Making a documentary - Part 1

In recent years, a whole string of documentary films have exploded into the mainstream. Films like Farenheight 911 and Supersize Me challenge viewers in a way that most Hollywood movies never can. On a smaller scale, it's now increasingly possible for anyone to make documentaries and gain them an audience through youtube, film festivals or even TV.

If you own Pinnacle Studio, a decent camcorder and a microphone, you have everything you need to make your own documentaries, reports and factual programmes right now.

Over the next few months, we'll be taking a look at the stages of making a compelling documentary from the first idea right through to getting your finished production to its audience.

Picking your subject

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But before you grab the camcorder and start shooting, it's worth asking yourself a few serious questions:

What is your film about? - Not just its subject matter, but what you really want to focus on. The film, "Red hot ballroom" - one of the best documentaries of recent years - was, on the surface, about a ballroom dancing competition. But in reality, it was a film about the hopes and dreams of children from different backgrounds. Think of what makes you personally interested in the subject and what you want to bring out in your film.

Can you shoot it? - do you have the access you need to get the interviews and footage that will make your film work? If you need to shoot in a football stadium or a rock concert, can you get permission to do it? If you need to film in the Amazon, can you get there? If you need footage of the moon landing, is it available (actually it is - Nasa provide all their footage for free to any filmmaker who wants it).

How long will the programme be and what is its audience? These two questions are linked. TV documentaries are generally 50 minutes (an hour including adverts). Youtube programmes can't be more than 10 minutes. Documentaries for fourdocs (http://blogs.channel4.com/fourdocs/) are 3 minutes in length. Cinema features are generally over an hour and a half. Film festivals take shorts (around 10-20 minutes) and longer films (50 minutes plus) but each has their own requirements. Your choice of length and audience will determine a lot of your other choices. For example, an online documentary needs to constantly maintain interest - viewers will turn off after a few seconds if it starts to drag. A cinema film can afford to be slower.

Planning

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Once you know what you're trying to do, it's time to start thinking about how you're going to go about it.

Most documentaries contain a fair few interviews with people who have an intimate knowledge of the subject, or are personally involved in the 'action' of the film. Decide who these people are as quickly as you can, and make sure they're able and willing to talk to you. Be aware of what information you want from each of your interviewees and try to choose people who will be interesting and engaging to listen to.

Be on the lookout for strong characters. Great films are often those that follow the path of an interesting character or group of characters through a life-changing event. If you find someone interesting enough, and can be there with the camera when their world is changing, your film will more or less make itself. If you don't have compelling characters in your documentary, you need to work extra hard at picking out the story that links the whole production together.

Start by making a rough storyboard or script. Obviously you can't know exactly what's going to happen in your film line by line, but you should be able to divide it into scenes and start to think about what shooting you'll need to do for each scene.

If your film is to be 50 minutes, break it down into 5-10 minute segments, and come up with an initial outline of what you expect each segment to contain. That way, you'll find out very quickly how your project will work, and how the story will unfold. Things will change as you plan, shoot and edit, but a strong initial outline will mean you know what scenes you've got to drop when a new opportunity appears, and you'll know what hole you have to fill when an interviewee drops out.

The more you know about your film before you start shooting, the easier your job will be.

The narrator

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When you come to edit, you'll need to bring the whole film together into a story that makes sense, and this is often the job of a narrator. Decide before you start whether the narrator is part of the story (in a Michael Moore film, the narrator is always central driver behind the story) or whether they're in the background simply linking the story together (in a David Attenborough film, the narrator is very much in the background).

Also make your mind up whether your narrator will be on-screen or just a voiceover. Generally speaking, the more personally the narrator is involved, the more they'll need to be on-camera - and that means their links will also need to be filmed on location.

Sometimes, if you've got a good idea of the way the programme will work, it's worth roughly scripting the narration before you start filming - but be prepared to change everything once the camera rolls.

Permissions

If you can, contact all your interviewees and locations in advance and make sure they're happy with you filming. If you plan to give your work any kind of public showing, you'll also need to persuade everyone who's in the film and everyone whose property it's shot on to sign a release film (you can find example releases online. Here's one (http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/media/p/release_form.pdf). These documents simply confirm that those involved are happy for you to edit the film however you like. They might seem a bit pointless, but if your production ends up online or on TV, and someone questions what you've done, you'll be glad you got your permissions in writing.

Coming up in Part 2

In the next article in this series, we'll be taking a look at shooting the interviews and events that will make up your documentary.



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