time, you see the jeweler talking to the crew instead of the camera and you see goofs while credits play. Now it looks like the jeweler, our documentary’s star is on the same level with us instead of the viewers whispering “omg did you see the cameraman”.

All in all I think making documentaries is very interesting, even more exiting than regular films. In the end, just shoot as many shots as possible about whatever you want and then paint your documentary when you edit.

[scriptwriters-network]

Treatments are an invaluable tool at any step of the way in the filmmaking process. They are a succinct and descriptive way to get across the elements of your film to others. They are usually 1-2 pages and contain only the essential information about your project. (Sometimes a treatment can go up to 4 pages, and then would include a longer narrative story summary, and more character information). The writing should be well-organized, grammatically correct and exciting and tantalizing to read. You want to hook your reader and get them interested in your project so that they want to know more and so that they become a supporter of the project.

[christinadoesdocumentary]

There are plenty of similar videos on youtube, but I think this video is the most relevant to discussion in recent lectures: what is documentary? I also find the point he is making fascinating (as it somewhat directly contradicts the idea of a research plan and a synopsis before the film has been made).

Plus, I massively admire Kossakovsky's work and Wednesday (or Sreda,1997) which he mentions in relation to his point.